Perhaps you don’t do it.  But I find myself holding my breath inadvertently when I am asking someone an important question, or when I am awaiting the answer to an important question. It’s not so they’d notice, but I notice it.  When I went back to the dermatologist after he’d removed some suspicious moles and cells from my shoulders and arms.  Is it cancer? (I’m fine) And you hold your breath.  When the surgeon comes out of operating room and you ask “How did it go?”  When my niece finished a job interview that would move her back to St. Louis, knowing that my brother and his wife would probably eventually follow – you hold your breath waiting for the answer. (didn’t happen) I suspect every man or woman who got down on the knee in whatever kind of romantic scenario they had cooked up and asked their friend to become their spouse – they all held their breath waiting the answer to their most important question.  It seems to be a human trait – we hold our breaths awaiting answers to important questions.

     Sometimes these important questions have all kinds of subtleties to them, all kinds of nuances that you’d better pay attention to when answering.  It is right many times to resist an either/or thinking that comes with simple questions. (Like those ones that come at the end of some of those e-mail forwards – IF YOU LOVE JESUS, you’ll pass this on.  I don’t know if that is the only way I can show Jesus I love him…)

But other times, it is that simple.  Other times, it does come down to an either/or kind of choice.  Those times, you hold your breath as you wait for an answer.  In today’s 1st reading and gospel, we have two examples of those devastatingly simple kinds of questions.  Joshua, having led the people in their conquest of the land of Canaan, now has the people answer his question before they ‘take ritual ownership over the land.  Jesus, having spoken in unsettling and visceral terms about him being the bread of life and needing to eat his flesh and drinks his blood, experiences people leaving.  So he poses his yes/no question to the disciples. And in both cases the invitation is really the same:  Whom will you serve?  Whom will you follow? 

   But here is the catch, and here is why I imagine Joshua and Jesus holding their breath after they ask that most important question of their followers:  It is so easy to say:  “Of course, I serve God.  Of course, he is the one whom I follow.  Of course I believe in Jesus as the bread of life.  How could I leave him?  How could I go somewhere else?  But the real question is:  Is this TRUE?  Is this true, not just as an intellectual assent, but in a practical, pragmatic, it shows up in my life way?

   The American philosopher, William James would ask:  What is the cash value to our answer?  If our “Yes” means something, then it will show up in our lives.  Can you show me that your yes means something?  Are your behaviors different because of your answer? Is there a pragmatic and visible application to your response to the question?  Then you have said yes.  Then it means something.  Your behaviors convey the cash value.  Not your words. 

So, it is time to be honest with these devastatingly simple questions in your prayer this week.  What stands in the center of all you are and do and choose?  What is the ultimate concern in your life?  Some of the disciples of Jesus hit this wall and ‘return to their former way of life.”  Family, job, career, the comfortable life – all these things are good things – worthy things, wonderful things.  But they are not God.  They can’t be the center if you desire to know the life that Jesus wants for you. 

   As you begin your college career or perhaps another semester in the saga of higher education, it is a great time answer this question anew.  So this week, put yourself into that crowd on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Hear Jesus as he asks YOU that question – whom will you serve?  Whom will you follow – and then hear him as he holds his breath – waiting.  Wanting.  Desiring.  Listen this week to Jesus as he holds his breath, waiting for you to behave your response to that most important question…