“To whom else would we go.
You have the words of eternal life.”
There are many people in this world that believe in Jesus Christ.
I just do not believe that all of those follow Jesus.
They believe in him but they do not follow him.
Following Jesus is way harder.
It is somewhat easy to believe in him.
It is a whole lot more difficult to follow him.
The challenge with following him is
that we have to interpret where he wants us to go.
What does he want us to do?
And there is no question that scripture and tradition
help us do that because we do what he did;
but it is more than that.
We do not just imitate Jesus.
We are called to follow him.
And we have to then listen attentively to where he wants us to go.
Let’s face it. That is really hard.
That is hard work for all of us.
All of us are here because we believe in Jesus.
I would go one step further and say I assume all of us here are
because we are somehow trying to follow Jesus in our own life.
Sometimes, we get that really right and
sometimes we are aways off from it.
The question is how do we know the difference?
What does that look like in our own life?
And how do we come to know it?
It is all about having to let go of our own selves and our own ego
and following and listening to what Jesus wants us to do.
And again, that sounds so easy but even that is a challenge.
What do I mean by that?
There is this false ego, and all of us do this, myself included;
we tend to think the world is about us.
We view the world through our eyes
and we see everything according to how it affects us:
What they say about me;
what affects me;
what they do.
Everything becomes about what others are saying
or what they doing that affects me.
We look through the eyes of self.
And it is inherent in our human condition.
We cannot help it in a sense.
That is the false ego and everything about it is self-centered.
What Jesus asks is to follow him
and to look at all of life through the eyes of God.
He is calling us to do as he has done and to keep going.
This means we constantly have to let go of this view
that everything is about me.
We have to put ourselves in the position
of what is it like to be the other person experiencing this,
especially those who are broken;
who are homeless;
who have far less than we do;
and we have to look through their eyes.
Then see what is it that they see.
The Lord promises that if we do that
then we are looking through the eyes of God
because God sees through the eyes of all of us.
But that is just so hard.
Even people who profess the Lord, even the religious and priests find this hard.
We can get caught up in the good things
and think that it is about what we do;
and that somehow it is what is going to matter;
and it is just the same thing.
On the one side, it is the false ego but it is still good.
So it is tricky. So how do I sort this out?
How do I come to know I am really following Jesus?
First of all, we have to know that it is a constant challenge.
We do not do it just once a year and
we’ve got it and we are set for the year;
or even once a week,
“Okay I’ve got it here now I’m all set for the week!”
Yes. This is a beginning here at Mass.
But remember, the Lord asks of us to eat of his daily bread,
not weekly bread.
What does that mean for us?
That means we have to be nourished by God’s word
in our heart each and every day.
We have to look to Jesus every single day
and we look and say,
“What do you want me to do in this particular situation?”
Then listen and attempt to play down this false ego
and listen to true ego, which says: “I am a child of God.”
And this other person that I am facing
that I may not like is also a child of God.
I have to ask, “How is God leading me?”
And the promise is that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life;
that he will help us follow the Lord’s command.
That is why we come back to the table each and every week
because we know that we need the nourishment;
we need this constant nourishment in our hearts to do this.
And we need to do it each and every day in our own prayer life
as well as coming to Mass on Sunday.
Here is a great metaphor that I read that helps to break this open.
Inside our hearts is a reservoir
and whatever we store in that reservoir
is what we will come to pull out and to give away.
If we store in that reservoir, inside our heart,
anger, bitterness, frustration, and unforgiveness
then that is all we will have in that stagnant water;
that is all we will have to give to anyone else
when we come to meet and to give ourselves away.
But the Lord is asking us to allow the river of life
to flow through that reservoir
so that the river gives new life to the water in our reservoir;
that the water of our reservoir is always fresh
and the river of life is this bread of life,
the love of God that promises to keep on flowing into our heart
and because it keeps flowing into our heart
then the reservoir of our heart is always fresh.
And does it have the anger and the frustration and the bitterness?
Sure it does.
But because God’s love flows through the reservoir,
the reservoir is now fresh and ready to give when required,
and we pull out of that reservoir,
which is now fresh water and we can give away love instead of hate;
we can give away gentleness instead of bitterness and anger.
We can give away forgiveness instead of anger and unforgiveness.
We cannot give what we do not have.
And the Lord promises to allow that river of life
to flow through our hearts
but it is our choice to let go of all of these things
and to accept this freshness that comes in.
I cannot close this homily without mentioning
something about that second reading.
For the wives were getting noodled by their husbands today;
to be submissive to your husband.
Here is the interesting part.
This freshness of life is a great example.
When we hear the second reading today
the wives here are offended;
but when this was first read, when this was first written,
it was the husbands that were offended.
And here is why:
Because women, children and slaves were all property
and the author of this letter to the Ephesians
was telling the husbands to love their wives
as they loved their own body.
That would have been hard to hear as a man;
“You are asking me to do what?!”
It was the men who were actually challenged.
And today, we find that it is the women who are finding this hard.
But understand the freshness of this is that
we are all challenged because the very first word says,
“Be subordinate to one another.
Love one another as you have loved your own body.”
So allow the fresh water of Christ to flow through it.
Let’s not throw back to ancient social structures
but allow the fresh water, the river of life, to flow through.
And what does it mean?
It means to love one another.
What it means is give yourself away.
To give and not to make it about me
but to make it about us, together.
So today, we claim what Peter does;
those beautiful words, the testimony of faith:
“To whom else will we go, Lord?
You have the words of eternal life.”
We have come to believe that you are the holy one of God.
And we do not just choose to believe in you.
We choose to follow you with everything we do
and everything we say.
Let that river of life flow through the reservoir of our hearts
and to give fresh life and water to all we meet.
