FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
7 JULY 2024
Jesus
returns home today with his disciples.
The hometown folks have heard of the incredible things he has done in
Galilee. He has preached and taught
crowds. He has driven out demons, healed
the sick, and even raised a twelve-year old dead girl from the dead. He has fed hundreds of people with five
loaves and two fishes. When he gets up
in the local synagogue to teach on the sabbath, the local people are astonished
at his wisdom.
And yet,
they refuse to believe in him. They know
his background and cannot imagine such an ordinary and familiar person speaking
and doing what he is saying and doing.
They want to know where he gets all of this. They ask what kind of wisdom has been given
to him. He had not attended the
professional schools in Jerusalem. They
cannot fathom how such mighty deeds could have come from his hands. The locals know him as a simple carpenter – a
laborer who cuts wood and stone and metals.
Instead of speaking of Jesus as being the son of his father, they
identify him as the son of his mother.
They may be using this title as a slur, because they know that he was
conceived before Joseph and Mary were married.
They know him as one of the cousins of their extended family. Because he is so ordinary, they take offense
at him. They reject him and cannot
believe in the extraordinary ordinariness of the Son of God.
Jesus
reacts with amazement at their lack of faith.
He cannot work any miracles in his hometown. He knows that miracles do not cause people to
believe, especially when they have hardened hearts. Miracles help people who are open to God’s
works to deepen their faith. This will
not happen in Nazareth, because Jesus shares the fate of all authentic prophets
in Israel.
Ezekiel is
an authentic prophet. He had survived
the destruction of Jerusalem hundreds of years before Jesus and is living in
exile. He speaks the truth to his
people. He tells them that their
deportation is their own fault. They had
wandered far from living their part of the Covenant God had given them through
Moses at Mount Sinai. They will reject
him, just as the people of Nazareth reject Jesus, because their hearts are
hardened. Ezekiel will later urge them
to soften their hardened hearts and allow God to reform them and return them to
their homeland.
Unlike his
hometown relatives, the new family Jesus has created will continue to travel
with him and increase their faith in him as the Son of God, the promised
messiah, who will eventually defeat the power of sin and death in a way no one
could ever have expected. They will spread
the good news that the Son of God had come as an ordinary human person.
On the road
to Damascus, Saul the Pharisee would eventually be converted and become one of
his family. As Saint Paul, he tells the
Corinthians that he had been sent by the risen Christ to proclaim the truth
about him. He acknowledges that he is a
vulnerable human being who has suffered greatly for proclaiming the good news. He even admits that he has a “thorn in the
flesh,” a condition that causes him great pain.
He does not tell us what that thorn is, whether it is a physical,
emotional, or spiritual problem, or even a persistent weakness that he cannot
shake. His prayers that the Lord remove
his thorn have been unheeded. Instead,
he has found that power is made perfect in weakness. In other words, the thorn allows him to
realize that God is accomplishing good works in Paul.
We are all
ordinary, limited people. All of us have
thorns in our flesh. Yet, the Lord is
calling us to recognize his risen presence in ordinary people around us who
speak the truth. He opens our eyes to
the ways he works through doctors and nurses and all who serve in this hospital. He can allow the thorns of our illnesses to
recognize the ways he can heal us. He is
inviting us to be prophetic in the same way.
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