Homily - The Reward of Faith - 19th Sunday (John 6:41-51)

 

There used to be a commercial on the television that had an old couple sitting at the dinner table and the husband looks suspiciously at the strange food in front of him and says – “What is it?” and his wife says “Try it – you’ll like it!” and he says “What is it? And she says again “Try it – you’ll like it!” and so it went on until he finally tried it.  In the Gospel today, Jesus is saying to the people who are complaining to “Try it – you’ll like it” and who wouldn’t?  All Jesus wants is for us to accept Him and believe, and He promises an everlasting reward!

 

For the last two weeks and for today and for the next two weeks our Gospel readings have come from Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John.  We have been getting little bite sized pieces of this marvellous message to chew on just the same way the people of the time were given bread to eat just so we can try it and like it. 

 

You know that the church years are put into a cycle of three years, year A, B, and C.  In year A, the gospels usually come from Matthew, in year B, which is the year we are in now, they come from Mark and in year C they come from Luke, but for certain special times and feasts, the church uses readings from the Gospel of John.

 

Chapter 6 is a marvellous Chapter of the Gospel and even though we have parts of it for five weeks in a row, we still don’t get the whole thing.  Chapter 6 is also the chapter that tells how Jesus walked on the water to meet his disciples, the chapter where he tell us that he came so that nothing and no one would be lost and also how he predicts one will betray him. 

 

If I could suggest one thing for you to do in the next week, it would be to take out the Bible and read Chapter 6 of John’s gospel in one sitting.  It’s only about two and a half pages long and probably won’t take more than five minutes.  Of course, I’m hoping that once you’ve tried it you’ll like it and you’ll take some more time to think about it and pray about it. 

Tonight might even be a good time, no Hockey on television, nothing but summer re-runs, stores are closed, thunderstorms coming so you can’t go out, so give some time back to God and get better acquainted with this powerful part of scripture.

 

This gospel chapter has a very powerful message about the Eucharist as Jesus first feeds the people and then explains how he will give his own Body and Blood for food.  But it also has a very powerful message about faith, and how our faith has to be open to the message of God, even when it may be a message we don’t want to hear.  Last week in the gospel, when the people asked what they needed to do to do the work of God, Jesus just said, “Believe in the one He has sent!”

 

Believe in the one He has sent – not much to ask for eternal life!  We need to believe.  We need to believe first and foremost!  There are lots of people, me included, who are willing to stand up and tell what to do to prove you believe and how you should act if you really do believe, but when Jesus himself is asked what to do he simply says, “Believe!”

 

It almost sounds too good to be true, after all, how hard can it be to simply believe something. 

 

Well we can see from the reaction of the people that it is not always easy to believe.  Even though they’ve just seen a miracle, over 5000 people fed, even though they’ve had a wonderful promise of eternal life, they say – “Wait a minute!  Who is this guy?  This is just Jesus who we saw growing up – how can he be from heaven?”  And so they doubted!

 

Too often we confuse the message with the messenger, even when the messenger has shown us wonderful things.  There is a story about the famous evangelist, Billy Graham, who came to a small town in the southern US for one of his famous prayer rallies. 

 

Well the story goes that he was out for a walk early in the day to get acquainted with the town and he needed to mail a couple of letters, so he stopped s small boy on a bicycle and asked him, “Little boy, can you tell me where the post office is?”  The little boy pointed down the street and said go past the general store, turn right and it’s the building with the tall pillars in front.  Billy Graham said, “Thank you, and if you come to the prayer rally at the football stadium tonight, I’ll tell you how to get to heaven!”  The little boy got on his bike and pedalled away, shouting over his shoulder, “No thanks, you don’t even know how to get to the post office!”

 

But don’t we do that all the time.  The person who tries to get us to listen to something or believe something that we really don’t want to – we look at their accent or their clothes or their education or where they came from and we say, “What could they know!”

 

The kind of faith we need to have must be open to hear the word of God when it comes to us and when it comes we must believe.  The church teaches us what Christ has taught, the scriptures show us the Word of God and ask us to believe and we are challenged and we must answer, do we really believe? 

 

Once you do believe, I won’t have to tell you how to act, you will know by following what is true in your hearts.  Today we are confused because we try to be good Christians by doing things that others have told us to do but we have forgotten that we have to believe first.  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say, “I’m a good Catholic, I do everything I’m supposed to but I don’t believe ALL of that stuff!  What does the Pope know, an eighty year old living in a castle in Italy, this is North America!” and so it goes.

 

And we let the newspapers and the pop culture slowly wear us down, because we can’t get away from them and where we may only come to church for an hour a week we spend hours and hours each day being saturated with the message of the world. 

 

How many of us have come to “accept” things contrary to our faith because everybody out there does it, or because I don’t want to look old fashioned or intolerant, things like sex outside marriage, same-sex marriage, working on Sunday’s, abortion must be a private matter and the list goes on. 

 

Now is the time to ask yourself, in your heart of hearts, what do I believe?  Do I believe that Jesus came down to earth from heaven, even as I sit and listen to the Gospel and make fun of those who rejected Jesus?  Would I have accepted him?  Do I accept him?  Do I believe?

 

It sounds like a simple formula that Jesus gives us.  “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life!”  It’s not quite so simple when you try it.  But try it, you’ll like it!