January 31^st 2016.  Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Luke 4:21-30

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL Luke 4:21-30

Jesus  began to speak in the synagogue, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen’. And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips

They said, ‘This is Joseph’s son, surely?’ But he replied, ‘No doubt you will quote me the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me, “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside”‘. And he went on, ‘I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.

‘There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.’

When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Jesus announces to the people of his own town, Nazareth, that he is the fulfilment of the Old Testament promise of a Messiah. The people do not accept this claim because they believe that they already know everything about him. They saw him grow up as a boy and are convinced that there is nothing more to him than that which their eyes have seen. But there is more to each one of us than our physical attributes or the legacy of our parents! This is even more true of Jesus who is eternally begotten of the Father. But it is also the case with you and me. God knew us and called us even before he formed us in our mothers’ wombs. When we look at our own lives or the lives of others, when we try to understand the word of God, when we seek to discern the will of the Lord in our lives, we must be open to the surprising and mysterious initiative of God! We are a bit like the people of Nazareth in that we think we know how the Lord operates in our lives and in the world. We are wrong! The Lord is operating in us in ways that we do not comprehend, in ways that challenge us and upset us, in ways that shake us out of our prejudiced notions. We must remain constantly open to his work in us, forever cultivating a sense of awe and wonder at his initiatives. This sense of humility, smallness and stupor can assist us in listening to the word of God and applying it in our lives.

Are we the sum total of our physical attributes? Is there nothing more to each one of us than that which other people can see? Or did God give us a nature and a mission that goes back to before we were even formed in our mother’s womb?

The first reading from the prophet Jeremiah is one of great beauty: “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you. Before you were born I consecrated you. I have made you a prophet to the nations”. In the Gospel we read of the reaction of the people of Nazareth to the words of Jesus that we heard in last Sunday’s reading. After reading the Scripture, Jesus declares, “This text is being fulfilled even as you listen”. The people begin to grumble. “This is the son of Joseph. Who does he think he is?” Of course, we know that Jesus was not the son of Joseph at all. Just as the Lord said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb . . .”, also with Jesus there is also a prehistory that is utterly significant. He is the word of God generated from eternity, God from God, light from light. This is actually true in a lesser way for each one of us. Like the prophet Jeremiah, we exist in the conception of God before we are born from our earthly parents. But the people of Nazareth are fixated with their narrow perspective on who Jesus is. They knew him as a baby and as a boy and have seen him work as a carpenter. And that is all they see. “You’re one of us! Who do think you are claiming to be the Messiah? The year of the Lord’s favour is going to begin with you? Sight to the blind? Come on! We know who you are, the son of Joseph, and nothing more.”

How do we read the events of our lives? According to a narrative that we have written ourselves? Or are we open to the utterly surprising work of God in the everyday events around us?

All of us are guilty of focussing too much on the materiality of our lives and failing to be conscious of the fact that we are something greater. In each one of us there is something invisible. In each one of us there is the plan of God which precedes the intentions that our parents had for us. We are not just the sum total of the physical reality that constitutes our visible selves. In Jesus this fact is true in an extraordinary way. The people say to him, “Physician, heal yourself. Why don’t you do here the miracles you did at Capernaum?” As residents of Nazareth, these people are aware that Jesus was born of a girl who had not yet gone to live with the man to whom she was betrothed.  So they say to Jesus, “Sort out the mess of your own life before you try to sort out ours!” In the end, of course, Jesus dies as a sinner and a blasphemer. God dies as a blasphemer! What a curious thing! He is crucified because he declares himself to be the Son of God - the very same issue that has now arisen at Nazareth. This is the issue: do we read the events of life as they are on the surface? Or in a way that is surprising and new?

We cannot be open to the word of God unless we become humble, aware that we do not know it all, open to the surprising initiative of God.

In response, Jesus goes on the attack in a fairly aggressive way. “No prophet is ever accepted in his own country”, he says. Similarly, the prophet Jeremiah was not accepted by his own people. In fact, Jeremiah suffered much persecution and often felt discouraged. Jesus is aware that it is hard to accept a prophecy from someone you know. He then cites two cases that are fairly offensive for his readers. During a great famine, Elijah only assists the widow who is not an Israelite; and in the time of the prophet Elisha, the only leper that is cured is the Syrian, Namaan. Jesus is saying that it is possible to help strangers but impossible to be of assistance to the local people who think they already know everything. It is a fact that the Lord Jesus always comes to us in a way that contests our preconceptions. He wishes to take us beyond the skin of that which we think we can see. In that sense, we must always be “strangers” with him, people who know they have a lot to learn. While we are strangers in a house, we are respectful and sensitive to the ways and needs of the householder. But when we become too familiar with someone, we begin to take things for granted. That is why we must remain “guests” with respect to the word of God. We must remain constantly open to his work in us, constantly cultivating a sense of awe and wonder at his initiatives, considering ourselves to be unworthy guests in the company of the saints and the elect. The sense of humility, smallness and stupor can assist us in listening to the word of God. Why do we begin Mass with the penitential rite? In order to put a negative flavour on proceedings from the outset! No! We do so in order to remember that what God gives us is a gift that we do not deserve. We are always weak. Our “account” with God can never be balanced. We must not place ourselves before God thinking that we know everything. We cannot say, “Come on, do that miracle in front of me here and now”. Before we can arrive at salvation it is often necessary that we experience a setback, a challenge to our prejudices and preconceptions. When we encounter difficulty in life, we become more humble, we become strangers, and we recall that everything is a gift, everything is grace.