Sunday Gospel Reflection
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
John 6:60-69
Dare to Stay with God
Carlo S. Dureza
A little over three decades ago from today, in the late 1980’s, a made-for-television docu-drama marathon about a crusading human rights journalist covering the Philippines’ political landscape at that time was shown.
Entitled “A Dangerous Life”, the drama was broadcasted straight into the living rooms of millions of homes in the country for several hours. This soap opera-like TV special was inspired by the travails of a prominent politician turned political detainee who lived his passion of liberating his country from the clutches of tyranny and slavery even at the cost of his own life.
In the drama’s brief prologue-clip taken when he was still alive, he mentioned that it was indeed dangerous living for what he believed in, that is, fighting for justice and his country’s freedom. But he withstood the difficulty, even the impossibility of his dreams. Mercilessly killed because of his conviction, *his ideals are upheld to this day.
God’s teachings are about justice, peace, faith, and freedom from sin. In the gospel today, many of Jesus’ disciples found His teachings difficult and (nearly) impossible to follow saying, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” They appeared strongly inclined not to follow Jesus.
Then Jesus asked his apostles whether they will stay with Him or leave, to dwell in difficulty and danger or not, all for the gospel. Peter insisted to stay, saying that he and the other disciples had nowhere else to go because Jesus has the words of eternal life. They professed that Jesus was indeed God the Savior.
Will we do the same, thrive on risks and danger and stay with Jesus in proclaiming the Kingdom? The path to eternal life is narrow and difficult. Treading on it would make us live in uncertainty and learn to persevere.
This pandemic has made all of us live in tension, in fear of the unknown. We sway from one quarantine status to another, our movements often changing, our lives in unstable conditions, nothing still and definite to make us peaceful. Do we cling to Jesus’ “hard teaching” now? Would we continue to stay with Him and His words at this time?
He asks us to keep still, to have faith in Him. Having faith may be a big challenge to us because we have to believe in the certainty of things unseen. As frail humans, we tend to believe only in what is in sight. We must believe wholeheartedly even though we do not see what we hope for. This is what the disciples meant by Jesus’ hard teaching: to follow it is to be in danger of failing or getting persecuted.
Like the politician who lived a dangerous life for his country, are we willing to do the same for God? A true, steadfast follower of Christ lives in tension and hard resistance against the evil of the times. He has FAITH as his weapon to dare stay with God.
Happy Sunday! God bless!!
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Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash
