Lk 4:16-30 (16-37)

 

Jesus' transgressions and ours (reinforcing the plot)

(Lk 4:14-22)

 

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, therefore he has anointed me to proclaim the Good News to the poor" (Lk 4:18).

 

In ancient Israel, the patriarchal family, clan and community were the basis of social coexistence.

They guaranteed the transmission of the identity of the people and provided protection for the afflicted.

Defending the clan was also a concrete way of confirming the First Covenant.

But at the time of Jesus, Galilee suffered both the segregation dictated by Herod Antipas' policy and the oppression of official religiosity.

The ruler's spineless collaborationism had increased the number of homeless and unemployed.

The political and economic situation forced people to retreat into material and individual problems or those of a small family.

At one time, the identity glue of clan and community guaranteed a (domestic) character of a nation of solidarity, expressed in the defence and relief given to the less well-off of the people.

Now, this fraternal bond was weakened, a little congealed, almost contradicted - also due to the strict attitude of the religious authorities, fundamentalist and lovers of a saccharine purism, opposed to mixing with the less well-off classes.

The Law [written and oral] ended up being used not to favour the welcoming of the marginalised and needy, but to accentuate detachment and ghettoisation.

Situations that were leading to the collapse of the least protected sections of the population.

In short, traditional devotion - loving the alliance between throne and altar - instead of strengthening the sense of community was being used to accentuate hierarchies; as a weapon to legitimise a whole mentality of exclusions (and confirm the imperial logic of divide and rule).

 

Instead, Jesus wants to return to the Father's Dream: the ineliminable one of fraternity, the only seal to salvation history.

That is why his non-avoidable criterion was to link the Word of God to the life of the people, and in this way overcome divisions.

Thus, according to Lk, the first time Jesus enters a synagogue he messes up.

He does not go there to pray, but to teach what God's Grace is [undefiled by chicanery and false instructions] in the real existence of people.

He chooses a passage that reflects precisely the situation of the people of Galilee, oppressed by the power of the rulers, who were making the weak suffer confusion and poverty.

But his first Reading does not take into account the liturgical calendar.

Then he dares to preach in his own way and personalising the passage from Isaiah, from which he allows himself to censor the verse announcing God's vengeance.

Then he does not even proclaim the expected passage of the Law.

And he poses as if he were the master of the place of worship - in reality he is: the Risen One who 'sits' is teaching his [still Judaizing] people.

Moreover - we understand from the tone of the Gospel passage - for the Son of God the Spirit is not revealed in the extraordinary phenomena of the cosmos, but in the Year of Grace ("a year acceptable to the Lord": v.19).

The new energy that creates the authentic man is divine because it is personal and social.

This is the platform that works the turning point.

It becomes an engine, a motive and context, for a transformation of the soul and of relationships - at that time weighed down by even theological servility [of merits].

 

In a warp of vital relationships, the better understanding of the Gift becomes a springboard for a harmonious future of liberation and justice.

Christ believes that the Father's Kingdom arises by making the present, then mired in oppression, anguish and slavery, grow from within.

Says the Tao Tê Ching (XLVI): "When the Way is in force in the world, swift horses are sent to fertilise the fields".

The emancipation offered by the Spirit is addressed not to the great, but precisely to those who suffer forms of need, defect and penury: in Jesus... now all open to the jubilee figure of the new Creation.

In short, there seems to be total antagonism and unsuitability between the Lord and the practitioners of traditional religion - heavy-handed, selective, devoted to legalisms and reprisals; pyramidal, with no way out.

Obviously, both leaders and customaries ask themselves - on a ritual and venerable basis: is it possible that the divine likeness could manifest itself in a man who is considerate towards the less affluent, who disregards official customs, does not believe in reprisals, and displays forms of uncontrolled spontaneity?

This is a reminder for us. The person of authentic Faith does not allow himself to be conditioned by habitual, useless and quiet conformities.

The common thought - habituated and agreed upon but subtly competitive - becomes a backwards energy, too normal and swampy; not propulsive for the personal and social soul.If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to be accompanied by the Dream of a super-eminent gestation from the Father, we will be animated through the regal and sacred Presence that directs us to fly over repetitions, or selections, marginalisations and fallacious recriminations.

As if we move our being into a horizon and a world of friendly relations that then acts as a magnet to reality and anticipates the future.

 

Like the Master and Lord, instead of reasoning with induced thoughts and allowing ourselves to be sequestered by the heaviness of rejections and fears, let us begin to think with the images of personal Vocation, with the empathic codes of our bursting Calling.

The unknown evolutionary resources that are triggered, immediately unravel a network of paths that the "locals" may not like, but avoid the perennial conflict with missionary identity and character.

