21B18.   Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b.   “Joshua gathered together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem, addressing them, “If it does not please you to serve the Lord decide today whom you will serve.”  “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  Now that the Lord had delivered the Israelites from slavery and settled them down in the Promised Land, it was time for them to decide whom they would serve.  Here they clearly decide to submit themselves to the Lord as their master.

John 6:60-69.  In demanding of his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood, without at this point telling them that this is to be done under the appearances of bread and wine, Jesus is commanding them to put their blind trust in him that all would go well.  However many refused, saying among themselves, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” Up to this point they had put their faith in Jesus because they saw the miracles he had performed.  Now however, he wanted them to put their faith in him without seeing outward visible signs but simply believing in him personally.  It was to be no longer the miracles that commanded their belief but the person, Jesus.  Jesus says, “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.  The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life.”  He is saying in his own way to believe in him because he God made man in their midst.  Peter, apart from those who refuse to submit themselves to the authority of Jesus, says to Jesus, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

Ephesians 5:21-32.   Much of the Scriptures reflect the ancient hierarchical culture in which they were written.  In this Sunday’s epistle Paul, in telling wives to be subordinate to their husbands, reflects the thinking of the culture of his times.  In that same spirit of the times, Paul writes in Ephesians 6:5a, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling.”  Also Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:5, “But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved.”  In inspiring the Scriptures, what the Holy Spirit is calling upon us to do is not to replicate the culture of those times but to follow what will lead us to the holiness that God the Father has called us to as his sons and daughters.  I believe that the Spirit is calling upon us to be subordinate to God.  In our egalitarian society we share with one another the gifts that God has endowed us with and the talents that we have been able to cultivate so to make the family, the community or the Church whole and complete to accomplish its purposes in this world.  In 1 Corinthians 12:7 Paul wrote, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”  What Paul wrote in regard to spiritual gifts is true on all levels of life.  We all have been given something by God to make the world he has created a better place for all and give glory to God.  In Matthew 25:40 the king, representing God sitting judgment, says, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”  In this Sunday’s epistle Paul writes, “For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.  When the body and blood of Christ nourishes us, his own body, the Church becomes holy, giving glory to our God who cherishes us his body with Christ as our head. In receiving the Eucharist, we call upon God to be the source of our daily life so that we may become the saints he has called us to be.

Assump21.    Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab.     This form of literature in which the book of Revelations is written is poetic and prophetic.  It was written when things were going badly for Christians to assure them that things were going to get better.  The Church put this selection from Revelations in this feast of Mary’s Assumption to reassure us that through Mary, the saints and the Church that God would bring us victory.

Luke 1:39-56.  Mary had just stated in Luke 1:38ab, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.”  Mary surrendered herself to God’s will.  Mary is certainly important because she was chosen to be the mother-of-God-made-man but far more important because she heard (Luke 11:28b) “the word of God and observed it.”  Putting Elizabeth’s need first before reveling in her choseness as the mother of the Messiah, Mary runs off to help Elizabeth in her pregnancy as an old woman.   Although not mentioned in the Scriptures, it can be assumed that the Holy Spirit informed Elizabeth that Mary was pregnant with the Messiah.  So Elizabeth cries out that Mary is blessed and that the baby John the Baptist leaps for joy in her womb.  Mary then revels in the fact that she is indeed blessed by God Almighty.  How great is the God who has made someone so lowly to bear the Son of the Almighty God into this earthly world!   God does great things for those who live dependent on God’s strength and not their own.  Mary recognizes that that blessing comes to her as a daughter of Abraham so that what God has done for her is done also for all God’s Promised People, the birth of the promised Messiah.   Blessed are those who live in the life God gives them and do not try to live in themselves as people independent of God, for only can God give true goodness.

1 Corinthians 15:20-27.   Through the sin of Adam, death came into the world that did not have death.  Instead Jesus through his sacrificial death on the cross redeemed us from sin and so gave us eternal life.  As Mary was assumed into heaven because she chose to belong to Christ and his will, Jesus also does great things for all who do the will of God.

19B21.     1 Kings 19:4-8.   Exhausted by all the difficulties he had gone through in his prophetic ministry, Elijah exclaimed, “This is enough, O lord! Take my life.”    He lied down and fell asleep but an angel touched him twice, providing him with food and drink, ordered him to eat.  Then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.”  God can test us to life’s limits but not without supplying us with what we need to go on.

