Today’s readings: Joshua 24, 1-2.15-18; Ephesians 5, 21-32; John 6, 60-69.
It has never been easy or plain sailing to believe in God and to hold on to God’s word in the Scriptures as true and powerful enough to suit our needs and challenges. Believing is always risky and it is never a choice or decision that once taken will endure. It can be an inner torment that endures on and on.
This happens not only personally to each and everyone in the inner sanctuary of the heart. It happens also in the history of nations, which may at times claim religion to be constitutive of their identity, and at other times turn their back easily on the memory handed down for generations.
Joshua, as we read in the first reading, had inherited from Moses a grumpy people and had the daunting task of bringing them home. He above all needed to be a visionary and had to be extra strong to hold on to that vision which, as is normal to visionaries, he could not easily share with all. As a true leader, he had to educate patiently and to wait.
Jesus had a very similar experience with those round him, including the intimate circle of friends. Religion was basic to the national identity of God’s people at the time. Yet when it came to new challenges and digging beneath the religious surface to discern what God was suggesting, they had big problems.
Both Joshua and Jesus in today’s scriptures remind us of something crucial in the experience of faith: we always need a vision capable of looking ahead and of transcending memory. This is the depth that faith entails and this is the call to be authentically loyal. Without a vision the people perish, we read in the scripture.
Moses had the task of taking the Jews out of Egypt, and Joshua to bring them into their promised land. It was a challenge to lead the first generation of free Jews. But now, for Joshua, it transpired to be even harder to keep together successive generations that had never experienced first hand the signs marking the exodus of their forefathers and mothers.
This is a challenge very similar to that we are facing today. The cohesion of believers was facilitated when society was homogenous and when practically all acknowledged the role of religion and the need of a faith outlook on life. This same cohesion is so difficult now for a myriad of reasons.
We have become pluralistic even within our Christian communities. There was a time when we lamented the difficulty of speaking a language comprehensible to contemporary society and culture. Now even within the Church we no longer speak a common language. It suffices to follow the internal debate sparked by the upcoming synod of bishops in October.
The solution in such contexts is not to return to doctrinal diktats. The bigger the challenges, the more the churches are called to reinvent new forms and styles of leadership that respects the inner journeys of different people while remaining focussed on what authentically can be the message of eternal life.
To quote from Elie Wiesel in his biblical portrait of Joshua: “A living bridge between slavery and redemption, Joshua had to decide for himself, and for his nation, where the past ends and where the future begins, where vision and memory meet, and when they are in conflict.”
Speaking of our religion, we cannot afford to live in the past as if the past is never meant to end. We’re still immersed in a religious past that seeks to be first and foremost a prolongation of what past generations handed down to us. But we are finding it too hard to discern where our past has ended or is to end and be strong enough and bold to face the future with a re-imagined religion.
The vision that should inspire us has to be rooted both in memory and in present-day culture. If it remains rooted only in memory, then it is only nostalgia. Discerning God’s path in the midst of his people today demands much more than that. If as believers we are not in a position to provide a vision that suits our life in this day and age, then the memory we would be trying to keep alive risks only being the tomb of faith.