A Common Jesus

A Common Jesus

Lk 4: 21 – 30

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Introduction

Our reading today speaks of how the people of Nazareth reacted to the words of Jesus in the synagogue. While they were at first amazed at his preaching, they eventually rejected him by driving him outside the town at the edge of the hill to throw him down the cliff.

The Gospel

Jesus was at the synagogue in Nazareth. There he read the passage from the prophet Isaiah and told his audience that the passage they have heard was fulfilled in their hearing. The reaction of the crowd was at first favorable. Luke tells us that “all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

But somehow, some of the people in the synagogue began asking themselves: “ Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” This question came from a crowd who knew Jesus and perhaps have seen him grow in this obscure town. The question somehow revealed their amazement but at the same time their utter surprise to see someone whom they knew quite well speaking impressively to the them.

Jesus somehow sensed this and then said to them: “ Surely you will quote me this proverb, Physician, cure yourself and say, Do here in your native place the things we heard were done in Capernaum.”

In saying this, Jesus somehow sensed the people’s unbelief. They wanted to see more it seems. They couldn’t seem to reconcile the amazement they had for Jesus and his not too spectacular origins as a son of a local carpenter.

Jesus, sensing their unbelief, further said to them: “ Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Jesus, then cites two biblical passages, one from 1 Kgs 18:1 and the other from 1 Kgs 17:9.

Jesus then said: “ Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

Then Jesus continued: “ And there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet: yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

Jesus has cited the stories of two famous prophets in Israel, Elijah and Elisha. Somehow he quotes these stories to drive home the point that prophets like him, are rejected by their own people and accepted by outsiders.

Apparently, when Jesus said this to the crowd, the crowd became furious. They rose up, drove him out of the town and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.

Luke then ends this episode, saying that Jesus escaped the anger and the fury of the crowd and went away unscathed. Luke writes: “ But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

Reflection

In the Old Testament, prophets are people sent by God to speak to the people of God. Prophets spoke God’s mind. But primarily, they were people sent by God to show God’s great love and mercy for his people. This love and concern showed itself in many different ways. At times it came in the form of a correction, a promise, a message of hope, a message of salvation, a message of tenderness.

Jesus came to Nazareth as a prophet. He spoke like a prophet. That’s why people were amazed at him. As a prophet, he embodied God’s tender love to those he spoke to, offering them instruction and healing.

Unfortunately, all prophets were rejected; some of them persecuted, hunted down and killed. People who were sent by God to be the symbols of God’s love and hope for people have all been rejected. Jesus suffered the same fate. He was rejected and was violently driven out of the town up to the edge of the hill to be thrown headlong and be killed.

But what Jesus seems to underscore in the rejection of the prophet is that they have all been rejected by their own people, their own kind. In Jesus’ own case, he was rejected by the people who knew him and with whom he grew up with. A prophet is anointed from among the people. This is why the prophet looks so ordinary like all the rest. This ordinariness at times becomes the root of the rejection.

Somehow, people can’t reconcile the fact that God can speak through an ordinary medium like the prophet. People somehow can’t reconcile the fact that God can speak even in the most ordinary of circumstances using the most ordinary people.

At Nazareth, people thought that Jesus, who was Joseph’s son, couldn’t possibly be God’s spokesperson because he was simply just one of them. The tremendous uproar of the people against Jesus exploded when Jesus claimed to be a prophet just like their revered prophets Elijah and Elisha from of old. They must have been angered to hear Jesus who had the nerve to compare himself like Elijah and Elisha.

Yet, Jesus’ use of the stories of Elijah and Elisha were not meant to bolster his claims as a prophet. The stories of Elijah and Elisha simply speak of a loving God who continues to show love and mercy even in the midst of a hostile people; that God can show love and kindness even to people who were not his own, just like the widow of Zarephath and Naaman of Syria. With or without rejection, God is simply full of kindness and mercy.

Love and mercy do come to us everyday through ordinary means in ordinary times. In his plain self, God is all loving and merciful. This is ordinary to him. That is why we tend to miss all the love and mercy he showers upon us during an ordinary day through ordinary people. Consequently, we end up missing him who fills our days with so much love and mercy because we didn’t recognize him in his ordinariness.

The prophet is so ordinary. Just like the Son of Joseph, who was just an obscure Nazarean who came on an ordinary day to an ordinary and obscure town. The problem was that people missed the love and mercy that the prophet wanted to bring to them. Let no common Christ then, be rejected simply because he is just like one of us.

Prayer

Dear Lord, I must have missed you so many times because I have failed to recognized you in the ordinary events in my life. I must have failed to listen to you many times because I didn’t take a friend’s advice seriously or have taken my mother’s warnings lightheartedly.

I have failed to see the love that surrounds me in the care and concern that my family and friends have shown me. Sadly, because I failed to see you in these ordinary things, I have also failed to see how much you really shower me with your love and mercy each day.

Open my eyes Lord. Let me not reject you as you make me experience you in the ordinary events of my life. Amen.  

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise: God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…” – 1 Cor 1: 27 - 28

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