Luke 4:21-30 Jesus began speaking in the synagogue, saying: Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, "Isn't this the son of Joseph?" He said to them, "Surely you will quote me this proverb, 'Physician, cure yourself,' and say, 'Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.'" And he said, "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away.
Before beginning this reflection there are two things that need to be made perfectly clear for my own safety. First, I am not a prophet and second, this is not my native place. Just to be really sure I also looked at the topology of the local area and realized there aren't too many brows of a hill around that you could cast me off to kill me so with that in mind I let’s begin.
We should set the stage for today by a quick recap of last week's Gospel reading, Jesus is in Nazareth, the place where he grew up, he is in the synagogue there and he has just read this scripture from Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
Then Jesus states that this has been fulfilled in His reading of it today. As a prophet, Jesus begins today’s gospel with a mighty proclamation - that His sermon inaugurates the time of fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy. Jesus is stating that he is the one, he will fulfill the hopes and expectations of the people. For those present in the synagogue that day someone claiming to be the one from the prophecy is a really big deal. They expected some grand king or military leader to deliver them yet here is Jesus, the son of a carpenter. So far, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4, we have only heard of Jesus’ birth, presentation in the temple, finding in the temple, his baptism, and temptation and here we are at today’s Gospel reading. Nothing hinting that Jesus is a great military leader or earthly king.
This also brings to another point to clear up that struck me as odd as I read this. Further along in today's Gospel, we hear Jesus say: “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” Except Jesus has yet to go to Capernaum as of this Gospel. If you read the verses right after today’s Gospel, it is then that Jesus finally goes to Capernaum, so what gives? If we research this we will find that Luke used Mark as one of his sources while writing his Gospel. In Mark, we don’t see this story until chapter 6. Luke has transposed this story prior to his journey to Capernaum and if we listened carefully we heard Jesus also say “you will quote me”. Scholars believe this language was used here to portray Jesus as a prophet foretelling of what was soon to come.
This all sounds so fantastic and wonderful to us when we hear it today, Jesus is the savior, He is here now, but notice the transition through this story as Luke tells it. After this bold proclamation, everyone still speaks highly of him and his words are gracious but very soon, when they realize Jesus will do no major miraculous healings that day they want to toss him off a cliff! In Mark’s version, we do see Jesus cure a few sick people, nothing major to wow the crowd, it would have meant something to those sick but no major healings of the deaf or crippled or blind.
The story in Mark spells it out in language much more obvious, that it was due to their lack of faith that no great miracles were performed. These people missed who was standing right in front of them, Jesus, the Christ, the anointed, the Messiah. They missed that. This brings this reflection to us today and I began to wonder how many times we miss “Christ in our midst”? How often do we treat Jesus as just the son of a carpenter named Joseph?
A quick story about how I have done this. It was about nine or ten years ago at my office, keep in mind that where I work is an open-plan office so we can see everyone who sits around us. Well, somebody came into our area and asked my boss a question about her son receiving one of the sacraments. He responded to her to ask Kevin, he’s a big-time Catholic. I thought to myself, good work man, you’re a BIG TIME Catholic. However, before I could even respond, another gentleman from my group, who I’ve sat across from every day for a few years piped in and said: “Kevin’s Catholic? I didn’t even know he was religious”! Talk about a big slice of humble pie served cold! This was a learning moment for me! When I was at work I treated Jesus as just the son of Joseph. I needed to fix this. Some tips that helped me were things like praying as I walk into work or a quick prayer when the phone would ring at my desk, simple things like that.
Another area where we MUST, recognize Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah and the son of God is when we receive the Eucharist. Surprisingly a LOT of Catholics do not really believe in the true presence in the Eucharist. The next time we receive the Eucharist take time before to kneel and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help us realize that we aren’t receiving merely Joseph’s son, no, we must realize we are receiving Christ, priest, prophet, and king, the hope of our salvation, THAT is who receive in the Eucharist. Upon returning to our pew we should be offering prayers of thanksgiving, not watching and judging all those who are also receiving the body of Christ. I must also admit, I’m guilty here as well! Our actions, that others will see, must reflect our beliefs when it comes to the Eucharist, after all, the Catechism states the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”
I found a quote from Thomas Keating that nicely wraps this up:
“When we let go of our private and limited vision, he
who has been hidden from us by our pre-packaged
values and preconceived ideas cause the scales to
fall from our eyes. He was there all the time. Now, at
last, we perceive his Presence. With the transformed
vision of faith, we return to the humdrum routines and
duties of daily life, but now, like Mary Magdalene, we
recognize God giving himself to us in everyone and in
everything.”
who has been hidden from us by our pre-packaged
values and preconceived ideas cause the scales to
fall from our eyes. He was there all the time. Now, at
last, we perceive his Presence. With the transformed
vision of faith, we return to the humdrum routines and
duties of daily life, but now, like Mary Magdalene, we
recognize God giving himself to us in everyone and in
everything.”
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