John 6:41-51.  The Hebrews had murmured in the desert that they were being left without adequate nutrition.  Now “the Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’”  They were being supplied with the nourishment they needed to get to heaven in the person of Jesus.  However, they did not recognize the fact that they needed that spiritual nourishment and that Jesus, who appeared to the eyes to be nothing more than an ordinary human being, was the divine nourishment the needed.  In the feeding of the five thousand Jesus gave stupendous evidence of his divinity.  With their earthly eyes all they saw was what they thought to be an earthly magician that made bread and not the God who was proclaiming that he himself was the divine bread of life that gives eternal life.  Jesus was demanding that they see beyond the earthly and ordinary framework of thinking to what was heavenly and beyond the ordinary and natural.   In claiming to be not just a natural person of this world but a divine son of God the Father, “They took offense at him.” (Matthew 13:57a)  The person of Jesus is the bread or flesh that takes away the death of this world and gives us the life of the world that never ends.  To be able to see beyond the natural to what is spiritual we need to be awakened by the movement or working of God within us.  When we lock God out, we lock ourselves in to a blindness that sees only what is physical and material.

Ephesians 4:30-5:2.  Paul writes, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.”  Paul is telling the Ephesians to be true to the grace given them by the Spirit till the day they are called to heaven.  Then he continues, “So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us” to the cross.  With the love that God pours into us, we become love ourselves as God is love, true sons and daughters in the likeness of God our Father.  When God gave us life into this world, he gave us the opportunity, the calling and the demand to grow as his children in the holiness with which he is holy.  The Holy Spirit actively enables us to mature in holiness daily.

 

19B18.   1 Kings 19:4-8.   “Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,” but could go no further on his own energy, “saying: ‘This is enough, O Lord! Take my life.’”  Nonetheless, an angel of the Lord came, providing him with enough food and drink that “he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.”

John 6:41-51.   “The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  Since they knew his natural father and mother, seen him grow from birth till now, they thought, “How can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”  Jesus, because they have seen or heard of the stupendous miracles and things he has done, expects that they realize that he is not just of natural origins.  Jesus quotes the prophets, saying, “They shall be taught by God.”  Continuing on, Jesus says, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.”  Listening to the Father requires that we are people of lives of a deep faith that enables us to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear a God who is both invisible and inaudible.  Often in the Gospels we read that Jesus went to pray.  In his divinity he needed no prayer but in his humanity he needed to nourish himself in conversation with his Father.  True prayer requires that we discern how the presence of God communicates with us through the manner in which things unfold in our lives, in what we may read or may hear that others say, in the thoughts and emotions that unfold around us and within us.  To be a truly faith filled, spiritual people we can no longer limit ourselves to a visible, audible world.  To open ourselves to the spiritual world requires that we be brave and trusting enough to let go of what we know so to land in the hands of caring and loving Lord into what we do not know, can see or hear.  In 2 Corinthians 5:6, Paul writes: “So we are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.”  We look beyond a world that we readily grasp and comprehend.   Paul writes in 2 Corinthians  4:18, “As we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”  Learning from God the Father requires that we have a mind humble and open to what God wants of us.  We let God be truly God over us.  That is what it means to believe in God and that belief leads to eternal life.  The bread of this life will only get us into the grave but not beyond it.  Eating the bread that is Jesus gives us the life that is forever.

Ephesians 4:30-5:2.  “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.”  The Holy Spirit is always trying to make us saints so that one day we will rejoice in heaven.  Do not make the devil dance by being people who not have life of Jesus within us.  “Be kind to one another, compassionate.” “So be imitators of God, as beloved children, (made in his image and likeness) as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.”  In Matthew 5:48 Jesus says, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

18B21.     Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15.    “The whole Israelite community grumbled” thinking that they might die of famine in the desert.  Rain was sparse in the desert but the Lord promised that he would be so magnanimous or generous that more than water he would rain down bread or manna in the desert in the morning and give flesh to eat in the twilight.  The Lord provides for our needs.  When we cannot provide for ourselves, we are forced to go outside of ourselves to seek what we need.  Our neediness ends up being a gift that drives us into the arms of our Lord.  We do not realize that, when we are able to provide for ourselves, that capacity or strength itself comes from the Lord.  Living each moment with a deep sense of faith in and dependence upon God is to live in genuine truth or reality.  Everything else is a mirage or delusion.

