Since diving deeper into John Chapter 6 about a month ago, the refrain, “This saying is hard, who can accept it?” (John 6:60) continues to rise up with almost every reading from the weekday and Sunday Masses since then. To read, listen, meditate upon and pray with, the teachings of Jesus is not easy, especially if we want to also put them into practice into our lives. Which means deciding as to whether or not we want to be his disciple.
We may have been tempted to not listen closely while at Mass so not to recall anything that we have heard, we may let it go in one ear and out the other, or we may actually hear God’s word, and then when it is challenging, rationalize why we don’t have to follow it in today’s day and age.
My invitation is to go back and read each of the readings from today’s Mass carefully, slowly, prayerfully, and meditate upon them. This we are invited to do with each of God’s word proclaimed to us or in our own time of prayerful reading. The words we hear or read are not just a dead letter, they are not just an account of history, they are not just lessons to be shared, they are God’s living word in which we are invited to take in, chew upon, struggle with, and allow ourselves to be changed, to be transformed.
The appropriate response to hearing God’s word that we have received comes from the first line of Isaiah: “The Lord GOD opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, I have not turned back” (Isaiah 50:5). As with the deaf man who Jesus healed last week, God seeks for all of us to hear his word and when we are willing to allow him to open our ears to hear, he will do so, and when we hear his word may we, like Isaiah, not rebel but receive his word.
Because Isaiah did so, he received the help of the Lord GOD.
Jesus not only healed the man of his deafness, but he also continually strove to heal the spiritual ears of his disciples. But we all have the freedom to choose. We can rebel and walk away as did so many after hearing Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse, and even when we don’t understand, we can answer with Peter, “Where else are we to go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68).
Why ought we listen to this man who died almost two thousand years ago? In a sense, Jesus asked his disciples the same question when he asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” and then directly to his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answer for them, “You are the Messiah” (cf. Mk 8:27-29).
In Matthew’s account he shares more of Peter’s response. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). Peter got it right, almost. Once Jesus saw that Peter received this insight from the Holy Spirit and was able to articulate it, Jesus shared with them all what kind of Messiah his Father sent him to be. He was not to be in line with any image the disciples thought of. He was more aligned to the suffering servant that Isaiah prophesied about.
As soon as Jesus began to speak about his suffering and being killed, Peter moved him away and rebuked him and Jesus without hesitation called Peter out: “Get behind me Satan.” Satan is the father of lies, the one who opposes. In one breath, Peter was listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in the next he was listening to the words of the enemy. Jesus was making a clear distinction for Peter, the disciples and us. Whose voice we are to listen to?
Why are we to listen to Jesus’ words, even when they are hard, even when they are challenging? We listen to him because he is the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God incarnate. He came not to condemn us but to save and free us from the sin of the world. Jesus came to open our spiritual ears so that we can hear the Holy Spirit, so that we may discern clearly between the voice of the enemy which leads us to death and the words of God that leads us to eternal life.
And if we want to be his disciples, we are invited to hear anew: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mk 8:34-35).
“This saying is hard, who can accept it” (Jn 6:60)? Resist the temptation to water this invitation down. Instead, let us be like Isaiah and Peter, let us implore our loving God and Father to open our ears that we may hear his word, receive his word, breathe, pray and meditate upon his word and put what we have received, like James guided in our second reading, into action.
How we take up our cross, how we lose our life for Christ, how we surrender is unique to each of us. God meets us where we are and leads us. He shines his light just enough so that we can see two steps ahead. When we take those steps, he will shine a little more of his light ahead of us.
How do we take up our cross and lose our life for Christ? We begin with our willingness to listen and hear the living word of God daily and allow it to transform every aspect of our lives. Such that God’s word becomes our own in our lived experiences. We start with a posture of humility that recognizes that we need and depend upon God for everything, and he desires nothing less than all our mind, heart, and soul.
We begin to deny ourselves and take up our cross when we make the words of Mary our own: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to thy will”(cf. Lk 1:38). And the words of Jesus, “Not my will but yours be done” (cf. Lk 22:42). The words of St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” (Jn 20:28) and St. Peter, “You are the Messiah. The Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16).
As we say these words to ourselves, as we meditate and pray with them, as we bring them into our daily experiences, as we say them before entertaining any thought, speaking any word, and following through on any action, we invite God’s word into our being so that we may be healed of our blindness and our deafness; so that we will hear the Holy Spirit speak and guide us to understand how to receive and put Jesus’ teachings into practice and so reflect his light into the dark places of our hearts and into the dark corners of our world in the unique ways that God invites us.
Photo: Icon of Christ from the 6th century in St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 