The world loves the easy way out. A great shortcut. A real timesaver. We all love something that saves us time, makes life easier, gets us out of a hard situation. Because life is hard and we’re really busy, right? I mean, who has the time? That’s why the Waze app is so popular. A shortcut on every trip!

Too bad life doesn’t come with a Waze app that helps us through life’s difficulties with an easy way out of those hard times. Less hard, more easy… that’s what we need. 

In the Gospel today, the disciples are staring straight at hard with no shortcuts. Over the last four weeks, Jesus has fed the 5,000, cured the sick, taught the masses, and preached about the bread of life. This part of the Gospel is called the Bread of Life Discourse and it ends with today’s reading… and it ends with a bang. Last week, Jesus doubled down on the, “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” and this week some of his followers promptly walk away leaving Jesus and the twelve. 

Well, all these years later, we know what he meant by the Bread of Life, right? His Body and Blood is the Eucharist. But the disciples back then were not sure and said among themselves, “This saying is hard, who can accept it?” But Jesus did not back off, he doesn’t suggest some easier happy path… because he’s not just talking about the Eucharist, he’s talking about the road to salvation in its totality. Following Jesus appears hard. 

But I am here to tell you that it’s really not. Maybe compared to what society has told us and sold us, how products make life easier, how that vacation makes life better… compared to that following Jesus may lookhard. 

But let’s think about that. Who really did the hard work in this getting to heaven thing? Well, he did! He’s the one who stretched out his arms on that cross… his arms where really ours should be. It was my sins, your sins, the sins of the whole world that got nailed to the cross so that we could gain God’s forgiveness. There was no easier way for Jesus to do it either, so he took the hardest route to gain our salvation. So that we could bask in his mercy. So that we could reach heaven. And doesn’t that make our journey easier? He took those nails, so we didn’t have to. 

After some of his followers left, Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” And Peter, the rock said, “Master, to whom shall we go?” Peter knows it’s hard, he knows there are no shortcuts, and he affirms his commitment. “You are the Holy one of God” he said. And finally, Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life.” Peter gets it. The Bread of Life, his flesh and blood, this Eucharist is not a symbol of his body, it is not a representation of his body, it is spiritual food given to us by Jesus Christ. And it is in fact, his real Body and Blood. Peter comes to see what Jesus was getting at, that the Eucharist, this bread of life is the spiritual food that feeds us on our journey to heaven. 

Jesus wants us to partake in the Eucharist and all the Sacraments. He has shown us the way to get to heaven. He has taught us how to avoid the empty promises of this world, how not to get swept up in the currents that carry us off track. He has spelled out a route to heaven. And you know what? It’s not hard when he is with us every step of the way, and he fortifies us by the Eucharist, his superfood. 

But we have to answer that same question in our lives that the disciples did. “Do you also want to leave?” The first reading today has a similar question when Joshua asks, “Whom will you serve?”

When our road is hard, we have a choice to make. Thankfully, he has done the hard work for us. We just need to follow his path, resist temptations that we all face, and stick to his plan. Even when others say we don’t need to. We know better and we choose to follow him.  

Joshua summed it up plainly when he emphatically said, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” That’s the path I want. That’s the life I want. That’s the superfood I want to fortify me. I’ll take his peace, blessings and grace over anything the world says I need, or the world’s supposed easier path. 

“Master, to whom shall we go?” To only you Lord.