John 24-35.  The crowd was seeking Jesus because they wanted to get more of the food that had just been miraculously provided for them.  However, Jesus makes it clear to them that he provided the earthly food as a sign or indication that he was really there to provide them with the heavenly food that was his very self that gives eternal life.  “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.’”  As God provided the bread or manna in the desert, so does God provide us with the person of Jesus who is the bread of the spiritual life that is eternal.  Jesus was telling them and now us that the bread of heaven is infinitely more important than earthly bread that only maintains life to the grave.

Ephesians 4:17, 20-24.  Paul writes: “You must no longer live as the Gentiles do.” “You should put away the old self of your former way of life.”  “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.”  The old self is the natural person of this world who stubbornly tries to live independently from God.  Our old self belongs to our bodies and this earth only; whereas the new self belongs to Jesus and to a wondrous eternal life. The new self is the self that lives as a branch attached to and dependent upon God, the vine.

18B18.   Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15.  “The whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron” that things were better in Egypt where they had plenty to eat than in the desert where they had been led with so little to eat.  God hears their grumbling.  So he gives the meat of the quail and the residue from the evaporated dew that was the manna to be eaten like bread from the hand of the Lord.

John 6:24-35.  This Gospel follows last Sundays’ Gospel where Jesus had fed the five thousand and they sought him out to make him king so that they could get more of that miraculous meal.  Jesus says to them, “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” Jesus, answering their question as to what works do they need to do says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”  Still seeking again that miraculous meal they ask Jesus to perform a sign or miracle that they may believe in Jesus just as Moses had given the manna.  Jesus replies that it was not Moses but God that gave the manna and that God will again give them the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world.  “So they said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Jesus is telling them that he has given them the bread of this world that gives life for one day as a sign that he, as the one sent by God the Father, is the One who can give them himself who is the bread that gives eternal life.  As bread or any food gives us the energy to do our daily work, Jesus, dwelling within us, gives us the strength to live a holy life in a world that tempts us to be a sinful people.

Ephesians 4:17, 20-24.  Paul writes, “I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their mind.”  Living life without Jesus who is the bread of life is an exercise in futility because it is a choice that leaves one without the light that directs our steps in the way to eternal happiness and without the spiritual energy to make our way through this world’s jungle of temptations.  Paul continues, The “truth is in Jesus, that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires,” “and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.”  Only with Christ, as the nourishment of our spiritual inner self, the life giving force of our souls can we put away the old self and put on the new.  The new self must always be a creation of God to which we assent and actively cooperate.

17B21.      2 Kings 4:42-44.  “A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing to Elisha, the man of God, twenty barley loaves made from the first fruits and fresh grain in the ear.”  When Elisha ordered the offering to be given to the people, his servant objected that it would not be enough for a hundred people.  Elisha responded that he is to give it to the people anyhow because the Lord says, “They shall eat and there shall be some left over,” and there was.  God provides and will always provide in abundance.

John 6:1-15.  Because he was performing many miracles to cure the sick, a large crowd followed Jesus.  Philip says that a large sum of money “would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  Andrew said to Jesus, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”  Jesus had the crowd of about five thousand men and those accompanying them recline.  After they ate their fill, “twelve wicker baskets with the fragments from the five barley loaves” were collected.  “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.’   Since Jesus realized that they were going to try to make him king, he fled to the mountain alone to escape them.  He had come to be the Messiah of a spiritual kingdom and not of an earthly one.   The miracle of the multiplying of the earthly food was to proclaim that he would feed all people of all times with a spiritual food that gives life for all eternity.

Ephesians 4:1-6.  While in prison, Paul calls upon the Christians of the Church of Ephesus to bear “with one another through love so to be one body that breathes its life through one Spirit in “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” having one God and Father of all.”  He “is over all” and lives “through all and in all.”  When we live in Christ, we live in Christ together.  We are still each unique, united though different, diverse yet not divided.  Our life is God’s love for us; his love is the life that binds us to one another.

17B18.    2 Kings 4:42-44.   “Elisha insisted, ‘Give it to the people to eat.’  For thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’” The Lord provides abundantly.  Spiritually, if we try to live on our own efforts with little or no support from God, we will starve to death.

