RBWords

     Hometown audiences can be challenging!  When I made an occasional guest appearance at my hometown parish when my parents were still alive, if they weren't at that Mass, my mother would have received a phone call report about my performance before I got home from the church (and this was before cell phones)!  The gospel scripture for today tells the story of Jesus' hometown debut as a preacher.  He had grown up in Nazareth but apparently had left at some point, established himself in Capernaum and became a follower of John the Baptist until the right moment to step forward.  By the time he came back to Nazareth, he had already made a name for himself in Galilee. His return to the synagogue in Nazareth was nice enough to start with.  He is offered a scroll of Isaiah and he deliberately unrolls it to one of the passages describing the Suffering Servant: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me....." [Isaiah 61:1-2] and then tells his startled hometown crowd that he is the fulfillment of that prophecy!  That was much too much for them!  They rejected him.  Even his own relatives thought he was crazy. [Mark 3:21]

     One of the major themes of all the gospels is that of "rejection."  Jesus' teaching was rejected by the very people who should have known better (scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees) and by the people who knew him from infancy.  It was accepted by "sinners and tax collectors!"  Because the gospels were composed as messages to communities of disciples, the message was clear.  Expect your preaching to be rejected even by friends and family.  That does not excuse the disciple from preaching to them, nonetheless!  Each year in campus ministry, students who are faithful Christians find themselves the target in classrooms from teachers who tell them flatly that their faith is fantasy!  

     The courage to preach by word and example is described by St. Paul in today's first scripture: I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power..   We can encourage and support one another when the inevitable rejections take place, knowing that God will take care of the power of our good example.  AMEN