promise keeper

Joshua 24:1-18; Ps 34 Taste and see the goodness of the Lord; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69

I have been thinking over the past week or so about what makes the world go around.  What sustains us and holds us together?  What makes it possible for us to coexist?

My mind has kept coming back to one reality: the ability to make a promise and keep a promise.

Making and keeping promises is at the heart of every human relation from marriage and friendship to our economy and political life.

We ask judges swear an oath to guard the justice.  We ask Politicians to up hold the constitution.  We ask doctors to make an oath to first do no harm.  Our soldiers make oath to protect the country. We ask couples to promise to be true no matter the circumstance.  As a priest I was asked to be celibate and to pray for the people of God.

Our world is balanced on promises made and kept.  Harmony rest on the power of the word spoken.

To make a promise is to lift oneself above the change ability of time.  I say now what I will do tomorrow for no other reason than because I said it.

It is this that creates an environment that is reliable and where reliability lives so does love and the willingness to give oneself and thus become vulnerable.

Nothing disrupts human coexistence more than breaking a promise or being unfaithful to a pledge,  going back on one's word.

Harmony is brought about by promises made and promises kept.


This reality is at the very heart of the first reading for this weekend.  Joshua gathers the people together at Shechem and asks them to choose who they will serve: The Lord God or other gods.

Unfortunately our english translation loses a bit of the importance of what Joshua is saying.  Joshua is using two distinct words in hebrew for "god."  As you read the text and you come across the word "god" in lower case, the hebrew is Elohim.  When you come across the word "LORD God" then that herbrew word is YHWH, the tetragram that is the very name of God himself.

Elohim is a word used to describe a generic god with no name. Where as YHWH is reserved for the God's own revelation of his name to Moses in the burning bush.  YHWH means "I am who am or I prove to be who I prove to be."

At the burning bush God reveals is personal name to Moses as the God of Abraham, ISaac, JAcob.  God was no longer bound to a particular place but rather he now binds himself to a particular people.  The destiny of a people now sits firmly on the shoulders of God himself.

IT was this God who saw the affliction of his people, who heard their cries, who would rescue them, who would send Moses and would be with him every step of the way.

When YHWH reveals his name in the same moment he invokes a promise to bind himself to the destiny of these people forever.  He surrenders his name so that he might engender trust and thus create a relationship of reliability.

God, YHWH, the one who is, would be true, be near, would not waver.

As Joshua gathers the people in Shechem, instantly the people would recall that is was in that very spot that Abraham had built an altar to God (Genesis 12:7) and it was there that God revealed to Abraham that this land would be given to his descendants.

These very descendants were now gathered in that very place destined to be theirs 400 years earlier by God himself.

God indeed had proven to be who he said he was.  God's word and promise were the same.

God had made a promise and kept it.  This is why the people are so eager to voice their loyalty to him, YHWH and not the other gods, elohim.

Harmony in the spiritual realm also revolves around promises made and kept.  God keeps his promises.

His word is true and reliable.

This is what Peter realizes int he gospel when he saids those words, "Lord whom shall we go.  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced you are the Holy One of God."

The doctrine of the Eucharist, the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine is trustworthy and reliable because of the word of Him who makes it so.

Peter understood this.

The one who claims to give his flesh for the life of the world.  The who tells us unless we eat the flesh and drink the blood we will have no life within  us.  The one who tells us his flesh is true food and blood true drink, this is the one whose words are eternal life.

The promise is given and kept every time we celebrate the Eucharist and gather at the table.  We remember that though our word may waiver, his word is true  and reliable.