John 6:1-15.  “Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.  A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.”  He feeds them all, five thousand men plus at least as many women and children, from five barley loaves and two fish.  “When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’  So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragment from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.”  The power of God is infinite and he is always ready and willing to use it out of love for use.  However he wants nothing to be wasted, never using his power uselessly as just a way of flexing his divine muscles. He wants to see results or fruit that will benefit us eternally.  The people wanted to make him an earthly king but he wanted them to get to heaven where he would be their eternal king.  He had given them the bread of this world so that they would put their faith in him so to seek the spiritual life on earth that would give them a life in heaven.  He filled their stomachs for a day so to fill their souls for all eternity.

Ephesians 4:1-6.  If the bread of our spiritual life is God, then we are bound to one another in the one God who is the same source of spiritual life, common to all who find life from Him.  He gives us the love to bear with one another, since we all find that love in the “one God and Father of all.”  We are made one united by all going to the same table to feed our spiritual lives, Jesus, who keeps us in communion with him by sharing his divine life with us.  In Romans 12:4-5 Paul wrote: “For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.”  In Ephesians 4:15-16 Paul writes: “Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love.”  In Colossians 1:17 Paul wrote: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  We receive him Body and Blood so to have him as the source of the body’s life, the unity that is the Church, over which he is the head.

16B21.    Jeremiah 6:1-6.   The leaders or shepherds of God’s People had not led the people well.  The Lord says, “You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds,” “I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble.” “I will raise up a righteous shoot to David; as king he shall reign and govern wisely.”  “This is the name they give him: ‘The Lord our justice’.”  As Christians, we understand that shepherd to be Jesus.

Psalm 23.   “The Lord is my shepherd.”  He cares for us so that we live securely in his gracious love.  “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come” in heaven.

Mark 6:30-34.  His disciples had just returned from a very demanding but wondrously fruitful mission.  Now Jesus wants them to retreat to a restful place so to grow spiritually in prayer.  However, people arrived there on foot ahead of them.  “When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and began to teach them many things.”  We must be hungry for what only the Lord has and not lost in the consumerism of this world.  What this world gives does not satisfy and is only good to the grave.

Ephesians 2:13-18.  Through Jesus’ sacrificing himself on the cross both Jews and Gentiles are united in Christ.  Jesus “came and preached peace to you who were far off (the Gentiles of Ephesus) and peace to those who were near (the Jews), for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”  Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:13: “For in the Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” The same God who created us so that we may a life of love in him wishes us to be all united to one another in love of him.

16B18.   Jeremiah 23:1-6.  Jeremiah prophesies that God will appoint shepherds who will lead God’s People in God’s ways and not mislead them as past shepherds had.  Jeremiah goes on to write, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David, as king he shall reign and govern wisely; and on to: “In his days Judah shall be saved, Israel shall dwell in security.”  It seems to me that Jeremiah is thinking of an earthly king; whereas, we as Christians apply this to Jesus, the spiritual king, who will shepherd his people wisely.

Mark 6:30-34.  This gospel reading picks up from last Sunday’s reading after Jesus had sent the Twelve Apostles out to be the new shepherds of Israel, preaching repentance and validating and reinforcing their mission by curing the sick and driving out demons.  After that very demanding work, he says, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”  Jesus felt that they needed to retreat from the intense busyness of this world to nourish themselves interiorly with prayer.  However, the people were in such great need for what Jesus had to offer they hastened to that deserted place on foot.  “When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”  He is the One to save them from being lost spiritually, and likewise us too.

Ephesians 2:13-18.   “In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ.”  The Gentiles have been brought near to their salvation by the redemption he has given them by offering himself as a sacrifice on the cross.  Paul also wrote in Colossians 1:20, “and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross [through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven.” Jesus made Jew and Gentile one “through his flesh, abolishing the law” “that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile both with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it.” “Through him we both have access to one Spirit to the Father.”  Paul wrote in Colossians 3:11, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.”  Jesus shepherds his flock together to the gates of heaven.

Psalm 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6.  “The Lord is my shepherd.” “He guides me in right paths for his name’s sake,” for he is true to who he is, the God of righteousness.  “I fear no evil; for you are at my side.”  God is a fatherly, all powerful God who uses his strength to care for me.  “You spread the table before me;”  “my cup overflows.”  God provides generously for all our needs. “In verdant pastures he gives me repose; besides restful waters he leads me.”  In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to me you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Caring for us as a mother cares for her young; he looks to see that we are refreshed to face the challenges that are to come.  He neither overwhelms us with his demands nor allows us to be overwhelmed.  He is the awesome God using his might to protect us, yet at the same time a God so meek and humble of heart looking after us in the smallest details.