The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, August 27th: Joshua 24:1-2, 15-17, 18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69)

FOCUS ON BIG PICTURE, NOT SINGLE ‘HARD’ ISSUE

This week’s gospel reading is the conclusion of Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life. Many of Jesus’ disciples were bewildered by his message. They said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

We read some of the saddest words in all of Scripture this week: “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied [Jesus].”

How tragic. Just because one particular teaching was “hard,” they refused to accept all of Jesus’ teachings and returned to “their former way of life” (which presumably was a life of sin and separation from God, meaning that for the last 2,000 years, at this very moment, and forevermore, the souls of those poor fellas are not in a very good situation).

The same kind of thing is happening in our generation. Many people have a major hang-up about one particular teaching by Jesus, and so they completely walk away from Him, the church, and anything to do with religion.

Unlike Jesus’ followers 2,000 years ago, the hard teaching nowadays is not about the bread of life. It is about human sexuality. Prof. Peter Kreeft points out that if God had only given Moses nine commandments, leaving out that one about sex, then no one today would be upset with Christianity, not even liberals or the Democratic Party or—try to imagine this—the A.C.L.U. (OK, I agree, that is very hard to imagine.)

However, God gave Moses the complete set, all ten, and so the traditional Judeo-Christian teaching on sex is directly opposed to the modern “enlightened” view (or as Kreeft says, the “endarkened” view).

Nothing enflames wrath against the church like the sexuality issues: adultery, fornication, living together outside marriage, homosexuality, pornography, unwed motherhood, same-sex marriages, divorce, celibacy, abortion, birth control, etc.

The modern world hears these teachings and sneers, “These sayings are hard. No, make that ridiculous! Who can accept them?!” People today are convinced the church’s teachings about sex are so hopelessly puritanical and old-fashioned, they simply walk away, just like the folks in this week’s gospel reading.

Of course, after four decades of following the Gospel according to Hugh Hefner and Alfred “The Perv” Kinsey, a growing number of people are having second thoughts, realizing that maybe the old-fashioned view isn’t so stupid after all. Included are: children growing up without a father in the home; millions of people who acquire sexually transmitted diseases each year; middle-aged men who lose their wives, families, and self-respect because of an insatiable addiction to porn; middle-aged women suddenly “on their own” because hubby saw nothing wrong with running off with a bimbo he met at work; and saddest of all, the countless women whose dreams are haunted by the tiny faces of children whose lives they “chose” to terminate. Sometimes, the “enlightened” path leads right over a cliff.

Whether a particular teaching is hard or not, we must step back and focus on the big picture. We have to ask ourselves: What is Jesus’ overall message? Why should we listen to anything he says?

Saint Peter gives us the answer in this week’s reading. He had no intention of leaving Jesus because, as he told the Lord, “You have the words of eternal life.”

That’s the key. Jesus came to earth to save our souls and give us eternal life. He didn’t come just to give us a long list of dos and don’ts about sex. He came to free us from the bondage of sin and death. That is the true Good News.

There’s no middle ground about the Gospel of Jesus. If it’s true—if Jesus really can give us eternal life—then it’s the most spectacular news in the history of mankind. But if the Gospel is not true, then the world has never seen a bigger scam nor a bigger waste of time. (It’s kind of like what people say about Donald Trump. You can’t be neutral about him: you either hate him with a passion, or you think he’s incredibly annoying. It’s one or the other, there’s no middle ground.) The Gospel is either true, and therefore the most important thing in the world by far, or it’s the ravings of a madman and thus we should ignore everything Jesus said, not just his teachings on sex.

The one thing we must not do, the very thing the guys in this week’s reading did, is walk away because of one hard teaching. We must look at the overall message of Jesus. If we realize the grand truth about Him, we receive the greatest gift ever, and surprisingly, we eventually come to understand that his so-called “hard” teachings actually make a lot of sense. But if we get our noses all out of joint because of a single issue and walk away in a huff, we miss the big picture, and more importantly, we miss the big prize: everlasting life. What a tragedy.

©2006