Saturday, January 30, 2016

Homily: 4th Sunday of OT 2016 - This scripture is fulfilled in your hearing

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” When Jesus spoke those words in the synagogue of his home town, there was amazement at his claim.  His listeners immediately knew that Jesus was quoting from the prophet Isaiah about what the Messiah would accomplish when he appeared. There, in his home town, Jesus was essentially claiming to be the long-awaited-for Messiah.  All the Nazarene’s hopes for a Messiah, their centuries worth of waiting, were coming to fulfillment, and they were amazed. Finally, hope had come.

So, how did they go, so quickly, from amazement to fury? How did they go from seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of their hope of salvation to attempting to murder him, right then and there, leading him to the top of a hill to throw him headfirst to his death?

Well, after their initial excitement and amazement, they began to “put two and two together”, they began to consider how his message applied to them.

Last week, we heard part one of his message. Jesus stood in the synagogue and said, “the spirt of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me to bring glad tiding to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recover of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.” And so the people of Nazareth began to think, if he has come to preach to the poor, does that mean we are poor? If he came to give sight to the blind, did he just call US blind? Is he saying that we are poor, captive, blind, and enslaved?
And the tension began to build as they started to question his credentials. How can he be the Messiah, he’s Joseph’s son, he’s the son of carpenter!

If you are really the Messiah “do here what you did in Capernaum, turn our water into wine, perform miracles for us!” Their initial amazement had changed into a scrutiny of Jesus. They begin to sound a lot like Satan out in the desert, “If you are really the Messiah, turn these stones into bread”. 

If the Messiah really had come, what would have been the proper response? They should have been jumping up and down in excitement over his arrival.  Saying to Him, “Messiah, Lord, show us the way to salvation!” They would sing as we did in the Psalm today: “In your justice rescue me, and deliver me; incline your ear to me, and save me” And yet what did they do. They begin to discredit him, demand of him that he conforms to their will. Did they want a Messiah or did they want a magic show? Did they want salvation or entertainment? And when he claims that the widow of Zaraphath and Naaman the Syrian, a non-Jew, had more faith than they were showing right now, the tension, the fury really starts to build.

He had come to save them, and free them, and cure them.  But the first step in following him, was recognizing their need for him, and they wanted none of that.  They didn’t not want to change. And so their hard-heartedness bubbled into a steaming rage, and they sought to murder him. 

This drama played out again over and over in the Gospels: Jesus offers a word of challenge and people become furious over his teaching and seek to kill him.  After the Pharisees refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, they plotted to kill Him.  The people of Jerusalem who had cried out their “Hosannas” as Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, cried out in the courtyard of Pontius Pilate’s palace “crucify Him, and give us Barabbas” we prefer a murderer and a traitor to this man.
Again, is this just a story of what happened in a remote middle-eastern country two thousand years ago? Doesn’t this very drama play out in our own lives all the time?

So often we want the Jesus on our terms instead of his own. We want a Jesus that heals us without the Jesus who challenges us. We want Jesus to perform miracles instead of liberating us from our sins.  We want paradise without the cross, heaven without conversion.

The people of Nazareth were willing to accept Jesus up to a point, but when it meant repenting and changing, they simply said, “NO”.  We’ll accept what you say Jesus to a point, but beyond that “No”. And from that “no” to the will of God, the “no” of “putting aside childish things” as St. Paul said in the first reading, comes anger and violence.

I can’t count how many times I’ve witnessed anger over the Church’s moral teachings—even from members of my own family.  Who is the Church to tell us how to live? Who is the Church to tell us we can’t use contraception, we can’t live together before marriage, we have to go to Mass on Holy Days of Obligation, who is the Church to tell me I have to confess my mortal sins to a priest if I want to receive Holy Communion? Never is the role reversed: never is asked, who am I to question God, who am I to ignore the teaching of the Church who Christ has authorized to teach in his name? So often it is that hard-heartedness, that inflexibility, that resistance to give up our sins, that is the source of anger towards God and the Church.

And given fallen human nature that’s partially understandable: it is not easy to admit, “boy, I have been blind and enslaved to my own passions. I’ve wanted my way instead of God’s way.”  Admitting we are wrong takes a deal of humility, and our proud egos resist humility. I think this is why Jesus explains that the very first step in following him, is one of humility. The very first beatitude, the very first condition for entrance into the kingdom of heaven is to become poor in spirit, recognizing our need for God and our need to repent of our sins, to accept not just some of Jesus’ teachings but all of them.
There is a tendency to say, I couldn’t possibly give Christ everything, that’s for people like Saint Francis, Mother Theresa, and Saint Paul, that’s for Christians of the middle ages, or the early Church.  I came across a beautiful quote this week, from a Russian Saint, St. Nilus, who speaks of the tendency to exempt ourselves from fully living of the Christian faith, and the importance of following the example of the saints. He said, “It is my conviction that if it is by God’s will that we are gathered together, then we should be faithful to the traditions of the saints and the holy fathers and to our Lord’s commandments, instead of seeking to exempt ourselves by saying that nowadays it is impossible to live according to the Scriptures and the precepts of the fathers.  We are weak indeed, but we must nevertheless follow, according to the measure of our strength, the example of the blessed and venerable fathers.”

In just a week and a half we will begin once again the great season of Lent.  Lent is meant to be a season of change and growth and repentance.  If at all possible, come to daily Mass throughout Lent, or at least reflect on the daily scripture readings which are printed in our bulletin. Hear and read what the Lord has to teach us in that Holy Season. Allow the Scriptures of Lent to be fulfilled in you. What amazing things the Lord could do in our parish, if we all sat down for 10 minutes daily with the scripture readings and asked the Lord, “what are you saying to me through these scriptures, how are you challenging me, what spiritual growth do you want for me?” There was a very venerable Italian exorcist, who would say, “you can do nothing more useful for yourself than to dedicate yourself to the sacred scriptures”.  Before picking up the television remote this Lent, pick up the Scriptures, and allow the Lord to speak to you.


As the Lord comes to us in Word and Sacrament at this Holy Mass, may we open our hearts entirely to him, more than we ever have before, to allow him to shape us, reform us, change us, and strengthen us for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

No comments:

Post a Comment