A Commentary and Reflection on the Readings for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year B. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b, Ephesians 5:21-32, and John 6:50-69.
The Liturgy of the Mass Allows Us to See God and Choose Him
God’s presence in our lives is not a hidden or abstract reality but is perceptible to the senses. That the human body can know God’s presence is yet another proof of God’s mercy and His desire to meet and commune with man where man finds Him. This is why we hold the liturgy of the Catholic Mass and its mysteries close to our hearts. For, through the Mass, God reveals His presence to us in the most intimate, unique, and transcendental way, the Holy Eucharist. More tangible is the Holy Eucharist than what the Psalmist only knew spiritually when he sang, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”[1]
What can we say about the relationship between God being merciful enough with us to show us His presence and our response to that type of mercy? How do we respond to God’s mercy and His presence that He reveals to us in the liturgy? One might say that God’s self-giving invites us to offer ourselves entirely to Him in faithful obedience. This is true, but I would also suggest that we can learn from the liturgical dialogue we engage in at Mass. For instance, when the priest says, ‘The Lord be with you,’ or ‘Dominus vobiscum,’ he is echoing the Parable of the Two Sons,[2] where a father asks both sons to work in his vineyard. One son says yes but does not go, while the other says no but later changes his mind and does the work. In other words, one son gives a verbal response but fails to act on it, while the other initially refuses but then responds how he should have. Both sons encounter the same father but make different choices. This is the purpose of God’s presence and mercy: to empower us to make a choice. God is saying, ‘You see me! Will you choose me?’
Similarly, in today’s First Reading at Mass for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B from Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b, Joshua, who had led the people into the promised land after the death of Moses, summoned all the tribes of Israel and asked them to make a choice: to serve the Lord who had delivered them from slavery and given them a new home, or to serve the false gods of the nations around them. Unlike the son who said yes but did not go, the Israelites responded with a faithfulness and sincerity that is truly inspiring. They said, “We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God,” because they recalled how God had shown His presence and mercy to them throughout their history, from the time of Abraham to the time of the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan. They recognized that God had not only spoken to them, but also acted on their behalf. He had done great wonders and signs to prove His love and power. He had fulfilled His promises and established a covenant with them. He had made them His own people and given them a share in His inheritance. Therefore, they chose to serve Him alone and to renounce all other idols.
Yes, God’s love is tangible – never hidden or abstract because He cannot contradict His nature, divine love itself. We not only experience God in the sacraments but also in the human experience of community. Today’s Second Reading from Ephesians 5:21-32 uniquely teaches us that we experience God’s love, presence, and mercy in the spousal dialogue, where we see and love each other as Christ and His Church do. Here, the Apostle Paul teaches that our marriages and families are images of Christ and His Church in the world, writing, “As the Church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word . . . So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 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.” “This is a great mystery,” Saint Paul concludes, “but I speak in reference to Christ and His Church.”
Even when responding to God in faith becomes difficult, He calls us again through visible and tangible miracles of His love and presence. The human experience is littered with accounts of people hearing or seeing God when they needed Him the most. How often have you heard people say, “It was God who saved me that day”? We find this habit of God in today’s Gospel Reading from John 6:50-69 when many of Jesus’ disciples were experiencing a crisis of faith in believing that they could eat the flesh of Jesus and have eternal life, saying, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” In His loving mercy, Jesus trusted them with a contradiction that might help them to believe in the future, even if they were not ready now, saying, “Does this shock you? What if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? The spirit gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.” In other words, He was challenging them with a contraction, asking how they could not believe in one tangible miracle – Him as the new manna bread that has come down from Heaven; what will they believe when they witness with their own eyes the tangible miracle of His ascension to where He said He had come from or when they witness the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to animate their flesh?
Indeed, the reality of these three interrelated historical events is the reason why we should have faith. However, these unbelieving disciples who returned to their former way of life did not yet have the historical framework to confidently choose Jesus as the Israelites with Josuha were able to, nor did they even have the recent historical framework of the Twelve who responded through Peter saying, “We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
Truly, our journey into deeper faith is supported by God’s love, mercy, and tangible evidence, and the liturgy of the Catholic Mass, Eucharistic adoration, and the Sacraments allow us to see all three of those gifts made manifestly visible in every minute of the day, and where we are given the choice to see God and choose Him.
This is just one way the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us on how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
[1] Psalm 34
[2] Matthew 21:28-32.
