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TWENTY FIRST ORDINARY SUNDAY OF THE YEAR B!

There is a popular faith revival chorus that goes like this: “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus. No turning back." This hymn is a powerful testimony that every Christian should know. This is a folk song that originated in India as a song of new converts to Christianity among the Garo tribe who live in an area which is now the state of Meghalaya, but was until 1970, the state of Assam, in north-eastern India.

The lyrics come from the last words of Nokseng, a man from the Garo tribe in Assam. It is today the song of the Garo people and an Anthem for Persecution. According to different traditions, the formation of these words into a hymn has its attributes to the Indian missionary Sadhu Sunder Singh and Simon Marak from Jorhat, Assam.

The true story behind this hymn is as follows: About 150 years ago, there was a great revival in Wales, United Kingdom. As a result of this, many missionaries came from England and Germany to North-East India to spread the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus. At the time, northeast India was not divided into many states as it is today. The region was known as Assam and comprised hundreds of tribes. Naturally, the missionaries were not welcomed to preach and do any missionary work here.

Despite severe opposition from the chief of the tribes, one Welsh missionary succeeded in converting a man, Nokseng, his wife, and two sons. He shared the gospel with them. Thereafter, they received Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Nokseng's faith proved contagious, and many villagers began to accept Christianity.

Hearing this, the angry village chief summoned all the villagers. He then called the family who first got converted to renounce their faith in public or face execution. Moved by the Holy Spirit, Nokseng sang his reply, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.”

The outraged chief ordered the shooting of his two sons. The arrows pierced the boys, and they fell dead immediately. Again, he demanded Nokseng to deny his faith if he wanted to spare his wife. But Nokseng responded, “Though no one joins me, still I will follow. No turning back, no turning back.”Nokseng’s wife also died on shooting.

The chief then asked for the final time to deny his faith and live. Nokseng gladly said these final words, “The cross before me, the world behind me. No turning back, no turning back.” He was shot immediately like the rest of his family.

But this triggered a mass revival in the village – beginning with the chief! The chief was extremely disturbed by the faith of this man. He could not understand why Nokseng, his wife, and two children gave up their life for a man who lived some 2,000 years ago in some other continent. So, he wanted to experience the remarkable power behind the family’s faith.

With the deaths of Nokseng and his family, a miracle took place. The Holy Spirit touched the chief, and he spontaneously confessed, “I too belong to Jesus Christ!” When the gathered villagers heard their chief confessing his faith in Jesus Christ, the whole village accepted Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

This story shows the power of a commitment to follow Jesus, no matter the cost. With our focus on our Saviour, and not on this world or ourselves. We, too, can live the life God has set before us, regardless of the obstacles or sacrifice. God, help us to run towards the cross with joy, no turning back to show a lost world the grace and love of Jesus!

In our gospel today, many disciples of Jesus left Him and returned to their former lives and no longer accompanied Him. The Jews were so impressed by Jesus’ words and actions. Wherever he went, they were to seek Him and listen to His teachings. When Jesus started talking about “eating His flesh and drinking His blood” as food for eternal life, they started to leave Him because of their critical thinking which made them unable to understand why anyone in their right senses would accept this type of teaching. But faith, understood as a total commitment and surrender of one’s life to God, differs from faith, understood as intellectual assent to doctrinal statements. One may have problems with certain church teachings and, at the same time, maintain a firm commitment to Christ and his church.

So, turning to his disciples, Christ asked: “What about you, do you want to go away too?” This question from Christ is like Joshua’s. It leaves one with an option to remain with or to abandon Christ at challenging moments in life. It is like saying, if you too are not convinced and comfortable with this truth, you may also leave. Simon Peter said “Lord to whom we shall go?” You are the source of eternal life.

Jesus has so many sayings which could make His disciples leave Him like: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” “Forgive your enemies not only seven times but seventy times seven times,” “those who want to be the first must serve the rest,” ‘if you want to inherit eternal life sell everything, give to the poor and follow,” and so on and so forth.It is easy to accept the teachings of Christ as long as they don’t go against us or as long as we are hit not by it. But when we are hit, we say, “Now the Church is meddling with our lives!”

In today’s Gospel, we are being asked to make a choice, as we are, to choose to follow Jesus or not. Will we choose to follow him for a while and see how things work out, and if they don’t we can always opt out of our choice of him? We know from the New Testament that to follow Jesus, we must make his thoughts, attitudes, values, his way of seeing things, and totally ours. Above all, we are asked to imitate his life-giving and loving service of all others, even at great cost to ourselves if necessary. This is far from easy. It is demanding and challenging. It doesn’t mean that we always follow Jesus perfectly. We don’t, but we must keep trying. Jesus says in the gospel that it is having the same spirit as He had, which gives life. The flesh or whatever is contrary to the attitude and spirit of Jesus can not give true life, joy, peace, etc. With the Spirit of Jesus, all is possible. So if we do things according to the spirit of Jesus, we will do them out of love and service for others. If because of fear or cowardice, we are afraid to risk for Jesus, we simply won’t experience real life and peace within.

So where do we stand? Jesus, like Joshua in the first reading, is offering us a choice: to follow Him and serve God and therefore experience real life, joy, and happiness. We can, as Christians, choose to turn away from Jesus because we feel the demands are too much. If we are honest, we can all say that at times when the demands of following Jesus were too much, we might have turned back but soon realised we were always loved and accepted and forgiven for whatever wrong we did and we started off again trying to be faithful.

Ultimately, faith is not simply a set of ideas to be held on to. It is a living relationship with a person, Jesus. This relationship – through the Mass, prayer, the sacraments, and the help of the powerful Holy Spirit – we can grow and deepen our relationship. There are many people in our world who don’t follow Jesus: Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews etc. Many of them have been brought to a high degree of union with God through their faith.

We have been chosen to follow Jesus. Experience teaches us that all Jesus promises in the gospels have been confirmed in our lives. No other vision has given us a meaning for life as one of Jesus has. Personally, I value His friendship, Hiis accepting of my weaknesses, and helping me to get up again when I fall. Like Peter, I, too, can honestly say “Lord to whom shall I go, you have the message of eternal life. I believe and I know that you are the Holy One of God”. What about you? Will you stay or go away?

“Lord Jesus, give us the powerful Holy Spirit to see that you have the true message for life here on earth and for the next life too. May your Spirit help us to deepen further our personal relationship with you so that by our witness, others may come to know and follow you too. Amen.”

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