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CHOOSE TODAY WHOM YOU SHALL SERVE… TO WHOM DO YOU GO?...REV FR VICTOR IBIYEMI

AUGUST 26, TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME- JOSHUA 24:1-2, 15-17, 18, PSALM 34, EPHESIANS 5:21-32, JOHN 6:63, 68, JOHN 6:60-69......


Today, God’s Word examines our decision, loyalty, sincerity, commitment and faithfulness to God. These questions must continue to ring in our hearts: Whom are we actually serving? Why are we serving God? When everything scatters, to whom do we go? In the first reading, Joshua gathered the people of Israel to confess their loyalty and fundamental option for God. It was a great convention for an extraordinary decision. In the story of the Israelites, God always did the choosing but now the table was turned around. Israel (God is asking us today) was asked to choose its loyalties, something the pagan nations did not have to do because they could embrace all the gods. 

The Israelites were being asked to do what Rahab had done, namely, to embrace this one God and, by doing so, to reject all others (see on 2:9–11). Joshua led by example when he made that absolute confession for God- as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Also in the Gospel, there was an urgent call for a confession of loyalty, commitment and faithfulness to God. Christ, again, dropped another bombshell of truth about the Eucharist and this became too hard for his followers to accept. In this passage, we see three kinds of followers; 1) the disciple who counts the cost of following Jesus and turns away, 2) the one who knows the costs and falsely stays as Judas did, 3) and finally, the one who knows the cost of believing in Jesus, yet also knows that no one else has the words of eternal life. The real difficulty of Christianity is twofold. It demands an act of surrender to Christ (the second reading), an acceptance of him as the final authority; and it demands a moral standard of the highest level. 

The truth is: “it is not intellectual difficulty that keeps men and women from becoming Christians; it is the height of Christ’s moral demand. To this day, many refuse Christ, not because he puzzles our intellects but because he challenges their lives.” Brothers and Sisters in Christ, where does our loyalty lie? With Christ or with those other gods we have fashioned for ourselves. What is the quality of our loyalty? Which of these disciples in the Gospel are we? When everything becomes sour, confusing, difficult, depressing, blur, tiring, whom do you seek? TO WHOM DO WE GO? May God give us the grace to be wholeheartedly committed to Christ, to sincerely and faithfully submit to HIM and to always come to HIM who has the words of eternal life. Amen

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