So if you have ever shopped for a bible, you are probably aware that there are many different versions out there, the NAB, RSV, KJV, NIV... many different versions.

One version that I find interesting is the Jefferson Bible.  Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd President, took scissors to his bible and cut out all of the miracles of Jesus, all of the stuff he couldn’t personally believe from the Gospels, including the Resurrection and the Ascension, again, miracles, and pasted what was left into a new book, known as the Jefferson Bible.

Thomas Jefferson wanted to portray Jesus as a teacher of morality, a nice man who inspired people to be their best, but Jefferson could not or did not want to proclaim Him as God.

I believe this is still a temptation today, not physically cutting out apart our bibles, but mentally, we cut out the things that we just can’t personally believe, such as difficult teachings or miracles, we make a choice not to believe everything.  

What is interesting is that this was precisely the reason the people in the Old Testament believed in God, miracles. We heard Joshua in the first reading exhorting the people to follow God, they had been sitting on the fence, trying to appease both God and the gods of the Amorites, so Joshua forced them to make their choice and the people ultimately replied: 

“Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods. For it was the LORD, our God, who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of a state of slavery. He performed those great miracles before our very eyes and protected us along our entire journey and among the peoples through whom we passed. Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”

The miracles are what sets our God apart.  The Resurrection is precisely the event that makes Jesus credible.  Jesus is different from other teachers.  Buddha said, I have found this way, follow my teaching. Muhammed said a similar thing, I am a prophet, follow my teaching.

But Jesus claims He is God.  He doesn’t just say follow my teaching, He says, “follow me.”  At the Resurrection, He proves it. At Pentecost, He gives us the Holy Spirit to guide the Church.  At the Ascension, Jesus says “Go, make disciples of all nations...” 

Jesus is God and He wants everyone to choose to follow Him, starting by knowing Him, how He performed all of these miracles, yes, but more importantly how He suffered, was crucified, and died for the forgiveness of our sins, and how He rose from the dead to prove it, to prove just how much He loves us. 

He says in effect: “I love you. And here is the proof that I really mean it: that I have chosen to die for you.” There is an undeniable joy and peace awakened by the knowledge imparted by that Cross, of a life steeped in such sacrifice.

As Christians, this is the framework that we have to see everything through, we really can’t cut out the parts of the bible that we don’t believe in or agree with.

It’s interesting, our second reading today, the infamous Ephesians chapter 5 is probably one that most women would cut out if they could... “so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.” 

So while the women usually hate this, the men get all excited, puff up their chest and say “look what the Bible says! ‘Wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.’”

It seems that both stop listening after verse 24 there, but that’s unfortunate, especially for the women, because verse 25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her...”

Now, I ask you men, how did Christ love the Church?  He died for her.  He suffered and He died for Her on the Cross, right there.  Husbands have to be prepared to die for their wives. (Ladies, you have my permission to elbow him back at this point if he elbowed you earlier.)

And I am not really talking about dying for her in the classic sense, like taking a bullet for her, I am talking more about dying to himself, dying to his own selfish desires, always fulfilling his wants and needs, and rather doing everything, absolutely everything for the sake of his wife and of his family.  

That’s way more difficult, but absolutely necessary, because their sacrifice proves their unconditional love for their wives, just like Jesus’ sacrifice proves His love for us, it says, “even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her...” To sacrifice shows love, it proves unconditional love, and fills the beloved with joy and peace.

Let’s read these full verses again in Ephesians.

24 As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her

26 to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word,

27 that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

“That she might be holy and without blemish.” This is the goal, growth in holiness, in order to enter heaven.  This is the primary goal of every person, but within a marriage it is the specific goal of the husband for his wife, it is his mission.

Here is another thing women hate about this verse, this word subordinate is often translated as submissive.  Who wants to be described as submissive?  I mean not most people I know here in the United States.  We are free and strong, independent and tough willed, not submissive to anyone or anything, right?

Well, we need to break down this word, submissive, sub meaning “under”, and missive having the root word of “mission,” so really, sub-missive is better understood as “under-the-mission” - so the husband's mission as defined by the Church is to help his wife grow in holiness and present her to God that way in Heaven.

When I get asked to speak on the theology of marriage for couples getting married, I always go through this, I break it down in this way, and if the women came in hating this passage, usually they end up really liking it, in fact my last three weddings willingly chose this readings for their ceremony because it makes sense, it makes sense in the proper terms.

The bible, and many of our teachings, they can be confusing, they can be difficult, they can be counter-cultural, they can even cause people to walk away from the faith.

That is what happened in today’s Gospel. Here we finally come to the end of the Bread of Life discourse which we began a month ago. Jesus had been addressing a crowd at the Synagogue, the Jews who were present had been murmuring and fighting, but now the focus turned to His disciples and their reaction to eating His flesh and drinking His blood.  

Verse 60 said, “Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?””

But Jesus doesn’t back down from His teaching.  This is happening on Passover one year before He was to be crucified, and He knows things are only going to get more difficult from here, so He goes on, “Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”” 

And the shocking thing is that many of them left at this point, it said here in John 6:66, “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” 

But the really shocking thing was that He didn’t call them back.  He didn’t say, “Hey, wait, I just meant to eat symbols of my flesh and blood.” I noted two weeks ago that 69% of Catholics think the Eucharist is just a symbol, they sit on the fence like the Israelites of old, they say they are Catholic but yet they don’t believe what the Church teaches.

In our Gospel, Jesus forces them to get off the fence, He makes them make their choice. Jesus did not back down from His teaching as many, not just a few, but many disciples left Him.  This is the only place in the Gospels where people walk away over a point of doctrine, and Jesus offers no further explanation, He lets them go.

Jesus gave them the freedom to make their own choice.  He even turned to the twelve Apostles at this point and said, ““Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “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.””

Jesus is much more than a teacher, He is God. He is not some distant God, He is a personal, relational God who makes Himself known to us, especially in the breaking of the bread.  And He is a gentle God, He doesn’t impose himself, He always proposes, and He leaves us the freedom to do what we believe is right.

But when it comes to God’s Word, when it comes to the readings in the Bible and the teachings of the Church, we are not free to just cut out what we dislike, to ignore what we disagree with, we need to dig deeper, we need to be willing to learn and grow with God. 

He gives us a choice here too, whether we will believe in the teachings of the Church or at the very least try to learn and grow, or not, but it seems to be an internal conflict to sit on the fence and try to appease both sides, to say, “Oh yeah, I’m Catholic, but I don’t believe in that teaching.” That just doesn’t work, it is, ultimately, an injustice to what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross.

We as the Church must be submissive to Christ as the head. And as we learn and grow, we begin to understand and truly appreciate how cohesive everything in the faith really is.

Everything starts with recognizing His love for us, personally, realizing what He did here on the cross was for me, even if it was only for me, He still would have done it, He loves us that much. Like a husband loves his wife and proves it through sacrifice, so our God loves us and proved it on His Cross of sacrifice.

And His love only goes out from there. Since the Resurrection happened and proved that God can do anything, anything is possible, including giving us His flesh and His blood to eat and drink, to nourish us and strengthen us as we grow with Him, as we grow as His disciples.

With His sacrificial unconditional love as our model, we are able to grow in love to go out and love others as Christ has loved us, beloved by God, filled with joy and peace.