Our Joshua Moment

 

Deacon David Previtali · Our Joshua Moment

Homily for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 22, 2021. Joshua 24:1-18; Gospel of St. John 6:60-69. Theme: Our Joshua Moment 

In today’s first reading, Joshua puts before the Hebrew people a vitally important choice: “Decide today whom you will serve...as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” To get a bit of the backstory to this momentous question, by this point in their early history, the Hebrews had been through decades of ups and downs. Their ancestors had escaped from Egypt and wandered through unknown wilderness and desert, making their way to the land promised them by God. Most of the people Joshua was addressing had not themselves personally experienced the Exodus. They were a couple of generations away from the miracles and unbelievable spectacles that God worked to liberate Israel from Egypt. 

And so, as children and grandchildren often do...they had begun to drift away from the devotion and religious observances of their elders. They needed to be reminded of and recalled back to their roots, their identity as God’s people. Joshua saw that many of them were becoming infected by the pagan culture around them in their new homeland. Some were beginning to worship idols like their neighbors who seemed better off. And so he asks this most important question and it’s really the most important question we can ask ourselves as well. “Who is the Lord and God of your life?” 

And as Christians we must also take up this question but tweak it to ask: Is the Lord Jesus Christ who rose up from the grave, freeing us from slavery to sin and death, the God whom you serve? Is He truly the Lord of our hearts and Master of our lives or are we actually worshipping an idol in place of God? Today’s Gospel asks us the same sort of question. After hearing Jesus’ teaching on the reality of the Eucharist, many parted ways with him. And so he asks the others, “Do you also want to leave?” Staying with Jesus or leaving his company is a decision that is required of every Christian. And it is one that we must make every day. 

Some people try to live from one day to the next without making any such a definite decision. They are like boats without a rudder, confused and moved this way or that by whatever happens to catch their attention from one day to another. They have no purpose, no direction, no meaning or mission to their lives. They let choices be made for them by social media, parroting whatever happens to be the popular thought of the day, whatever happens to be the politically correct point of view in the world around them. They let others decide the important questions of life for them. They do what others do, they think what others think, and they say what others say. They make the culture around them their idol, giving it the power and influence that the Word of God should have in helping them make spiritual and moral choices in life. 

The question that Joshua put to the people is asked of us every Sunday at Mass. During the Creed, all of the assembly of God’s people in the church stand up and speak out their trust, their faith, their belief in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Creed isn’t just a prayer we recite. We call it a declaration or profession of faith. It is our response to the question: “Who is your God? Whom do you serve?” 

• We respond that we serve God our Father who holds our lives in his hands. 
• We trust in Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, who became man for us, who taught us the way of the Gospel that leads to Heaven, who died and rose for us so that we could live in joy forever. 
• We serve the Holy Spirit, who is the Bond of Love connecting us with God and one another, and who dwells within us as in temples.
• Furthermore, we declare that we hold all these truths as a people, the people of God, that is called his one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. 
• We believe that both as individuals and as a people we shall rise from the dead ourselves and live with both body and soul in the Kingdom of God. 

This is the Rudder of Faith that gives direction to the decisions in our lives. Every time we come to Mass we have this “Joshua Moment” when we must choose God as the Lord whom we serve. The question we need to ask ourselves today is this: when we stand to profess our faith and declare our decision, are we doing so from the heart and soul of who we are, or are we simply reciting a prayer that is to be said at that time? The honest answer to this question makes all the difference in the world in our lives!