4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Feb. 3, 2013
Luke 4: 21-30
Ursulines, Willow Dr.,
N.R.
“They rose up and drove him out of the town”
(Luke 4: 29).
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| Nazareth. Superstock Photo. |
It’s an astounding passage. At one moment Jesus’ compatriots are “all
speaking highly of him and are amazed at his gracious words” (4:22), and the
next moment they’re trying to kill him.
Perhaps Luke has conflated more than one episode from Nazareth. Perhaps he’s so drastically synthesized
Jesus’ sermon that we’re missing too much of it to figure out what caused such
a mood swing on the congregation’s part or why Jesus suddenly seems to provoke
them with his remarks about Elijah and Elisha.
In any case, the Synoptics agree that Jesus
wasn’t well received in his hometown, all referencing his family and quoting
Jesus about prophets without honor. Mark
comments: “He wasn’t 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” (6:5-6), and Matthew’s even starker:
“He didn’t work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith”
(13:58).
Perhaps the people of Nazareth resent that he
left them, settled in Capernaum, and was going all over Galilee preaching and
healing. Did they want to keep him and
his powerful preaching and healings for themselves, and make Nazareth a center
of religious pilgrimage (with the fame and the economic advantages
thereof)? Were they jealous that such an
ordinary fellow had suddenly become “somebody,” the way people might get
jealous of a lottery winner or an American
Idol star in their circle of acquaintances?
Jesus’ hometown and even his own family don’t
accept his teaching, the Synoptics agree.
They’re a microcosm of the whole Jewish people, of whom St. John writes,
“He came to his own, and his own didn’t receive him” (1:11). What the Nazarenes attempt, in Luke’s
telling, to kill Jesus (4:29), the whole people as represented by the Sanhedrin
and a mob at Pilate’s court, will succeed in doing.
If the people of Nazareth were jealous of
Capernaum because Jesus had made his home there and was working miracles
there—“Do here in your native place the things that were done in Capernaum”
(4:23)—the people of Capernaum ultimately aren’t any better off than the
Nazarenes. Jesus elsewhere in both Luke
and Matthew denounces the lack of faith of the people of Capernaum, along with
the people of other lakeside towns who haven’t responded to his preaching and
his healings by repenting: “As for you,
Capernaum: ‘Will you be exalted to
heaven? You will go down to the
netherworld.’ For if the mighty deeds
done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this
day. But I tell you, it will be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you” (Matt
11:23-24; cf. Luke 10:15).
Why do we come to Jesus? What do we want from Jesus?
Are we looking for a show, for entertainment,
regarding his miracles as something like watching Houdini or David
Copperfield? That seems to have been
King Herod’s desire: “he had been
wanting to see him for a long time, for he had heard about him and had been hoping
to see him perform some sign,” Luke’s words (23:8), vividly portrayed in Jesus Christ Superstar: “So you are the Christ, the great Jesus
Christ! Prove to me that you’re
divine—change my water into wine,” etc.
(It’s a really catchy tune!)
Are we looking for Jesus to do something for
us? To make our life easier
somehow? To relieve us of our day-to-day
worries? To make someone else easier to
live with?
Assuredly, there are some things we might well
look for from Jesus. When we listen to
the Lord’s call of Jeremiah to be a prophet, we realize that we need courage
and fortitude far beyond our own capabilities to follow our Lord Jesus, whether
as ordinary Christians, as religious, or as priest.
When we listen to St. Paul’s description of
authentic love, we realize how far short of the ideal we fall, how much help we
need to approximate real love.
When we realize that there are things about
ourselves that we need to change, or to have God help us change, then we’re
closer to what Jesus refers to as faith; closer to the behavior of the widow of
Zarephath and of Naaman the leper, who believed and acted upon the words of the
prophets; closer to the repentance that Jesus looked for but didn’t find in
Nazareth, in Capernaum, or in many other villages.
When we realize how much wisdom and generosity
we need to serve others the way Jesus wants us to, then we have something to go
to Jesus to ask for.
Jesus’ words are “gracious” (4:22), literally
“pleasing” or “charming,” but we may also call them “grace-filled,” when we
find in them the power to effect a change in our own hearts—conversion of our
attitudes, thence of our words and actions.
What a miracle that is!
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