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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
As the LORD spoke to me, the spirit entered into me
and set me on my feet,
and I heard the one who was speaking say to me:
Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites,
rebels who have rebelled against me;
they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day.
Hard of face and obstinate of heart
are they to whom I am sending you.
But you shall say to them: Thus says the LORD GOD!
And whether they heed or resist—for they are a rebellious house—
they shall know that a prophet has been among them.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (2cd) Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.
To you I lift up my eyes
who are enthroned in heaven —
As the eyes of servants
are on the hands of their masters.
R. Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.
As the eyes of a maid
are on the hands of her mistress,
So are our eyes on the LORD, our God,
till he have pity on us.
R. Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.
Have pity on us, O LORD, have pity on us,
for we are more than sated with contempt;
our souls are more than sated
with the mockery of the arrogant,
with the contempt of the proud.
R. Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for his mercy.
Brothers and sisters:
That I, Paul, might not become too elated,
because of the abundance of the revelations,
a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan,
to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.
Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me,
but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is made perfect in weakness.”
I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses,
in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.
Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults,
hardships, persecutions, and constraints,
for the sake of Christ;
for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples.
When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were astonished.
They said, “Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary,
and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?
And are not his sisters here with us?”
And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house.”
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
He was amazed at their lack of faith.
Luke's version: (Lk 4:16)
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the news about him spread throughout the surrounding region. He taught in their synagogues and was glorified by everyone.
Then Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. And when He stood up to read, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began by saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
All spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” they asked.
Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to Me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in Your hometown what we have heard that You did in Capernaum.’ ”
Then he added, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon. And there were many lepersh in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. Yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
On hearing this, all the people in the synagogue were enraged. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him over the cliff. But Jesus passed through the crowd and went on His way. (BSB)
The big surprise here is the blunt way Jeshua introduces himself to the synagogue assembly on this occsasioin of his first (and only?) visit to his home town. Today you'd expect someone to anticipate the reaction anyone setting himself up as a reformist might get in the town he grew up in.
He could have started by recalling the day he went with a bunch of mates down to the Jordan where John was baptising. Not that they expected much; just wanted to see for themselves what this wild preacher was on about.
Most of the lads kept their distance, sitting around and listened, marveling at the enthusiasm of the crowd, chuckling at the preacher's fiery style and sharp barbs, storing bits for the future entertainment of the folks back home. A few decided to take the plunge and get baptised. A couple even realised their need to change their way of thinking, Jeshua among them.
He could have told them how he felt when something strange happened as he was coming up out of the river, some kind of message, almost like a voice, telling him he'd been chosen for a special job. Others heard it too. Something about a mission to preach a revolution.
He could have told them how he could not shake the thought; how he took off to spend a few days on his own, out in the rough country where they said John had been hanging out for years. The few days stretched into weeks, until he was starving. He'd got to the stage of thinking of nothing else but food, day and night, wandering aimlessly around picking at anything that seemed edible. He even managed to catch a few grasshoppers and once followed wild bees to their hive. Even the stones on the ground began to look like bread rolls. If only...
He could have explained how gradually he began to see the situation of the people, God's chosen people, as like a desert where everyone was starving without anyone noticing. Is that what John was about, trying to wake up the leaders and the people? And he started dreaming up ways to get them listening.
Social welfare would be a start, but it doesn't go far enough. An easier life would only end up widening the wants of people and leading to competition and fighting among themselves. People needed something to believe in, like real justice and truth, fairness, a future to hope for, and love that would bind them together rather than drive them apart. Everything, in fact, the prophets had always been calling for - to trust their Father God, trust his love, trust in his plan, and hope each one could make it personal in a good life.
Signs and wonders were only a start, like an advertising tool designed to get people's attention. He felt he shouldn't need them here in his home town where he was well known. His friends would believe in him when he explained his call to take up the roll Isaiah had sketched out for a future prophet.
Of course it did not work out that way when Jeshua omitted the introduction and abruptly launched into a campaign address like any travelling preacher That did not go down well. Luke's account has him being positively provocative, stirring them to real anger, fuelling a riot, and nearly getting himself lynched
This is surely the most egregious set-back Jeshua suffered early in his ministry. He'd just come from Samaritan Sychar where they'd begged him to stay with them, and he'd stayed two days. Back to the region around the lake they'd welcome him, listening hungily to his words, and warmed by the signs of God's mercy he could show them, even on unlikely people. But here at home he was laughed at, threatened, and had to flee for his life.
