July 4, 2021
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
In the Gospel for this Sunday (Mk. 6:1-6) Jesus refers to himself as a prophet. When we hear the word prophet we think of well-known names from the Old Testament, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel. One might wonder what the ministry of Jesus, as the Son of God and Messiah, might have in common with the type of missions that we associate with the other prophets of the Bible. But a comparison with Ezekiel in the First Reading for today gives us a good example.
In the reading from Ezekiel (Ezek. 2:2-5) we hear the prophet describing the way in which he receives a message from God. He describes the power of God, the spirit, entering him and setting him on his feet. Then he hears the voice of God telling him that he is being sent to Israel who has been rebelling against the Lord since the time of their ancestors. And Ezekiel must speak to the Israelites without fear, even though they are bold and stubborn and may offer resistance or threats. God tells Ezekiel, but “whether they hear or resist, they shall know that a prophet has been among them.” (Ezek. 2:5).
When the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem and deported the king of Judah and his royal court (597BC), the prophet Ezekiel was among the first wave of exiles to be captured. Using his psychic powers, he condemned those who remained in Jerusalem and scolded them for continuing with their idolatry and social injustice, but still they did not recognize his prophetic warning from God: “I will judge you at the border of Israel; and you shall know that I am the LORD; for you have not walked in my statutes, nor executed my ordinances.” (Ezek. 11:12).
Eventually the entire nation fell to the Babylonians with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. After receiving official news of the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiel made it clear that the people must feel guilt and remorse for their sins. Yet he wept over their stubbornness and grieved over what had become of his nation: “I fell down on my face and cried out in a loud voice: “Alas, Lord GOD! You are finishing off what remains of Israel!” (Ezek. 11:13).
Yet Ezekiel offered hope and restoration for the future of Israel and announced that the nation would be resettled and rebuilt. It was then that he delivered one of the most important messages from God to the people of Israel: “I will take you away from among the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you back to your own soil. I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them.” (Ezek. 36:24, 26-27).
When it comes to the Gospel, it seems that the people of Jesus’ hometown also do not realize that “a prophet has been among them.” At this point in Mark’s Gospel Jesus has been traveling around Galilee, and now he has returned to his home in Nazareth. On the day of the Sabbath, he enters the synagogue and begins to teach and it is said that many who heard him were astonished. But there were others present who questioned the words and wisdom of Jesus and his ability to perform mighty deeds. They remarked that he was merely the carpenter from a not so prestigious family. Mark writes, “And they took offense at him.” ((Mk. 6:3b).
The people of Nazareth neither acknowledged the wonder of Jesus nor accepted that he was a man with a special mission from God. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” (MK 6:4). And because of their lack of faith, he was unable to perform any great deeds there. Like Ezekiel, the words of Jesus go unheeded because the people of his hometown do not recognize him as a prophet.
There are many other places in the Gospels where we find Jesus pronouncing messages and performing roles like Ezekiel. Jesus, too, was sent to a rebellious people, especially the religious leaders and those with authority who led the Jews astray and neglected the poor. For example, many times, we hear Jesus threatening the Pharisees: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint, dill and cumin and neglect the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. These you should have done, without neglecting the others.” (Mt. 23:23).
Following the threats to the Pharisees, we also hear the warnings that Jesus gives to them in the same way Ezekiel gave to the people of his day: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned, desolate. (Mt. 23:37-38).
As Jesus enters Jerusalem for his final days, he anticipates the fate that awaits the Holy City, knowing that they will eventually fall to the Romans. Again, we hear vestiges of Ezekiel as Jesus expresses his grief: “As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. (Lk. 19:4-43).
However, it is the final promise of God pronounced by Ezekiel which becomes the most important for Jesus as a prophet. In lieu of “a new heart and new spirit,” Jesus tells his disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” (Jn. 14:16-17, 20).
Like the people of Ezekiel’s and Jesus’ day, we may not recognize that we still have Jesus as a prophet in our midst. We may be stubborn and resist the urge to reach out to Jesus. We get discouraged when we face crises and hardships in our lives, and when we have problems and difficulties we despair and give up. But we must always remember the promise that Ezekiel and Jesus both spoke about, the promise of the Spirit and the presence of God’s loving and everlasting providence. That which allows Jesus to assure us: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Mt. 28:20).
