January 30, 2022, Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Today’s Gospel (Lk. 4:21-30) is a passage which is a continuation from last week with Jesus reading from the scroll of Isaiah at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. It is a prophetic message which promises glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. Jesus tells them “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,” (Lk. 4:21). The people present are amazed at these words of Jesus for he is merely the son of the carpenter, Joseph.

However, Jesus knows the duplicity that is in their hearts and the historical pattern of prophets being rejected in their hometowns. For example, there was Elijah who was the prophet through whom God worked to bring a drought and famine to Israel for their apostasy and worship of the false god, Baal. Elijah was not sent to save any of the widows of his own nation. Rather, God sent him to reside with a widow in a foreign land, Zarephath in Sidon, where he blessed a woman and her son with an endless supply of flour and oil to prevent them from starvation. He later even raised the woman’s son from the dead.

A similar occurrence happened with Elisha who was the apprentice and successor of Elijah.   Elisha lived in Samaria when the nation of Israel was at war with Syria. Because the city was surrounded by the enemy and cut off from food and other supplies many people died from starvation and disease, especially leprosy. Elisha cured none of these. But when Naaman, a commander of the Syrian army had come down with leprosy, he was cured of his affliction by Elisha when the prophet sent him to dip seven times into the Jordon River.

Then we have the prophet Jeremiah, who we hear about in the First Reading (Jer. 1:4-5, 17-19). Jeremiah was specially chosen by the LORD from before the time he was formed in the womb. God warned Jeremiah that he had to remain strong and brave because Judah’s kings and princes would fight against him and resist his warnings.

Poor Jeremiah. Perhaps more than any other Old Testament prophet, his mission, from beginning to end, was wrought with conflict. The people did not listen to him, rather they ridiculed and rejected him; his friends even betrayed him. He was accused of treason, beaten, and placed in a dungeon cell for many days. He was imprisoned in a muddy cistern, where he was let down with ropes into the mud and left to starve. Yet, throughout his harassment and rejection, Jeremiah remained staunch in faith. As promised by God, his enemies did not prevail over him and he remained in Jerusalem until the final conquest by Babylon, at which time he was exiled into Egypt.

Of course, Jesus knew the fate that had befallen so many of God’s prophets before him. This is why he performs no miracles that day in Nazareth announcing “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place” (Lk. 4:26). At this the crowd becomes furious with Jesus, seeking to do him physical harm. But somehow he disappears from their midst and slips away.

One might wonder why the crowd turns to such animosity, to the point of violence against Jesus. He is familiar to them. He is from their own town. They know his parents and other family members. He has lived there for thirty years.

We might garner a clue from something Jesus says 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’” (Lk. 4:23). In other words, he is saying, “I suppose you’re expecting to see me perform a miracle like those you have heard about in Capernaum.” He knows they are waiting for him to perform some great deed like they have been hearing about. Maybe they have even heard about the wedding at Cana and the miracle of the wine. But Jesus has not done that for them. Rather he has lectured them on how he will not be accepted by them. No wonder they are angry.

We might even be able to identify with the way these people are feeling. There are times in our lives when we are really struggling. It may be an illness, the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one. It could be any number of tragedies during which we reach out to Jesus. We feel we know him intimately. We have been saying daily prayers, attending mass regularly, and receiving the sacraments our entire lives. We expect Jesus to respond to relieve our suffering, but it feels as though he is unusually silent or absent and anger seeps in as our faith is tested.

This is when we should remember and be strengthened by the words of the Chronicler: “Let your faith in the LORD, your God, be firm, and you will be firm. Have faith in his prophets and you will succeed. Give thanks to the LORD, whose love endures forever.” (2Chron. 20:20-21).