Homily: Monday, 22nd Week in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Readings: 1 Cor 2:1-5; Ps 119; Luke 4:16-30 

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Some people just don’t like to hear the truth. Just look at our Gospel passage from Luke.

Jesus visits his hometown of Nazareth, enters the synagogue, and reads the words of Isaiah. He then makes that amazing claim:

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” [Lk 4:21].

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..."

At first the townspeople looked at each other in amazement, overcome by wonder and pride. Jesus, the young carpenter, the son of Joseph, is one of their own. He grew up and played with their children, went to synagogue with them. But how is it He speaks with such wisdom, such authority?

Nazareth was a small, quiet village, a place where nothing much ever happened, a village on the road to more exciting places. But on this day, the people heard Isaiah – the Word of their Fathers – claimed to be fulfilled right there.

Isn’t this the son of Joseph?

They’d heard of the miracles in Capernaum, the healings, and the crowds and probably hoped He’d do the same in Nazareth – perhaps much more. But they kept thinking: Isn’t this the son of Joseph?

If He’s a prophet, a miracle-maker, shouldn’t His own people be the first to benefit? After all, we’re his people! His family! His friends! God knows there are plenty of sick people here. How about some healings, a miracle or two? Then we’d know God is with him, with Him right here in Nazareth.

But what does Jesus do?

No miracles. Instead, He speaks of Elijah and the famine that spread throughout the country in those ancient days. Although the Chosen People were starving, God sent Elijah to a pagan widow of Zarephath, and it was she and her son whom Elijah miraculously fed.

And no healings. Instead, Jesus speaks of Elisha and the leper God sent him to heal, a pagan from Syria — this when Israel, too, had many lepers.

The people of Nazareth were in that synagogue to see and hear Jesus, this son of Joseph, who had done wondrous things. They hoped to be amazed by His words and to marvel at His mighty deeds. Yes, they wanted the hometown boy to be a prophet who’d bring them signs of God’s favor, one to do their bidding, not God’s.

But instead, Jesus told them stories of God’s grace poured out not on Jews, not on friends and neighbors, but on Gentiles, aliens and unbelievers. 

"...they were filled with fury."

Infuriated, they rose up, drove Him to the brow of a steep hill, hoping to hurl Him off the cliff. No, Jesus wasn’t their kind of Messiah.

Today you and I meet these Nazoreans across a vast gulf of time, traditions, language, and experience… and although these differences are great, perhaps we’re more like them than we know.

We ask for forgiveness when we fail to do God’s bidding, but then demand that he do ours.

We want a just and merciful God, as long as we’re the ones who benefit from his justice and mercy.

A truly omnipotent and omniscient God can be more than a little scary. Much nicer to have our God who conforms to our vision of what God should do.

So many, today, just like the people of Nazareth, want a God they can tame.

For on that day Jesus reminded his friends and neighbors that God’s ways are not our ways. God’s grace cannot be constrained by our boundaries or controlled by our prayers.

When Jesus spoke in the synagogue, he gave notice that his ministry would embrace the stranger and include the outsider. Indeed, He will embrace the sinner, those we’re so sure don’t deserve God’s forgiveness.

It’s a message both confrontational and comforting; a teaching both sharp and hard, and often so difficult to accept, or even hear. This is why so many today find Jesus and His Church unacceptable.

I remember walking with thousands of others on a “walk for life” in Boston many years ago. It was a peaceful event. And as we walked down Commonwealth Avenue in support of the unborn, the silence was broken only by the prayers and hymns of the participants…until we reached one corner. There a small group of protesters confronted us and fouled the air, screaming obscenities and blasphemies aimed at Jesus Christ and His Church.

You see, brothers and sisters, Jesus’ Word can be hard, and those who can’t accept and embrace it may find themselves filled with fury and standing on the brow of a hill ready to hurl Him, His message, and His Church headlong off the cliff.

Jesus didn’t go elsewhere because he was rejected; he was rejected because he intended to go elsewhere. That elsewhere beckons us, too; or at least it should, for we too are called. We have heard God’s Word. It has been fulfilled in our hearing. We are called to travel on hard paths, and to take up our cross, carrying it with us as we go.

How did Paul put it?

“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” [2 Cor 2:2]

This is our God – our crucified and risen Lord, the God who lives, still bearing the wounds of His love.

This is our God, not a God to be tamed or controlled, but a God to be loved, a God who demands our complete trust.

This is our Christian calling, to abandon ourselves in trust, to abandon ourselves into His hands, allowing His will and not ours to be done in our lives.

To the world it appears as weakness; but believe me, it can be the hardest thing you will ever do.

The question is: Are you and I willing to do it?