The Vision-Relation (v.18a) unrepeatable and wide-meshed - without reduction - then becomes strategic, because it possesses in itself the call of the Quintessence, and all the resources to solve the real problems.

 

To listen to the proclamation of the Gospels (v.18b) is to listen to the echo of oneself and of the little people: an intimate and social choice.

And to be in it without the dead leaves of one-sidedness - to wander freely in that same Proclamation; not neglecting precious parts of oneself, nor amputating eccentricities, or the intuition proper to the subordinate classes.

This is to be able to manifest the quiet Root (but in its energetic state), our Character (in the lovable, non-separatist Friend) - to avoid stultifying it with another bondage.

All in the instinct to be and do happy, never allowing ourselves to be imprisoned by the lust for security on the side; stagnant pursuit.

 

The Kingdom in the Spirit (cf. vv.14.18) - who knows what we need - has ceased to be a goal of mere futurity.

It is the surprise that Christ arouses in us around his proposal with an extra gear.

 

He does not neglect us: he extinguishes accusatory brooding and creatively redesigns.

He gives birth again and motivates, recovers dispersions, and strengthens the plot.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

How do I connect the Faith with the cultural and social situation?

What is Christ's Today with your Today, in the Spirit?

What is your form of apostolate that frees brothers and sisters from the debasement of dignity and promotes them?

 

 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (et vult Cubam)

 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he anointed me and sent me forth to proclaim a glad tidings" (Lk 4:18). Every minister of God must make these words spoken by Jesus of Nazareth his own life. Therefore, as I stand here among you, I want to bring you the good news of hope in God. As a servant of the Gospel, I bring you this message of love and solidarity that Jesus Christ, with his coming, offers to people of all times. It is neither an ideology nor a new economic or political system, but a path of peace, justice and authentic freedom.

4. The ideological and economic systems that have succeeded one another in recent centuries have often emphasised confrontation as a method, since they contained in their programmes the seeds of opposition and disunity. This has deeply conditioned the conception of man and relations with others. Some of these systems also claimed to reduce religion to the merely individual sphere, stripping it of any social influence or relevance. In this sense, it is worth remembering that a modern state cannot make atheism or religion one of its political orders. The State, far from any fanaticism or extreme secularism, must promote a serene social climate and adequate legislation that allows each person and each religious denomination to live their faith freely, express it in the spheres of public life and be able to count on sufficient means and space to offer their spiritual, moral and civic riches to the life of the nation.

On the other hand, in various places, a form of capitalist neo-liberalism is developing that subordinates the human person and conditions the development of peoples to the blind forces of the market, burdening the less favoured peoples with unbearable burdens from its centres of power. Thus it often happens that unsustainable economic programmes are imposed on nations as a condition for receiving new aid. In this way we witness, in the concert of nations, the exaggerated enrichment of a few at the price of the growing impoverishment of the many, so that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

5. Dear brothers: the Church is a teacher in humanity. Therefore, in the face of these systems, she proposes the culture of love and life, restoring to humanity the hope and transforming power of love, lived in the unity willed by Christ. This requires a path of reconciliation, dialogue and fraternal acceptance of one's neighbour, whoever they may be. This can be said of the Church's social Gospel.

The Church, in carrying out its mission, proposes to the world a new justice, the justice of the Kingdom of God (cf. Mt 6:33). On several occasions I have referred to social issues. It is necessary to keep talking about them as long as there is injustice in the world, however small it may be, since otherwise the Church would not prove faithful to the mission entrusted to her by Jesus Christ. What is at stake is man, the person in the flesh. Even if times and circumstances change, there are always people who need the voice of the Church to acknowledge their anguish, pain and misery. Those who find themselves in such situations can be assured that they will not be defrauded, for the Church is with them and the Pope embraces, with his heart and his word of encouragement, all those who suffer injustice.

(John Paul II, after being applauded at length, added)

I am not against applause, because when you applaud the Pope can rest a little.

The teachings of Jesus retain their vigour intact on the threshold of the year 2000. They are valid for all of you, my dear brothers. In the search for the justice of the Kingdom, we cannot stop in the face of difficulties and misunderstandings. If the Master's invitation to justice, service and love is accepted as Good News, then hearts are enlarged, criteria are transformed and the culture of love and life is born. This is the great change that society awaits and needs; it can only be achieved if first the conversion of each person's heart takes place as a condition for the necessary changes in the structures of society.

