A reflection on Luke 4:16-30 for Monday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time.
There is a particular kind of discomfort that comes when I am listening to a homily and suddenly realize I would prefer the priest to move on to another topic.
A few minutes earlier, I may have been nodding along quite happily. Yes, forgiveness is important. Yes, we should love our neighbor. Yes, we should care for the poor. Lovely. Then the homily gets specific enough that I recognize myself in it, and suddenly I am less enthusiastic.
Apparently, the Gospel is wonderful right up until it starts interfering with my opinions.
That is part of what happens in Nazareth.
Jesus goes to the synagogue in his hometown and reads from Isaiah: good news for the poor, liberty for captives, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed. At first, everyone speaks well of him. They are amazed by his gracious words.
Then Jesus keeps talking.
He reminds them of two stories from their own Scriptures. During a famine, Elijah was sent to a widow in Zarephath, a foreigner. Elisha healed Naaman, a Syrian. In both stories, God’s mercy reaches beyond Israel.
The crowd does not take this well.
Their admiration turns to rage so quickly that they drive Jesus out of town and try to throw him off a cliff.
That is quite a change in parish feedback.
What happened?
Jesus touched the place where their faith collided with their sense of privilege. They were willing to hear about God’s goodness. They were less willing to hear that God’s goodness might extend to people they considered outsiders.
I wish I could dismiss their reaction as something belonging to another time and place. But I recognize the impulse.
I like mercy when I am the one receiving it. I am sometimes less generous when mercy is offered to someone I believe should know better.
I like the idea that every person has dignity until the person in front of me is irritating, difficult, politically opposed to me, or responsible for something I strongly condemn.
I like Jesus welcoming outsiders until he seems to be welcoming someone I would rather keep at a safe distance.
That is when the sermon gets personal.
The Gospel has a way of moving past our general principles and asking about the actual people in our lives. It is easy to say we believe in forgiveness. It is harder when someone’s name immediately comes to mind. It is easy to say we should welcome the stranger. It becomes more complicated when welcoming the stranger requires our time, resources, patience, or willingness to rethink an assumption.
Sometimes our irritation can be spiritually useful.
If a Scripture passage, homily, or person makes me defensive, I have learned that it can be worth asking why. Not every criticism is correct. Not every uncomfortable statement comes from God. But discomfort can reveal the places where I have built a little fence around my heart.
The people of Nazareth knew their Scriptures. They attended synagogue. They recognized the prophet Isaiah. Yet when Jesus used those same Scriptures to challenge the boundaries they had placed around God’s grace, they refused to hear him.
Religious familiarity did not protect them from resistance.
It does not protect us either.
We can attend Mass for decades, know the prayers by heart, and still discover that Jesus is asking us to reconsider something. We can be faithful Catholics and still carry prejudices, resentments, blind spots, and assumptions that need to be brought into the light.
Perhaps one sign of spiritual growth is becoming a little less concerned with whether the homily pleased us and a little more willing to ask what God might be saying through it.
The Gospel is not meant simply to reassure me that I am already on the right side of everything.
Sometimes it comforts me.
Sometimes it encourages me.
And sometimes it looks me straight in the eye and says, “Yes, I am talking to you.”
Prayer
Jesus, give me a heart willing to hear you even when your words challenge me. Help me recognize the places where I have drawn boundaries around your mercy or decided too quickly who belongs. When I become defensive, give me enough humility to ask why. Let your Word do more than comfort me. Let it change me. Amen.
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