Lk 4:24-30 It was to the least that he came

Jesus while teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth mentions that no prophet is welcome in his own native place and proceeds to give examples of prophets who were in exile from their own people and staying with and helping those who were least of the others.  The people were really angry with Jesus because he was kind of calling them on their hypocrisy.  Why did he do this?  He already knew where their hearts lay, but he also wanted to challenge them, shake them up:  were they complacent in their faith like the people of old to whom God sent the prophets whom they ignored?  Those examples usually led to an overthrow by a foreign king.  The Jews listening to Jesus would definitely not have liked that, and thus like his predecessors, he had to leave them.

A young man asked recently about why Jesus had to die at the time he did.  Here within this Gospel reading we are told that it was not his appointed time, and so he slipped through their midst and left.  Although we have free will to choose, there seems to be an a time for all things:

"There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. Time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. " Eccl 3:1-2

Mark 6:1-6 Forgive Me, Lord

For today's readings:  http://usccb.org/bible/readings/020316.cfm

We have heard variations of this Gospel reading a couple of times in January.  Hearing it so much we are mindful of those times that he inflate ourselves and think ourselves all-powerful, losing sight of the fact that we should be humbled before the presence of our all-might ever-living God the Most High. 

The early Christian church was plagued with heresies in which Jesus was considered totally God, or completely man.  Even the Jewish people, many of them in Jesus' time took him merely as a prophet.  Yet it was revealed to a few, and then to billions of people throughout the last two millennia that this was truly God made manifest.  We are called to reflect on our sins and bow down before him in true contrition to ask forgiveness before he turns his back on us as he did those who rejected him at Nazareth.  The Lord offers us the opportunity to repent just as he did his servant David.  We are given the Sacrament of Reconciliation in which we can be given absolution for our sins and given new life with purity of soul and a clean heart.  Let us embrace this Sacrament while we can. We are the Lord's beloved and he wants nothing more than to be in full communion with us.

"Lord, forgive the wrong that I have done." (Today's responsorial psalm.)

Luke 4:21-30 Rejected at home

In today's Gospel we hear of how Jesus reads the scroll from Isiah, then as soon as the people of Nazareth realize what he said, they turn on him with derision.  He is merely the son of the carpenter, Joseph, what makes him better than they?  They are trying to put him into a stereotype of sorts.  Don't we try to do that too?  When we meet people or get an impression of who they are, don't we tend to expect them to act a certain way?  That is what they are doing with God.  They can't accept that Jesus is the Christ, and may actually start to believe that he is blaspheming.  This is punishable by death.  He reminds them that even Elijah and Elias both showed God's salvation to those who sought it whether they were Jewish or Samaritan, or something else.  God is not bound by human laws or thoughts.  Jesus was challenging how they believed.  It was dangerous.  Look at our own history in the United States to civil rights leaders and presidents who challenged the way people have thought:  Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy.  Perhaps these correlations will help make sense a little more of today's reading.  It is also striking too that Jesus never returned to Nazareth after this.  Their hearts were too closed for him to fill it. 

Mark 1: 21-28 Voice of Authority

In the Gospel today we are told that Jesus "taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes."  That is a strong statement.  The scribes had the legal authority of leadership over the people.  Jesus is not like them.  His authority is authentic because he is God the Son.  He is wisdom itself. Where they scribes rule with fear and punishment, he rules with peace, love and justice.  Because he is God, we have a duty of obedience to him.  Even the demonic spirit recognizes that, and even names Jesus, "The Holy One of God!"  At the Lord's command the spirit left the possessed man. 

May we ask ourselves whom we take as our supreme authority.  Is it man, or God who instills man with authority to lead?  May we "receive the word of God, not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God." (1 Thes. 2:13)  May our hearts look to God the ruler of all and adhere to His laws as citizens of the Kingdom of God first, and then those of our own lands as is illustrated in today's Gospel.  Amen.

Addendum:  I was reminded this morning of the strong correlation between today's scribes and how their modern counterpart are today's managers and administrators.  The business world can sometimes seem like a cold an cut-throat place where the person is often times ignored.  In light of that today's Gospel may be a wake-up call, or a challenge to remember those people that we work with are people with thoughts and feelings too, not the automatons that we sometimes take them for.