6. "The Spirit of the Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives (...) to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Lk 4:18). The good news of Jesus must be accompanied by a proclamation of freedom, based on the solid foundation of truth: "If you remain faithful to my word, you will truly be my disciples; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32). The truth to which Jesus refers is not just the intellectual understanding of reality, but the truth about man and his transcendent condition, his rights and duties, his greatness and limitations. It is the same truth that Jesus proclaimed with his life, reaffirmed before Pilate and, by his silence, before Herod; it is the same truth that led him to the salvific cross and glorious resurrection.

Freedom that is not grounded in truth conditions man to such an extent that it sometimes makes him the object rather than the subject of the social, cultural, economic and political context, leaving him almost totally deprived of initiative with regard to personal development. At other times, this freedom is individualistic and, taking no account of the freedom of others, locks man into his own selfishness. The conquest of freedom in responsibility is an unavoidable task for every person. For Christians, the freedom of God's children is not only a gift and a task; its attainment also implies an invaluable witness and a genuine contribution to the liberation of the entire human race. This liberation is not reduced to social and political aspects, but reaches its fullness in the exercise of freedom of conscience, the basis and foundation of other human rights.

(Responding to the invocation raised by the crowd: "The Pope lives and wants us all to be free!", John Paul II added:)

Yes, he lives with that freedom to which Christ has set you free.

For many of today's political and economic systems, the greatest challenge continues to be to combine freedom and social justice, freedom and solidarity, without any of them being relegated to a lower level. In this sense, the Social Doctrine of the Church constitutes an effort of reflection and a proposal that seeks to enlighten and reconcile the relationship between the inalienable rights of every man and social needs, so that the person may fulfil his deepest aspirations and his own integral realisation according to his condition as a child of God and citizen. Consequently, the Catholic laity must contribute to this realisation through the application of the Church's social teachings in the various environments, open to all people of good will.

7. In the Gospel proclaimed today, justice appears intimately linked to truth. This is also observed in the lucid thinking of the Fathers of the Fatherland. The Servant of God Father Félix Varela, animated by Christian faith and fidelity to his priestly ministry, sowed in the hearts of the Cuban people the seeds of justice and freedom that he dreamed of seeing germinate in a free and independent Cuba.José Martí's doctrine of love among all people has profoundly evangelical roots, thus overcoming the false conflict between faith in God and love and service to the homeland. Martí writes: 'Pure, unselfish, persecuted, martyred, poetic and simple, the religion of the Nazarene has seduced all honest men... Every people needs to be religious. It must be so not only in its essence, but also for its utility.... A non-religious people is doomed to die, for nothing in it nourishes virtue. Human injustice despises it; it is necessary for heavenly justice to guarantee it'.

As you know, Cuba possesses a Christian soul, and this has led it to have a universal vocation. Called to overcome its isolation, it must open up to the world, and the world must draw closer to Cuba, to its people, to its children, who undoubtedly represent its greatest wealth. The time has come to embark on the new paths that the times of renewal in which we live demand, as we approach the Third Millennium of the Christian era!

8. Dear brothers: God has blessed this people with authentic formators of the national conscience, clear and firm exponents of the Christian faith, which is the most valid support of virtue and love. Today the Bishops, together with priests, consecrated men and women and the lay faithful, strive to build bridges to bring minds and hearts closer together, propitiating and consolidating peace, preparing the civilisation of love and justice. I am here among you as a messenger of truth and hope. This is why I wish to repeat my call to let Jesus Christ enlighten you, to accept without reserve the splendour of his truth, so that all may follow the path of unity through love and solidarity, avoiding exclusion, isolation and confrontation, which are contrary to the will of the God-Love.

May the Holy Spirit enlighten with his gifts all those who have different responsibilities towards this people, whom I hold in my heart. May the "Virgen de la Caridad de El Cobre", Queen of Cuba, obtain for her children the gifts of peace, progress and happiness.

This wind today is very significant, because the wind symbolises the Holy Spirit. "Spiritus spirat ubi vult, Spiritus vult spirare in Cuba". The last words are in Latin because Cuba also belongs to the Latin tradition. Latin America, Latin Cuba, Latin language! "Spiritus spirat ubi vult et vult Cubam'. Goodbye.

(John Paul II, homily "José Martí" Square Havana 25 January 1998)

 

 

Person, extemporaneity, synagogues

 

Two Names of God

(Lk 4:21-30)

 

Today's Gospel - taken from the fourth chapter of St Luke - is a continuation of last Sunday's Gospel. We find ourselves again in the synagogue of Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up and where everyone knew him and his family. Now, after a period of absence, He has returned in a new way: during the Sabbath liturgy, He reads a prophecy from Isaiah about the Messiah and announces its fulfilment, implying that the word refers to Him, that Isaiah has spoken of Him. This fact provokes the bewilderment of the Nazarenes: on the one hand, "all bore witness to him and were amazed at the words of grace that came out of his mouth" (Lk 4:22); St Mark reports that many said: "Where do these things come from him? And what wisdom is this that has been given him?" (6:2). On the other hand, however, his countrymen know him all too well: 'He is one like us', they say, 'His pretension can only be presumption' (cf. The Infancy of Jesus, 11). "Is not this the son of Joseph?" (Lk 4:22), as if to say: a carpenter from Nazareth, what aspirations can he have?

