Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b
Ps 34:2-3, 16-17, 18-19, 20-21
Eph 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32
Jn 6:60-69
There is lots of commentary this election year on living in a polarized country/state/county/city. Those of us who live in the United States live with an ever-present worldview where our political system makes it seem that there typically are two – and only two – choices. Now, the point of this week’s scripture reflection is not actually to focus on the election or voting (though I have written something about two-party systems, and I also wonder if Catholic life and teaching would be better served through non-dualistic ways of voting). But that’s a post for another time.
Rather my point is: polarization that stems, I believe, from our political worldview. In other words, if the dichotomy we see were only something to do with our political system and no other area of our lives, I wouldn’t be as concerned. But it seems to me that our political system with its two and only two choices also impacts many other areas of our lives – and in ways that harm our interactions with our neighbors and impact our ability to love each other as Jesus has loved us. We are collectively prone to dismiss people from “the other side” as unworthy, unfit, odd, crazy, inhumane, and even inhuman because of the views they express on one candidate or issue; or because of an action they do or a sign posted in their yard. The difficulty with the polarizing views is that once a person is placed in an opposing camp, and dismissed, it can be very difficulty to find a way back toward seeing a human being with dignity and worth, and in need of love.
This week’s scriptures perhaps provide an antidote to our polarizing poison.
The first scripture from the Book of Joshua may not, at first glance, seem like it is an anti-polarizing message. Joshua stands at Shechem, a place at one end of a narrow valley, and also a place of great spiritual and historical importance. It was at Shechem that Abraham first stopped to pray after he entered the land of Canaan, and where God first makes a covenant with his people. God’s covenant is renewed many times over, and there are stories prior to today’s where God gives the land to the people, but also where the Israelites are faced with accepting or denying the covenant with God. (Deuteronomy 11).
In today’s passage, Joshua is reminding the people of that earlier covenant and that choice to accept or deny God. Notice however, that Joshua does not in fact offer two choices, but three. The people could choose to follow ancestral gods (gods of their fathers), or contemporary gods (gods of the Amorites living in that land) – or they could choose to serve the Lord.
A polarizing view takes the opposing pairs and make it seem like one must choose for one side or the other. In this case, the opposing set Joshua suggests in his statements about the two different gods of the fathers or gods of the Amorites is the historical/contemporary dichotomy. It is the apparent choice between honoring your ancestors or honoring the new ideas of the present moment. It is the trope: old versus new.
Yet in offering a third choice – which is simply to serve the Lord – Joshua undercuts that polarized view. While God is the God of their ancestors (which the Israelites proclaim with zest in verse 17), God is also their God (which they proclaim in verse 18). God is God for all time, without end.
In refusing the polarizing view, what Joshua and the Israelites are able to do is in fact to make a clear doctrinal statement about God: God is Lord of our yesterdays, our todays, and our tomorrows. There is no old versus new to contend with. Rather there is the good next step we must take, right now.
Old or new, we are all caught up in God’s life. And that fact of being caught up in God’s life gives us a vantage point from which we can reject choosing either/or and instead know that God is present in all, through all, with all.
Today’s Gospel also helps us see a different, non-polarizing view. Jesus has been talking about the “hard teaching” that we all have been meditating on for several weeks now: the Body and Blood of Christ. The polarizing point seems to be the idea of eating flesh versus a less earthy, more abstract idea of “eating” flesh. “Does this shock you?” Jesus asks pointedly.
But then Jesus goes one better: if the idea of the body and blood are shocking, what if they “were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before”? What if they were to see the fully human Jesus ascend to heaven? What then?
The ascension of Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, makes it clear that we can no longer speak in dualistic (and polarizing terms) of spirit versus flesh, of soul versus body. God is Lord of our whole selves, body, mind, and spirit. To choose flesh or spirit – to see body and soul as divided against each other – is not only polarizing, it also does an injustice to our belief in Jesus Christ.
Rather we must see God in Christ as being all in all. Rather than accept the polarization, we proclaim that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. We refuse polarization and instead open ourselves to the amazing reality that God, who is not human, yet becomes human and seeks so close a relationship with us that we can be called children of God.
Once the worldview is flipped, the apparent polarizing choices become insignificant, and exposed as false choices. Rather, we choose all of God and we choose to live wholeheartedly in the everlasting love that God offers to each one of us.
