Homily for 3d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jan. 27, 2019

Luke 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21
Nativity, D.C.
Our Lady of Lourdes, Bethesda, Md.                      

I’m tardy posting this homily that was delivered twice last weekend—from a handwritten text that I was able to type out only on Wednesday.  We moved from Silver Spring to College Park on Saturday, and matters therefore were rather chaotic, on top of which I had to make a 2-day trip to New Rochelle on Monday and Tuesday.  So, at last, here’s last weekend’s homily.

“That you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received, most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1: 4).

St. Luke (Rogier Van Der Weyden)

In the 1st lines of his gospel, St. Luke tells us what he intends to do, and how.  He addresses his account of Jesus’ life, teachings, passion, and resurrection—and his 2d book, the Acts of the Apostles—to someone named Theophilus.  We don’t know whether this is a single, real person, or Luke is using a literary device to speak to everyone who will read his book.  For the name Theophilus means “Lover of God.”  Therefore, brothers and sisters, if you love God, St. Luke is writing for you.  When we proclaim his gospel, he’s speaking to you.  And to me too, of course.

What’s his announced purpose?  “That you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.”  What you’ve heard about Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the crucified Christ, Jesus the risen Savior, what “you have received,” i.e., not just heard but taken in and made your own—these teachings are certain.

Luke was a companion of St. Paul on some of his missionary journeys and learned the Good News of Jesus from him.  But he says he also consulted “eyewitnesses” of all that Jesus said and did “from the beginning” (1:1-2).  Tradition holds that Luke was a physician, based on what St. Paul wrote in Colossians 4:14.  Thus he should have had a scientific mind, one that questions and investigates evidence, not just of a medical variety but also of other matters like the truth of what Paul preached, of what we as Christians believe.

“The teachings” we have received thru Luke’s gospel, and the other sacred writings of our Scriptures, and the Tradition of Christ’s Church, come down to this:  Jesus Christ suffered death and rose from the tomb that we, following him, might be restored to the grace of a relationship with his Father (which means our sins are forgiven) and enjoy that relationship forever in eternal life.

Luke presents us today with the start of Jesus’ teaching.  He says 1st that Jesus preached in synagogs all over Galilee, his native country.  And then he came to his home town, Nazareth.  We don’t know from Luke’s account whether Jesus asked specifically for the Isaiah scroll that he read from, or whether it was some sort of assigned reading for the day, as we have in our lectionary.  In any case, Jesus selected the particular passage to read, and so announced his program, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  (Luke has already reported on Jesus’ baptism and the Spirit’s coming upon him, spiritually anointing him with wisdom and power.  When today’s passage says, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” [4:14], he’s coming from his baptism and his temptations in the desert.)

So now Jesus quotes from Isaiah about his Spirit-led mission of liberation, light, glad tidings, and acceptance by God.

The ultimate oppression of humanity is sin.  We witness it in the headlines every day, and all too often we experience it in our personal lives.  We are poor, not materially but spiritually.  Jesus says he’s come “to bring glad tidings to the poor” (4:18), and that means us.  Christ comes to enrich us by freeing us from our sins, empowering us to go free (ibid.) in lives of virtue, and ultimately to be freed from the darkness of death.

You, lovers of God, “may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received,” because they flow from Jesus Christ, who conquered death—as “eyewitnesses from the beginning” testified, and countless saints have borne witness by their own lives and their own experiences of the living Jesus for 2 millennia.

Your participation in this Eucharistic celebration, your participation in the sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood, is your response to that testimony, that teaching; and a sign of your yearning for the liberation Jesus offers, for his eternal life; and a sign of your commitment to be a witness of Jesus in your own life.