20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) – August 18, 2024

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalm 34:2-7; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58

Be Imitators of God (Revisited)

So last Sunday we began a brief three week series as we start this new school year and as we prepare for the Fall here in the parish. And we’re calling this series “Be Imitators of God.” This comes from that famous command from St. Paul in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians. Paul, casually, just lofting it out there like it’s no big deal, says, “Oh yeah, and be imitators of God” (c.f., Ephesians 5:1). Which yeah, sounds really nice and pious—until you put it into perspective! Think about trying to imitate Olympic athletes: can you do that? No! No chance! It is borderline impossible to imitate them. Ok, but Paul just casually assumes that we can imitate God? What?? But yes! That’s the beauty of our faith! That’s what our faith is all about. And more than just imitating, but actually sharing in God’s life! There’s that famous passage we hear on Christmas morning, from the beginning of John’s Gospel. We hear, “To those who believe in him / place their faith in him (pistis) he gave power to become children of God” (c.f., John 1:12).

This is what Paul is talking about when he says things like that famous line every athlete has tattooed on their body: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Paul isn’t talking to athletes about how they can win gold if they believe in Jesus. (Because think, what if two athletes believe in Jesus? Does Jesus have to pick a favorite?) Paul is talking about the impossible task of imitating God, of becoming his children, of sharing in his life! It is impossible! But—but “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And so, Paul says, we need to “run the race…persevere…go after the imperishable crown!” (c.f., 1 Corinthians 9 and 2 Timothy 4). We should learn from the dedication and sacrifices and single-mindedness of Olympic athletes. Why? Because that’s the kind of dedication it takes to follow after Jesus Christ. This is what Paul is getting at. This is what he is calling each of us to do.

The Explosive Growth of the Olympics

One thing that really fascinates me about the Olympics is how many sports and events and athletes there are these days. This year wasn’t even the biggest year, but at the Olympics this year there were 10,500 athletes representing 206 different countries; there were 32 different sports, with a total of 329 events, so 329 gold medals being handed out. And again, that’s amazing! A real testament to the growth of the games. But it started out so, so small! And it started with the essentials—not that ping pong and basket weaving aren’t a big deal…just maybe not essential! 

In the original Olympic Games, back in ancient Greece, there were less than 100 athletes, probably only a couple dozen. And they all represented 1 country: Greece. Originally, the Olympics had 7 sports, the essentials—for a total of 7 events, 7 olive-branch crowns. When the modern Olympics began in 1896, there were 241 athletes representing 14 countries; 10 sports with a total of 43 events, 43 gold medals. And now? 10,500 athletes, 206 countries, 32 sports, and 329 events. That 200x more athletes, 200x more countries, 5x as many sports, and 50x more events. That’s a huge explosion! From small, humble beginning—focused on the essentials, it exploded!

And it was a focus on the essentials that led to its growth. Even if you just compare the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 to today, it was a return to the essentials that led to such dramatic growth! The Olympics didn’t start as big as it is today, and over the years it has pruned and gotten rid of certain sports or events that don’t fit anymore. And what is the result? It continues to grow and thrive. By focusing on the essentials, by returning to what is more important, by sticking to the basics—it continues to grow and thrive.

The Peak Behind the Curtain

When it comes to our faith—and if you want a peak behind the curtain to the method behind my madness and what I do in the parish and am trying to do with the parish—this is the method to my madness! Returning to the essentials. If I was going to summarize everything that goes on in my brain, every crazy idea that I’ve pursued, every decision that I make—it would be this: does it focus us on the essentials? Is this something essential to our faith? Is this essential and fundamental?

And why? Why am I so intent of focusing us as a parish on the essentials? Lots of reasons. But the main one is because of the times we are living in. As I’ve said before, the times we live in can best be characterized as an Apostolic Age. Pope Francis pointed this out to us. He said, “Ours is not an age of change, but a change of age.” Ours is not an age of change, but a change of age. What did he mean? It’s easy for us to see all of the changes going on around us, and there are many: technology, travel, governments, you name it! There is so, so, so much change! But—and this is a big but—but, the age we live in is not really an age characterized by all of those changes, no. We are actually in a change of the age. There is big dividing line in our time; a dividing line between what came before and what is coming after. And this new age, the age we are now living in, is much more like the age of the first Christians, the first Catholics. We live in an Apostolic Age, an age much more like 33AD than 1950AD. 

