The people in the synagogue were amazed at the gracious words that came from
his mouth.
By the end of his homily, they were filled with fury.
I am getting pretty tired of hearing
people say that Catholics do not read the Bible. Maybe that's true of those who
don't go to church, but for those who do, it's a big fat lie!
As I said last week, right here, if you go
to Mass every weekend of the year for three years, you would have heard read
all the important parts of the Bible. If you heard that much of the Bible read
and paid close attention to what was read, you would surely conclude that some
of it gave you great comfort, while some of it grated your nerves. If you have
been away from practicing your religion for a while, you would probably find
the Parable of the Prodigal Son very comforting and assuring. If you have
recently gone through a divorce, you would probably recoil from Jesus’ teaching
about divorce. In the first case, you might cry with deep emotion. In the last
case, you might cry with guilt.
In the gospel today, we get the second
half of the story where Jesus goes to his own hometown, reads the Scriptures
and gives his first homily. Last week it said, “he was praised by all” and “the
eyes of all the synagogue look intently at him.” In this week’s gospel, we hear
a completely different reaction than the flattering compliments of last week..
When Jesus finished reading the Scriptures and giving his homily, it says that
the people in the synagogue “were filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out
of the own, and led him to the brow of the hill, to hurl him down headlong.”
Talking about a good sermon going badly! What made them so angry? What made
them so mad was Jesus telling them that God’s love was inclusive of
every human person, not just the Jewish people, as they had been raised to
believe! It was the good news of God’s unconditional love that enraged them!
Preaching “the good news of God’s
unconditional love” certainly can be hazardous to your health, even today! I’ve
had people walk out and I have had one person pull a knife on me right here in
this cathedral and another group publish a scathing anonymous pamphlet, because
of preaching the message of unconditional love for the divorced, gays, marginal
Catholics, people of other faiths and people of no faith, but I have never been
lynched by a whole mob of angry parishioners trying to run me out of town. Not
yet, anyway!
My friends, the Scriptures are supposed to
affect us in two ways. The gospel is a two-edged sword. It settles the unsettled
and unsettles the settled. Some time we need to be comforted and sometimes we
need to be confronted. It takes courageous openness to be formed by the Word of
God. People who tell you what you want to hear are not necessarily your friends
and people who tell you what you don’t want to hear are not necessarily you
enemies. As one writer put it, “We find comfort among those who agree with
us and growth among those who don’t.” The same is true of the Scriptures.
Some time we need to hear a challenge before we can actually wake
up. Denial is a defense against hearing truths we really don’t want to deal
with. Sometimes the truth is so painful and threatening that we resist hearing
the message. Sometimes we even go as far as killing the messenger. Other times,
we are so raw and wounded that the Word of God becomes a soothing salve for a
sin-sick soul. That goes for your side of the pulpit, as well as
mine!
The Scriptures are a lamp for our feet and
a light for our paths. It is impossible to do God’s will if we
never hear what his will is! Saint Paul puts it
quite clearly in his Letter to the Romans when he says, “Everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him in whom they
have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people
preach unless they are sent? Thus, faith comes from what is heard, and what is
heard comes through the word of Christ.”
My friends, every week, we gather together
as a family of faith to wallow in the Word of God. Sometimes our lives are a
mess and we need to be comforted by that Word. Sometimes our
lives are on the wrong path and we need to be confronted by
that Word. Every week, after we have been comforted and confronted by that
Word, we feed on the Body and Blood of Jesus, our daily bread, so that we will
have the strength to walk the path that has been laid out for us by the Word of
God.
We read at least four passages of the
Bible every week at Mass, not to mention the fact that most of our songs are
based on other passages of the Bible. For that very reason, it is a good idea
that everyone in here should have a hymnal in his or her hands. Even if you
cannot sing, you can read along and so benefit from the Scriptures contained in
every song. You can look at the bottom of the hymn and it will even give you
the Scripture citation.
Maybe the best Lenten resolution you can
make this year is to resolve to be a better hearer of God’s
Word! The Word of God is a two-edged sword. It cuts both ways! May
it comfort us, when we are wounded and hurting. May it confront us
when we are complacent and self-satisfied!
