Word to the Wise
Friday, August 1, 2014 - Saturday in the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
[Jer 26:11-16, 24 and Matt 14:1-12,478]When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord bade him speak to all the people, the priests and prophets laid hold of him, crying, "You must be put to death! Why do you prophesy in the name of the Lord: 'This house shall be like Shiloh,' and 'This city shall be desolate and deserted'? [Jeremiah]
AUGUST 1st ST. ALPHONSUS LIGOURI, CSSR. [founder of the Redemptorists]
Jesus and Jeremiah illustrate for us today two of the main obstacles to prophetic preaching. The first is a rejection of the message itself. Jeremiah was preaching in the temple and telling the listeners, especially the temple priests and official "prophets," that Jerusalem would be destroyed unless the people repented. They wanted to lynch him! He escaped on this occasion only because one of the temple officials protected him.
In Jesus' case, the townspeople in Nazareth rejected him because they knew his family and felt that Jesus was "getting above himself." How dare he come and preach to them, even if he was smart and could do some amazing things? It's an example of "small town thinking" that we might see anywhere!
The message and the messenger are intimately linked when we seek to share faith. With Jesus, the messenger IS the message. For the prophet, the message becomes, as Jeremiah put it, "like a fire burning in my heart!" [20:9]. He cannot remain silent out of fear for his own safety! If we are serious about what we believe and take our baptism seriously, we will encounter opposition. Christianity is not spread by silence! AMEN