OT IV [C] SUNDAY Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31--13:13; Luke 4:21-30.

                  

 It is amazing how quickly people can turn from praising someone or something to reviling them or rejecting their ideas. One little word that touches something that is close to us in our selfishness is all it takes. Jesus’ townspeople received him at first with amazement and praise: “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’” (Lk 4:22). He was our village boy, they thought. So they expected Jesus to use his powers and do some special favor for his own people. After all, they were his own people. When Jesus told them the truth that God has no favorites but relates to all humankind by the same standards, they turned against him in disappointment and ran him out of town.

Prophet Jeremiah preached a contrasting message. It was the tragic element of his life to constantly prophesy judgment, destruction and captivity. So he was contradicted by everyone: by his own family, by the religious leaders, by the king and the common people; he was accused of treason and put in jail. Such severe ill treatment forced him to say, I will not speak anymore in His name, but his faithfulness to God made him go ahead with his task.

When Jesus reminded his towns people of two historical events in Jewish history about Prophet Elijah and Elisha they suddenly changed. During the long years of famine and drought Prophet Elijah was sent to a non Jewish widow, in a Sidonian town. Though there were several lepers in Israel, prophet Elisha cured Naaman, a Syrian.

This was all terribly painful for the Jews of Jesus’ time, because they believed that they were God's chosen and that God's love and favor were manifest only in and among Jews. Jesus' words at Nazareth offended the Jews, because he was reminding them that their belief about God's exclusive favor was baseless.

There is always a temptation for us to think we are superior to others. This danger is very present when we feel blessed by God. When we feel that we possess God, things are beginning to go wrong. We can never possess God, rather he possesses us and that gives us our true dignity.

The people of Nazareth, like most of the “chosen” people of God in Jesus' time, had come to believe in a God made in their own image and likeness. Not the other way around. They believed in an either-or God -- “if God is for us, then he must be against them.” They believed in a God whose beneficence was limited to the “chosen” people. Jesus tells them that such a God does not exist. The true God is equally available to all humanity -- so long as they approach God with faith and trust.

Jesus lived on the margins and moved the margins to include all people, and hence invited hostile crowds to want to edge him out of existence. Today many churches want to edge Jesus out of their worship anytime the margins are made too wide and include many who are not like us.

When the Holy Spirit inspires the Church to broaden its margin to include humans at both ends of life -the unborn and the old and terminally ill, Jesus and Church are rejected as out fashioned. If the Church mitigates the truth, there would be thousands to join it. Do we need a more clearer message than what we get from the first reading that life is God’s and when it begins ? Even before I formed you in the womb I have known you; even before you were born I had set you apart, and appointed you a prophet to the nations!" Any Christian who reads this sentence can never disagree with what Church teaches on life issues.

There is a saying: your concept of God creates you. Our concept of God shapes our life. But on the contrary some people try to shape their God in the way they think and choose God in different churches where God is presented according to their taste. Catholic Church is the most orthodox. The reason is that it is the last church to dilute the divine revealed truths, revealed through the Scripture and tradition. 

We despise people who challenge our cherished myths and kick us out of our comfort zones. The truth is that when Jesus sets about the task of saving us, he has to heal us of any myth or prejudice that is contrary to the spirit of Christ. Billy Sunday was the Billy Graham of a previous generation. He was conducting a crusade in a particular city. In one of his sermons he said something critical of the labor conditions for workers in that area. After the service, several prominent businessmen sent a message to him by one of the local pastors. The message was this---Billy, leave labor matters alone. Concentrate on getting people saved. Stay away from political issues. You’re rubbing the fur the wrong way." Billy Sunday sent this message back to them: "If I’m rubbing the fur the wrong way, tell the cats to turn around."

Scripture warns us that "the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires" (2 Timothy 4:3).

The task of a prophet is to speak and to live out God’s truth. God tells Jeremiah: Do not be afraid of them, speak the truth with courage.  We must never be afraid of this call, for it is Jesus who will supply us with the courage, the words and the deeds we will need to oppose the many evils in our society.

We need to follow Christ, not political correctness, and to speak the truth of Christ without being hypocritical or disrespectful. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to give us the wisdom and courage to witness the truth even when the circumstances are not favorable, even when the people are ready to throw us over the cliff.