January 29, 2010
Sunday Scripture
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
BY FATHER DONALD DILGER
On this Sunday Luke reveals the results of Jesus’ visit to Nazareth, where he had grown to adulthood and functioned as village carpenter. Now he was famous. Therefore when he went to synagogue on the Sabbath, the presiding officials asked him to read or speak or both, as was the custom for well-known visitors. We saw last week how Jesus read from Isaiah. All wondered at his eloquence when he commented on the reading. They could not believe it, and said, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” In Luke’s gospel the people of Nazareth know nothing of the stories of Jesus’ conception and birth, of which Luke had written earlier in his gospel. In their minds he was the son of Joseph the carpenter and so he must remain. That helps explain the disaster that follows.
Luke has before him the Gospel of Mark. He knows that Jesus, according to Mark, had already exercised a healing and teaching ministry at Capernaum, his headquarters at the house of Simon and Andrew on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Therefore Luke depicts Jesus quoting a proverb, “Physician, heal yourself.” Meaning: “Do here at Nazareth what you did at Capernaum.” But are the Nazarenes ready for Jesus’ healing and teaching activities? As the story will eventually show, they were certainly not ready for Jesus’ teaching as it comes to us through Luke’s theology.
When Luke was writing in the mid eighties of the first century, there was an ongoing conflict of some decades over the mission to the Gentiles. On what basis and how were the Gentiles to be received in the Christian Churches which began as Jewish-Christian? Luke’s stand on the side of equality between Gentiles and Jews in the Church is more explicit in Acts of Apostles, but he weaves his teaching on this subject into his gospel. Luke began Jesus’ visit to Nazareth by following Mark’s version of the story. But when he depicts Jesus reading from Isaiah and giving a homily on that Scripture, he radically departs from Mark in order to present his justification for the mission to the Gentiles.
He includes in Jesus’ homily two examples of Old Testament prophets. He prefaces the examples with a remark not intended to be a compliment to his fellow-Nazarenes, “No prophet is acceptable in his own country.” The two prophets are Elijah and his successor Elisha, both of the ninth century B.C. During a severe drought of that time, Elijah did not find nourishment in Israel. God sent him out of Israel to a nation of Gentiles, where a widow sustained him during the drought. A second example: there were many lepers in Israel during Elisha’s ministry. But Elisha cures only Naaman, a Syrian general, a Gentile.
This was enough for his hearers. They feel personally accused by Jesus. They turned on their former village carpenter who in their opinion had risen too far above them. As a mob they rush him out of the synagogue with the intention of throwing him off a cliff. Luke earlier noted that the power of God’s Spirit was active in Jesus, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” By the power of that Holy Spirit Jesus faces the homicidal mob and walks through their midst. Does this incident verify the saying, “You can’t go home again?”
In Luke’s source, the Gospel of Mark, the Nazarenes are merely said to have no faith, and they ridicule Jesus. Why does Luke depict such a different and drastic outcome? Luke looks to the Old Testament for guidance. He incorporates Jeremiah 11 into his catechesis. Jeremiah, sixth century B.C. also went to his hometown to preach. The men of the town threatened him, “If you preach the word of the Lord to us we will kill you.” In this way another Lucan theme surfaces, Jesus as prophet, spokesman for God, even as the prophet who was to come and speak to Israel as Moses did, a reference to Deuteronomy 18:15-18. Moses warned the Israelites, “Listen to him!” They did not. From that refusal came the mission to the Gentiles.
Because Luke presented Jesus in the gospel as God’s prophet, the liturgy includes the call of Jeremiah 600 years before Jesus. The reading speaks of Jeremiah being formed in the womb for the very purpose of being called as the Lord’s prophet “to the nations.” That phrase is important for understanding Luke’s concept of Jesus and Christianity as being sent not just to Jesus’ own nation, the Jews., but to all nations (the Gentiles) like the prophet Jeremiah was sent.
In this section of the letter Paul tries to heal the divisions within the Christian community at Corinth. In last Sunday’s Second Reading he compared their community to a human body. All parts of a body have their own function. If they no longer work together, the body dies. He shows them how cooperation is possible — Christian love in the Holy Spirit, the giver of all spiritual gifts. His famous description of love therefore begins, “I will show you a still more excellent way.”