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Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
Psalm: Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15,17
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
Gospel: Luke 4:21-30
What happens when people can’t be bothered by the Truth?
In the first reading, God warns Jeremiah that the people will fight against him. Well that news can’t be easy to swallow! In the Gospel, Jesus’ own friends and neighbors run him out of town and try to throw him off the hill their town is built on!
Isn’t it interesting that when God comes into people’s lives, it can be all too easy to reject His Word? Maybe it’s because they like we don’t want to be bothered. We don’t want to mess up our comfortable lives, so we don’t really want to believe what we’re hearing. This can’t be the Truth, right? This can’t be what God is asking of me!
Maybe it’s because we think we’re living a good life – a life rooted in the Spirit. But St. Paul warns us in his letter to the Corinthians that if we exercise faith to move a mountain, but we act without love, then we have nothing! Whoa!
So what is the challenge of love? Love is not something we horde. Love is something we give away – something we share. We act on love. So Jesus gives the people two examples: the widow in Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian. In both examples they were not Jews, but they responded to God’s Word and experienced His mercy and love. In contrast, Jesus tells the people, they are like the Jews of the past who were closed off to God’s Word.
How do the people respond? They say, “isn’t this the son of Joseph?” In other words, they look for reasons to doubt both the message and the messenger. In fact, they are so angry they want to pitch Him off the hill! Why are they so angry? Because the Truth challenges them to respond. What is that response? You can’t keep the love and mercy God showers on you all to yourself. You need to share it with others. How? Remember Jesus’ message that when you love the least of these, you love me.
When you give drink to the thirsty, food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, that’s how we share the love of God with others and in turn how we truly show our love for God. The message that Jesus is giving us today is that we need to respond to God’s love and the way we respond to the Father’s love is to reach out to those around us. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Like we heard last week, we are all part of the Body of Christ. If part of the body is in pain, then we need to reach out to that part of the body and help it. This idea underscores our understanding social justice. Social justice is not just about doing good deeds. Anybody – nonbelievers – can do good deeds. But as Christians, as His disciples, social justice flows out of our belief in the Good News.
So the challenge is not to come up with excuses to avoid the Truth: isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Or, I’m too busy. I don’t have time right now. I’m too old. Or the clergy sex abuse scandal means I shouldn’t trust or help the Church! Let’s face it – all of that is bologna! It doesn’t matter how busy you think you are or how old you are. And we shouldn’t the scandal as an excuse to not live out God’s call in our lives. It’s not because we are perfect that we gather at the table of the Lord. It’s because we are broken and we are sinners that we come together. We gather for God’s mercy and love. So no more excuses!
There’s always a way we can contribute – at minimum through our prayers and financial support, of course, but perhaps there’s other things you can do. Can you help make baby blankets, knit beanies for the homeless, share your professional experience with the Church or a nonprofit organization who needs your help? As the sainted Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Homework! Nourished by Christ in the Word proclaimed and in the Eucharist, let’s reflect on the following two questions:
- First, what is God calling you to do?
- Second, how are you going to respond to God’s love?
We need to draw courage from what Jeremiah says to us today: God will be with us as our strength and ally. Do you get it? Good! May each of us come to know the mercy and the love of Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. +Amen!
Suggested Reading:
- Apostolicam actuositatem, Vatican II document on the laity. That Christian social action, in order to renew the temporal order, is preeminent for the laity. “Lay people ought themselves to take on as their distinctive task this renewal of the temporal order. Guided by the light of the Gospel and the mind of the church, prompted by Christian love, they should act directly in this domain and in their own way. As citizens among citizens they must bring to their cooperation with others their own special competence, and act on their own responsibility; everywhere and always they have to seek the justice of the kingdom of God”.(7)
- Living the Gospel of Life, U. S. Bishops: A Challenge to American Catholics “Real pluralism depends on people of conviction struggling to advance their beliefs by every ethical and legal means at their disposal.”