The word decision comes from the Latin meaning “to cut apart.” When you “decide,” when you “cut things apart,” something stays and something goes, something is chosen and something is rejected, something is kept and something is thrown away.
We are asked to choose all day, everyday! When we “decide,” we “cut apart” one option from another so as to concentrate our energy in one area, rather than weakening it by spreading it too thin over too many areas. When we fail to “decide,” we are often paralyzed and end up doing nothing well.
The reading cited earlier is about decision and choice. Joshua asks the people to make a decision about committing themselves to the God of Israel. Arriving in a land sprinkled with other gods and the temptation to stray from fidelity to the God of Israel, Joshua asks for a decision. Joshua had asked the Israelites to remain faithful before, but here he is at the end of his life, asking them yet again for fidelity. “Choose today whom you will serve! As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
In our first reading, Joshua who succeeded Moses, has led the people of God into the Promised Land after a long arduous journey through the desert from Egypt. After all they had been through, he had noticed them looking around at all the new religions around them. Many were tempted to give up their old-time religion and embrace one of those new religions they saw around them. Joshua tells them that they need to make a decision and informs them of his own decision.
In the gospel, Jesus also asks his disciples to choose – to choose between staying and leaving. He had just taught them that he himself was the Bread of Life that they were invited to “feed on.” The crowds started to murmur because his teaching on that subject was hard to accept. Here is what it says:
Some quarreled among themselves, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” As a result of his teaching about being the Bread of Life, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then asks the Twelve, “Do you want to leave too?”
These readings have an important question for us today when people’s word and commitments mean very little. We live in a world of “latest best offer.” “I’ll love you until someone better comes along, until you get fat and sick, until, until, until….” People used to do business with the shake of a hand. Now you have to call in the lawyers and witnesses because people will lie to your face. The Arabs have a saying, “Trust your camel, but tie it first!”
When it comes to fidelity, doing what is right and doing what we have committed to do, a principled person decides what he will do according to a set of standards and values while an opportunist decides what he will do according to whether it will bring him immediate satisfaction and gain, regardless of the long harm to himself or others.
The second thing about fidelity is that we have to practice it – we have to be faithful in small things before we can be faithful in big things. Fidelity is like weight lifting. You are able to lift heavy loads by lifting heavier and heavier loads over a long time.
The third thing about fidelity is that it is always fragile and therefore must be protected. It is not static, but fluid. Fidelity, like a baby, is fragile and needs constant care and feeding over many years.
We live in a world of choices. This is a blessing that carries great responsibility. We have a choice, yes, but also a responsibility to make good choices. Once we make a choice, we have a responsibility to carry through on that choice, not just for our own good, but also for the good of the people around us.
Yes, we Catholics might fight, argue over silly differences and find ourselves disappointed with our cowardly leadership sometimes! However, we believe that we are part of that messy “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” that has been handed down to us in an unbroken line across generations of believers! In spite of all our weaknesses, and I have seen more of them than many of you – and up close - I for one am committed to hang in there for the rest of my trip! I have preached for the United Church of Christ as a campground minister in Crater Lake National Park. I had a Disciple of Christ guidance counselor at St. Meinrad Seminary. I earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from a Presbyterian Seminary in Chicago. I have friends, even former priests, who have chosen to leave us for other denominations! I respect them and support them in their decisions. Better a truly committed Protestant Christian than a lukewarm uncommitted Catholic Christian! Their leaving was in some cases our fault, not theirs! They tell me that they left because they were not being spiritually fed! I can certainly understand the truth behind that statement! Sadly, I have several friends who have simply dropped out altogether and attend no church! As for me, I know there are more exciting churches out there, but frankly I haven’t seen anything personally I would leave for! So why do I stay with all of our problems and shortcomings? It’s simple! I stay simply because I cannot imagine walking away from the Eucharist!
As I have aged, in an effort to keep my faith vibrant, I have worked to reinvent myself several times over the years. Now, after the new pastoral leadership here at St. Leonard and St. Frances of Rome has arrived, I am being given another opportunity to re-invent myself once again – mostly somewhere else! However, today, I am happy to welcome my good friend from Ireland, Fergal Redmond, who is also in the same boat! After my retirement as a staff member at St. Meinrad and after his wife died back in Ireland, we both reinvented ourselves by volunteering to serve in the Caribbean Missions of the poor country St. Vincent and the Grenadines, close to South America. We met each other there several years ago, after arriving there about the same time. I made 12 trips and he worked there for the majority of several years while I was collecting resources from here, in-between trips, to send down there. Both our lives have changed many times over the years, but we became good friends and we have both continued to remain faithful to our faith practice by reinventing ourselves so as to serve in new ways, rather than lay down and die or give up and quit! Both of us, having had to face health issues and who have seen our shared ministry opportunity pretty much come to an end down there, will be trying to reinvent ourselves at least one more time! One thing we are both committed to, going forward, is our commitment to our shared faith in some new way, in some new place, even from a distance!
And
so, I leave you with the same challenge that Jesus and Joshua left all of us with
in today’s readings, whether we identify as a Catholic or a Protestant or
something in between!
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