It is important to be a good listener. Sometimes in the course of a conversation a person will stop what they are saying to ask, “Do you understand what I am saying?” Then, if the other doesn’t, they might ask for clarification, “What did you mean when you said.…?” That is what a good listener might do to make sure they understand what’s being said to them.
In our first reading Jeremiah says, “The word of the Lord came to me….” I wonder if he understood the implications of what God was saying to him? He would have first heard that, even before he was born, God had chosen and dedicated him to be a “prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah needed to continue listening to what God had to say to him – beginning with “But.” Did you hear God tell him to “stand up and tell them?” Whatever the prophet was going to have to say he was not going to be well received, as God continues, “Be not crushed on their account.”
In Jeremiah’s narration of his calling we have a summary of a typical prophet’s call. First, God does the choosing and then empowers the person with the Word of God. It is not explicitly mentioned in this passage, but when prophets are called they are also empowered with God’s Spirit. They will need both, the gift of the Word they must speak to the people and the presence with them of God’s life-giving and fortifying Spirit. Prophets do not have an easy job and need all the help they can get from God.
Jeremiah is a good example of still-one-more prophet who receives a difficult task from God. He will have to go against the kings, priests and his own people. On his own he cannot do the task God has for him, but God promises to make him “a fortified city, pillar of iron, a wall of brass against the whole land.” God will give him the strength he needs for his mission.
That was then, what about now? At our baptism we also received a prophetic call when we were baptized as “priests, prophets and [royalty].” So, all the baptized should have a sense of call that will not go away. In the intervening verses, omitted in today’s reading, Jeremiah responds to the call, “Ah Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” The prophet was telling the truth, well aware of his limitations. But God’s word will be his support. We cannot hide from God, nor leave it to others to speak words only we can speak and do things that only we can, and should do, to further God’s reign on earth.
Last week we heard about Jesus’ preaching in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. There he read from the prophet Isaiah and claimed for himself the messianic characteristics anticipated by the prophet, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me….” Today, we pick up from where we left off with the people’s response to what they heard Jesus say.
At first, those who heard him seem to respond favorably to Jesus. But then they reject him and turn to violence. Luke has already begun to show how Jesus’ own people rejected him. In his response Jesus describes God’s outreach to all people, not just to the devout gathered to pray that day. Isn’t it startling that those who wanted to throw Jesus off the hill were not the irreligious, but those who came to pray and hear the Word of God? But when they heard what Jesus had to say they rejected him.
Is it possible that we who are gathered to pray today also put up barriers to hear what God has to say? Is it because we are closed to hearing God from unlikely sources like: immigrants; those not of our faith; the very old or very young; those of the opposite end of the political spectrum from us; former Catholics; women and gays? We may give polite and admiring ear to them, but then, like Jesus’ hearers, we resist the message they. Thus, familiarity with the person keeps us from seeing the gift they have for us?
Possibly Jesus’ hometown folk expected him to be their prize possession. Do they want the privilege of being the special recipients of his powers? He seems to accuse them of that when he interprets their attitude towards him, “Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.” They want special privilege from him and it doesn’t sound like they want to share those privileges with others, especially Capernaum, a town that had many non-Jews. Another theme is emerging early in Luke’s Gospel. He is making it clear that Jesus is God’s gift to everyone. Hence, the two stories from the Hebrew Scriptures, of Elijah’s relief for the foreign widow and Elisha’s cure of the Syrian leper.
Jesus’ hearers should have the known those stories and deduced from them the message of God’s universal love. But we can be rather selective in our choice of scriptures for our prayer, reflection and activities. The incident takes place in a synagogue. Why didn’t the faithful know their own Scriptures? The same might be said of us, hence the responsibility of preachers and catechists to do our best interpreting the full Word of God, and not focus on our favorite passages, or our accustomed interpretations.
It is early in Jesus’ ministry but rejection has already emerged. That rejection will eventually lead to his death. He wants to open people’s minds and hearts to God’s all-inclusive love; but his message is too much for people whose God is too small.
During this liturgical year we are concentrating on Luke. In the beginning of his Gospel (1:1-4) he addressed his readers and said he wanted to give us “assurance” to encourage our belief in the good news that he was about to tell us. That’s a good guide for us as we move through the gospel: what “assurance” is there for us when we hear each of the passages proclaimed to us from Luke this year.
Another of Luke’s messages is that those who suffer rejection in our world are affirmed by God through Jesus. As Mary proclaimed, the high are brought low and the low are raised up. Our values are reversed and God has turned attention to the lost, poor, sick and outsider. When Jesus was rejected in the synagogue he responded to his opponents by reminding them how God had reached out to those in need, despite their outsider status: the widow of Zaraphath and the leper of Sidon – two Gentiles.
Luke offers us the “assurance” today that God’s reach is further than we usually envision. No matter who we are; what our previous religious education; what we have done, God, in Jesus, is reaching out to us. Jesus’ contemporaries were closed to this revelation about God’s ways. Today we are “assured” of God’s broad embrace and thus challenged to be the same to outsiders, whether they be from our own family, those recently arrived at our shores, or those we have only come to know through news media.