Jesus' Hard Sayings

                         Jesus’ Hard Sayings 

Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle B 

August 19/20, 2021

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082221.cfm

Good morning / afternoon, St. Agnes. It’s been a long first full week of classes for me—and I am sure for all of you who are parents, teachers, and students. I just started my 17th year as a teacher. [This is my first at Assumption High School where I teach Theology]. I have been reflecting this month on an early experience I had as a student teacher preparing for my first classroom. I was up at the University of Notre Dame in an Education class. The professor was legendary educator named Dr. Thomas Doyle who everyone called “Doc.” He grouped all of us student-teachers by subject matter around tables.

So, I was working on a problem with several other new Theology teachers when Doc came to talk to us. He said something I’ll never forget: “You Theology teachers have a great responsibility.” He gestured to another table. “If that group of math teachers over there messes up a lesson, it can probably turn out okay. Hopefully they get the right information later in life. You guys, however, if you instruct students poorly or incorrectly, it can have eternal consequences for them and for you.”

We all gulped and took a minute to think about whether we had chosen the right profession. Doc, this saying is hard!

In some ways, Doc’s words to us mirror Scripture’s message to teachers. St. James in his letter wrote:

Not many of you should become teachers my sisters and brothers, for we who are teachers will be judged more severely (James 3:1).

And Jesus warns, “Whoever causes one of the little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to tie a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matt 18:6).

I have never heard either of these two passages used as the theme for a back-to-school professional development day. Can you imagine?

Our 2021-22 opening prayer service is titled, “Not many of you should be teachers.” Or “Tie a millstone around your neck.”

Now, not all of us here are teachers, obviously. But the anecdotes and passages that I gave are true for Christian discipleship broadly. We hear in the Gospel today that Jesus preached a message that shocked his listeners. He told them that if they wanted eternal life that they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which they found utterly repugnant. Many of these disciples had been following him for a long time, but they said, “This saying is hard. Who can accept it?” Jesus doubled down on his message, and in response these followers abandoned him, walking away from discipleship, his movement, and Jesus himself.

Oftentimes, Jesus words offer comfort and consolation—support in difficult times. We need that. But the Jesus also uses words to challenge us. To shake us out of our complacency and even to break open our hearts if we have ears to hear. These hard sayings call us to live radically different lives.

Here is a reminder of some of these other difficult sayings:

Offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.

Give to all who ask of you. Do not turn your back on anyone who wants to borrow.

Go sell your possessions and give to the poor. Then come, follow me.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.

If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brother and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

These are hard sayings, Lord, who can accept them? In fact, who of us is able to fulfill these sayings of Jesus’?

The answer is that He wants us to be better than we are. He wants us to be better than we may even want ourselves to be. These hard sayings should cause us to recognize the seriousness of the path that we have been called to. We should not feel comfortable as Christians.

When Doc said those hard words to me and the other teachers, I realized what a great responsibility I’d been given. I was and I am entrusted with the care of young people—to point them along the right path. To tell them both difficult and comforting words. And to remind them that there is a God. A God full of grace, mercy and love who wants to fill them with his very life.

That is not a task that I can do with my own knowledge and skill alone. I can and I do fail. Teaching, like Christian life, requires the grace of God. Through His grace we come to find that these hard sayings are a source of our renewal. And in our weakness, we say with Simon Peter, “Master, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”