The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 3, 2013
The Jesus who went home to Nazareth in today’s
gospel was not the same Jesus who had left there. He was a changed man
changed by experiences both dazzling and harrowing. He had left Nazareth and
followed the crowds to the Jordan where he had been baptized by John and seen
the heavens open up and the Holy Spirit descending on him. And he had
heard his Father’s voice from heaven: “You are my son, my beloved one. My
favor rests on you.” That was more than enough to change a man!
But there had been even more: from the lofty
pinnacle of his baptism, he descended into a dark valley: forty days of fasting
in the desert, forty days of prayer and struggle that culminated in a terrible
encounter with the Evil One who tried to divert him from his mission, enticing
him with temptations that must have seemed so very sensible, temptations to use
his gifts and his powers for his own advantage -- to turn stones into bread, to
turn the whole world into a kingdom for himself. In other words, temptations to
turn God into a magician or to redefine God in terms of radical selfishness.
And to each of those temptations – at what cost we can only guess -- Jesus had
said “no,” and that “no” must have steeled him for that one great “yes” that
still lay in his future.
So, yes, the Jesus who returned to Nazareth was
indeed a changed man. Nazareth may have been home, but there really was no going
home for him now: no returning to the way things used to be, and certainly no
pandering to the hometown crowd by telling them things to make them feel good.
No, instead, he took them to places the prophets had always taken God’s people:
uncomfortable places, scary places. And they took him to the brow of the
hill on which their town was built, determined to hurl him off the precipice.
Some homecoming! It hadn’t started out that
way. Luke’s account of Jesus’ return to Nazareth indicates that the
people’s first reaction to him was positive. “All spoke well of him…they
were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But when he
began to invade their comfort zone: when he went beyond reading stirring
prophetic words from Isaiah to speaking pointed prophetic words of his own,
amazement quickly turned to indignation and then to fury.
No surprise there. Prophets don’t usually play
well at home. Who was Jesus to remind them of how, because of people’s
hard-heartedness, the great prophets Elijah and Elisha had worked their great
wonders for outsiders only, unworthy outsiders, heathen foreigners? Who
wants to hear a message like that? The people of Nazareth certainly
didn’t. And we probably wouldn’t have, either. And yet it is a recurring
message in all the scriptures, including the gospels.
St. Luke’s gospel, which we will read for much of
this new year, is literally loaded with stories of God favoring outsiders, of
outsiders becoming insiders. It’s a central theme of his gospel. Think of
the shepherds who were first at the manger, or of the tax collectors and
prostitutes who dined at table with Jesus, or of that band of women disciples
who followed Jesus to minister to him. Outsiders, each one of them.
Or think of the Good Samaritan of the parable, or of the Prodigal Son, or of the
good thief who stole heaven from the cross, or of the Roman Centurion who found
faith at the foot of the cross. Outsiders each one of them, but insiders for
Jesus.
But Jesus is not the only prophet in today’s
readings. Jesus the prophet is paired with Jeremiah the prophet.
Jeremiah’s call, like Jesus’ call, had come to him while he was still in his
mother’s womb – a way of saying that his call was woven right into his very
being. Unlike Jesus, he tried to resist it – pleading youth and ignorance
– but to no avail. “I will be with you,” the Lord God had said, “I will
put my words in your mouth.” And what were the words God put into his
mouth? Hard words, disturbing words, anything but comforting words.
“State my case against my own people,” said the Lord. “Brace yourself.
Stand up and speak to them. Confront them by telling them everything I bid
you…They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I
am with you to deliver you.”
You see why today’s first and third readings belong
together. Do you suppose that Jesus, driven from his hometown synagogue on
that wave of fury, his own townspeople clamoring for his life – do you suppose
he thought of Jeremiah and his lot? It’s hard to think he didn’t.
But he must also have taken comfort in God’s promise to be with him.
The call to be prophet. It’s our call, too:
given us on the day of our baptism. And it’s a call that can take us to Jeremiah
kind of places and Jesus kind of places, places where we’d probably rather not
go, places that will stretch us, and cost us, and catapult us beyond our comfort
zone – as when, for instance, we take a stand for the value of human life – each
and every human life from the womb to the tomb; or when we advocate in favor of
stricter control on assault weapons; or when we speak out against the death
penalty, or speak up on behalf of the poor or the mentally ill.
The possibilities are many and the likelihood is
that answering the prophetic call will bring us more grief than comfort – just
like with Jeremiah and with Jesus. It will make our lives less
comfortable, not more. Yet it is our call – our baptismal call -- and God says
to us as God said to them, “I will be with you…I will put my words in your
mouth!”
Father Michael G. Ryan
