Word to the Wise
Friday, August 4, 2023 - Friday in the 17th Week in Ordinary Time
[Lev 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37 and Matt 13:54-58]Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue. They were astonished and said, "Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Are not his sisters all with us? Where did this man get all this? And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house." And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith. [Matthew]
AUGUST 4 ST. JOHN VIANNEY
The hometown folks are a challenging audience. I can remember one occasion when I preached in my home parish. My mother was not there for some reason, but by the time I got home, she had a full report of my performance! There's always the "Who does he think HE is? I've known him since he was a kid!" type thinking. The folks in Nazareth were no exception. They knew that Jesus had not "gone to school" and had worked in his father's shop. The Gospel According to Luke reports that Jesus was about 30 years of age when he began preaching, which would have made him middle-aged in those days! His family was a problem, too. In the Gospel According to Mark, we are told they tried to do an intervention to get him out of the public eye!! [Mark 3:20-21, 31-34] Much of the Gospel According to Matthew has the flavor of offer-acceptance/rejection, and the rejection side reaches even to Jesus' own family.
We can ask ourselves about this kind of prejudice. Do we allow our feelings about the messenger to block any message? In the case of Jeaus, however, the words of the communications guru, Marshal McLuhan, are particularly true: "The medium is the message." It is a complicated reality. Does knowing the prophet personally keep us from hearing his/her message? ( And, perhaps, a given prophet may need to examine his or her own conduct to see if that might be a problem in getting the message out.) Prophets, like their audiences, are human. In Jesus' case, his message and conduct were offensive (except in Nazareth) to the Pharisees and scribes. But to those who responded in faith, he was life-giving. We have the responsibility to spread his life-giving message. Some will accept it in faith and other reject it. We can be sure of Jesus' sympathy!! AMEN