Why? Because just like in the time of the first Christians, we live in a culture that is not only apathetic and indifferent to the Christian message, but also hostile toward it, attacks it—and in very subtle ways, thats why I tell the story of the man form China so much. In our day and age, it’s not “cool” to follow Jesus Christ. In our day and age, following Christ literally divides fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters. How many of us have children or siblings that no longer practice the faith? And what’s more, the dominant religion of our day is very similar to that when the first Christians were walking the earth than back in 1950. The new dominant religion is a vague spiritualism, believing in a “god” (but not God as God has revealed himself to us throughout history or in the Scriptures)—so believing in a “god,” but not in Jesus Christ and the Church he founded or the concrete path he laid down for us; this new religion rejects all of the deepest and more firmly held truths of our faith; and the morality of this religion? “You do you. Just be a good person.”

This is the age we now live in! And this is an age that cals for a return to the essentials, to the essentials first lived and proclaimed by the Apostles themselves. And this is why I focus so much on the essentials. I mean think about the method to my madness! A year and a half ago we did that weird thing called “Rerouting…”. What was that? It was a twelve week dive into the kerygma, to the fundamental story and essential proclamation of the gospel: we are created, we were captured, and we were rescued. The kerygma is the essential foundation of our faith! Right after that we spent weeks talking about one passage from Acts, Acts 2:42 which talks about the four essential practices of the first followers of Jesus: dedication to the teaching of the Apostles, to the community, to the prayers, and to the Eucharist. We then talked about evangelization, inviting people into this faith, sharing this good news—this is our fundamental task: the Church exists in order to evangelize (Paul VI). We then spent weeks focusing on an essential dimension of our faith: faith! Faith as entrusting our lives totally and completely to Jesus Christ. (Remember the whole image of Charles Blondin, getting in the wheelbarrow? That’s it: am I willing to not just see Jesus and the Church and his teachings as nice, something to watch from a distance, but to get in the wheelbarrow, to entrust my entire life to him!) We talked about forgiveness. We talked about metanoia, this fundamental change in the way we see and understand the world; shifting from looking at the world like everyone else to looking at the world how God teaches us to see the world. We talked about “turning the world upside down,” and how our public witness to living out the faith in a radical way is so important! We spent 10 weeks talking about prayer during “Reconnecting…” We spent all of the Easter season talking about the revolution Jesus began, and how the concrete way the first Christians lived this out was by claiming Sunday as the Lord’s Day. 

Ok—what do I focus on? Have I ever spent weeks talking about the different choirs of angels? Or about the long history of trinitarian theology? Do I spend weeks and weeks discussing different devotions or random facts about relics? No. What do I harp on over and over? The essentials. Over and over and over, I try to focus our attention on the essentials. (Starting this Fall—and we’ll talk about this more next week—but this Fall we’re going to focus on another essential: Sacred Scripture, the Bible.) But that’s just it: in our day and age, in this new Apostolic Age, we need to turn our attention to the essentials once again. And we need to live our life, our faith with the same intensity and devotion and dedication and perseverance as the earliest Christians—just like St. Paul speaks about in his letters. We need to “run the race.”

Return to the Essentials

As we hear in from Paul in our second reading today, “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord” (Ephesians 5:15-17). We can’t be foolish or haphazard about the times we live in—not anymore. We can’t be ignorant of the most real and essential and fundamental things. We don’t live in a world where everyone is Christian and more or less on the same page and kids will grow up to love God and serve him, nope. “The days are evil,” Paul says. These days, just going with the flow of everyone else is going to take you and you children somewhere you do not want to go. And we’ve seen it! We see it all the time.

And so what do we need to do? Make a real, intentional, concerted effort to focus on the essentials: personally, as couples, as families, and as a parish. 

And as I’ve said before and I’ll say again—and as our Gospel today alludes to—the single-most essential part of our lives, the source and summit of the Christian life, is here. Here, each and every Sunday, we receive the “living bread come down from heaven,” the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. This is the number one essential to following Jesus Christ: the Eucharist. What did Jesus just say in the Gospel? “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”

Friends, as we begin this new school year, let’s make a firm commitment to the Sunday Eucharist and to reclaiming Sunday. From the beginning, this was the fundamental expression of following Christ. Long before the Church made attending Sunday Mass an official precept, people were willing to risk death in order to attend. There is a very ancient document written by St. Justin Martyr, about the year 150AD. And he wrote how, already, the practice of the community gathering every Sunday for the Eucharist was firmly established. Even when these gatherings were outlawed, the people defied the emperor’s decree, even accepting death rather than miss the Sunday Eucharist. At their trials they said, “Without fear of any kind we have celebrated the Eucharist because it cannot be missed. We cannot live without the Eucharist.”

This is what we hear from the first Apostolic times—sounds pretty essential to me. And in this new Apostolic Age, I don’t think it should be any different. From the beginning, with a little over a hundred people, focused on the essentials, we saw the faith explode into a world-wide, international phenomenon. In this new Apostolic age, we, us, here, just a little over a hundred people—if we focus on the essentials, we can watch the faith explode again.