How many times have you been
disappointed by someone you admired? Perhaps growing up you had a friend who
disappointed you in some way as you grew older. Did you ever experience a
teacher that you thought was going to be mesmerizing but who fizzled with the first
sentence that came out of his or her mouth? What about a political leader you
thought was going to save the city, the state, the nation, and you ended up
voting for the other party? I find parishioners are very lenient with us
priests who may disappoint the congregation but, unless the priest is totally
outrageous, people will continue to at least abide.
In today’s Gospel (Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"), the people of
Jesus’ home town became very disappointed with him in very short order. One
moment they are cheering him; the next they are ready to kill him. Luke doesn’t
explain much of it to us. But it happens quickly, like this. Jesus speaks in
the synagogue and receives their adulation. But then they expect he will work a
miracle of some sort such as he has already done for people of other towns. But
Jesus cites two examples of miracles from the Old Testament which occurred
because the people for whom the miracles happened believed that God had
effected the miracle. The miracles happened to non-believers who were open to
the possibility of God’s work in their lives. Jesus goes so far as to claim
that such miracles couldn’t happen for many believers in his home town because they are not open
to God’s will in their lives. This incenses the crowd and they want to kill
him.
What Luke seems to want us to know,
and this is almost the same as what Jeremiah wants us to know in the first
reading, is that too often we seem to have decided that we know how God works
and usually we think God works for us in ways that we ourselves determine. We
often seem to decide what God can do and cannot, what he thinks and what he
does not. But God is constantly surprising us. Certainly Jesus did. He was
looking for believers who were open to God working in their lives in ways in
which God, not the individual, would determine. They would remain faithful to
God and not be moved by only the superficial.
It all comes together in the second
reading. The attitude which we must have is love. The question in the Gospel is
whether or not the people of Jesus’ home town have the aptitude for love. What
occurs there is so very early in the ministry of Jesus. Yet it is a sign of
things to come. Jesus preaches a message that is first accepted and then later
rejected. Faith in Jesus is not as easy as we would always like to think. Can
we open ourselves enough to drink in all the possibilities Jesus has to offer
to us?
Blessed John Henry Newman wrote
that “we do not love because we believe, for the devils believe, yet do not
love. Nor do we love because we hope, for hypocrites hope, who do not love. But
we love for no cause beyond itself: we love because it is our nature to love;
and it is our nature, because God the Holy Spirit has made it our nature.”
The people of Jesus’ home town seem
to have been unable to love anyone but themselves. If Paul’s description of
love in the second reading bears any meaning at all, then our aptitude for
love has to be very broad indeed. Jesus never condemns the folks who reject him.
Can we ourselves love those who do not love us?
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