Word to the Wise
Monday, August 31, 2009 - Monday in the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Thessalonians 4:13-16 and Luke 4:16-30]"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."...... Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.
Jesus knows that the hometown audience is the hardest one to convince! "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place...." Before uttering this proverb, however, he had made a remarkable claim! He read from Isaiah a passage about the Suffering Servant, a messianic figure, and claimed to BE that figure! His hometown synagogue congregation are sitting there in a mixture of astonishment and skepticism: "Is this not the son of Joseph?" Jesus can see all this and confronts them with their lack of faith. This results in them running him out of town! He ultimately will suffer the fate common to prophets: death at the hand of those who hear and are threatened by the Word. Every preacher must, in effect, claim that the scripture is being fulfilled in the hearing of the audience! The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that "the word of God is alive and active....(Heb. 4:12)" Sadly, if the complaints that I often hear are true, that word is dead on arrival because the preacher fails to do it justice. Sadly, too, the word can come very alive and active to an audience that is so thoroughly hardened by the prevailing secular consumer culture that the word simply bounces off the selective listener. However, when preacher and listener come together in the moment of understanding, scripture is indeed fulfilled. It's not going to happen with everyone all the time, but my hope is that it will happen often enough to keep the faith alive. This past weekend, I have been preaching a retreat for Permanent Deacons and their spouses from the Diocese of San Angelo, TX. Every time I do this, I am acutely aware that I am making a claim to have something to say that can be helpful. Their trust is expressed in coming to the retreat in the first place, but it can be withdrawn very easily! The retreat was successful, thanks be to the Holy Spirit, but the next one must be approached not on the wave of success from the last one but with the same prayer and respect for the congregation that the scripture may be fulfilled in their hearing. AMEN
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