Writing reflections is really just a matter of sharing our thoughts and insights. I usually start by wondering. I wonder what this means, or that? I wonder why this gospel episode was kept in the record? I wonder about the wider application of this teaching, and how it applies to me, to us, to people anywhere in our modern world?
So why was this little account of Jeshua's weekend back home seen as worth preserving? It is found in all the gospels; Matthew follows Mark almost word for word while Luke expands the narrative and makes it very dramatic. He sys Jeshua waas so provocative he caused a riot.
John, on the other hand, makes only passing reference to it. On the way down from Sychar in Samaria(1) to his chosen field of activity around the lake, he would have passed close to Nazareth. That John recalls the proverb that a prophet is not wlecome in his own country might indicate that this was the occasion of that fateful visit to Nazareth, adding that the Galileans [down around Caphanaum] gave him a great welcome.
I wonder what it was about Jeshua's visit that got up the nose of the townsfolk he had grown up with? Were they envious of him? "Where did he get these gifts?" they asked. Or did they feel entitled to special favours because they were his own people? I wonder which is worse?
Clearly, the sense of entitlement is worse than mere feelings of jealousy. In fact, throughout the bible we see that this is one of the major problems to be resolved because it flies in the face of the most basic of all teachings: that no-one is entitled to the gift of God's favour. That gift is given to those whom God chooses, and there is no more room for questioning God's choice than for claiming one's 'noble' birth as an entitlement - as if we could have chosen our parents!
Anyone who feels entitled is presumptuous: "I've done everything right since I was a child; surely I'm entitled to claim my reward." It's a temptation that Jeshua also experienced. In the garden of olives, waiting for the axe to fall, he couldn't help begging for special consideration, but to no avail. As a man he could not presume to get special treatment in the moment of his greatest testing. And in his dying minutes that feeling of familiarity with the Father that John refers to again and again, even that was stripped away and he died emotionally naked. "Father, why have you forsaken me?" And then: "I'm done for..." and he breathed his last.
You can trace this struggle with our sense of entitlement throughout the bible,> At the start we have Cain who killed his younger brother becfause he thought he was entitled to have his sacrifice given priority, given he was the older. Towards the end of he bible we have Paul telling of the struggle he had with his own sense of being special. Why else did he so often, in his letters, protest that he was not especially gifted to explain the mystery of the Christos unless it was to put down very natural feeling of superiority?
It should be no surprise that the people in the village of Nazareth, as Jeshua's native place, felt they had a right to expect some privilege. Apparently, according to Nathaniel, they didn't have much going for them.
You could probably say that a sense of privilege runs through all human affairs. The powerful see it as their right to dominate the weaker.
I wonder how it applies to the Christian Community in this current era? The greatest illness in our communities might be how we take so much for granted. It reminds me of how, in the Book of Revelations, the church of Laodicea is severely castigated: "I would that you were hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm I will vomit you out of my mouth." (Rev 3:17)
A group of people who just pay their dues, go along to meetings and try to look after one another is not the Christian ideal. Like spent uranium rods stored as nuclear waste after serving in a power station reactor, they no longer have enough energy in them to boil water but are dangerous, deadly in fact, for tens of thousands of years. I wonder if a slack church community is not toxic to the people of their town: "See these Christians how they are so sure of themselves but don't care about the town community." It's a commonplace to say that humanists and atheists are doing more for people in need than are religious people in their churches. (We might add, however, that many of the prime movers in those NGOs. are religious people. The issue is complex, but the point is well-made nonetheless.)
I wonder how this applies to me? This comes last but is first priority. It's not for me to prescribe healing exercises for other people unless I start with them myself. To what extent do I presume that my future is secure, in this life and the next because I'm a 'born Catholic', had a catholic education, had a life in the Church and another in a happy family? How aware am I of being totally without merit of myself? Paul sets himself up as an example of what this means. (See second reading.) I am entitled to nothing and must come empty-handed to welcome every least blessing. All I may honestly show is my hunger, my emptiness, my need for love.
Every moment of life is a privilege, every grace a gift given not for me alone but for me to hand on to someone else - a gift for them from the Father, from Jeshua, from the Spirit who is Life and Love. We are not ones chosen to be saved while others can go to hell for all anyone cares. We are ambassadors sent with a message of love for everyone we meet, everyone who is in need of love - and who isn't?
(1) We looked at Jeshua's encounterwith the woman at the well back in Lent: https://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=entry&id=250219