Precisely knowing this closure, which confirms the proverb "no prophet is welcome in his own country", Jesus addresses the people in the synagogue with words that sound like a provocation. He mentions two miracles performed by the great prophets Elijah and Elisha in favour of non-Israelites, to show that sometimes there is more faith outside Israel. At that point the reaction is unanimous: everyone gets up and throws him out, and even tries to throw him off a cliff, but he calmly sovereignly passes through the angry people and leaves. At this point the question arises: why did Jesus want to cause this disruption? At first, the people admired him, and perhaps he could have obtained some consensus... But this is precisely the point: Jesus did not come to seek the consensus of men, but - as he will say at the end to Pilate - to "bear witness to the truth" (Jn 18:37). The true prophet does not obey anyone other than God and puts himself at the service of the truth, ready to pay for it himself. It is true that Jesus is the prophet of love, but love has its own truth. Indeed, love and truth are two names of the same reality, two names of God. In today's liturgy, these words of St Paul also resonate: "Charity ... does not boast, is not puffed up with pride, is not disrespectful, does not seek its own interest, is not angry, does not take account of evil received, does not rejoice in injustice but rejoices in the truth" (1 Cor 13:4-6). Believing in God means renouncing one's prejudices and accepting the concrete face in which He revealed Himself: the man Jesus of Nazareth. And this way also leads to recognising and serving Him in others.

In this, Mary's attitude is illuminating. Who more than she was familiar with the humanity of Jesus? But she was never as scandalised by it as the people of Nazareth. She kept the mystery in her heart and knew how to welcome it again and again, on the path of faith, until the night of the Cross and the full light of the Resurrection. May Mary also help us to tread this path with fidelity and joy.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 3 February 2013].

 

Jesus is annoying and generates suspicion in those who love external schemes, because he proclaims only Jubilee, instead of harsh confrontation and vengeance. 

In the synagogue his village is puzzled by this overly understanding love - just what we need.

The place of worship is where believers have been brought up backwards!

Their grumpy character is the unripe fruit of a hammering religiosity, which denies the right to express ideas and feelings.

The 'synagogal' code has produced fake believers, conditioned by a disharmonious and split personality.

Even today and from an early age, this intimate laceration manifests itself in the over-controlling of openness to others.

Consequence: an accentuation of youthful uncertainty - under which who knows what smoulders - and a rigid character as adults.

In short, religious hammering that does not make the leap of Faith blocks us, prevents us from understanding, and pollutes our whole life.

 

Even in Jesus' time, archaic teaching exacerbated nationalism, the very perception of trauma or violation, and paradoxically the very caged situations from which one wanted to get out.

Exclusive spirituality: it is empty - crude or sophisticated.

Selective thinking is the worst disease of worldviews - which are then always telling us how we should be.

So in concrete life, not a few believers prefer to have friends without conformist blindness or the same bonds of belonging.

 

On closer inspection, even the most devout lay realities manifest a pronounced and strange dichotomy of relationships - tribal and otherwise.

Pope Francis expressed it crisply:

"It is a scandal that of people who go to church, who are there every day and then live hating others and speaking ill of people: better to live as an atheist than to give a counter-witness to being a Christian".

The real world awakens and stimulates flexibility of standards, it does not inculcate some old-fashioned, hypnosis-like truism.

Today's global reality helps to blunt the edges of conventicle [which have their regurgitations, in terms of seduction and sucking].

In the face of such beliefs and illusions, the Prophet marks distance; he works to spread awareness, not reassuring images - nor disembodied ideas.

But the critical heralds violently irritate the crowd of regulars, who suddenly turn from curiosity to vengeful indignation.

As in the village, so - we read in a watermark - in the Holy City [Mount Zion] from which they immediately want to throw you down (Lk 4:29).

Wherever there is talk of a real person and eternal dreams: his, not others'.

 

In the hostility that surrounds them, the Lord's intimates openly challenge normalised beliefs, acquired from the environment and not reworked.

For them, it is not only the calculated analogy to a mean outline that counts. They see other goals and do not just want to 'get there'.

If they are overwhelmed, they leave behind them that trail of intuition that will sooner or later make both harmful clansmen and useless opportunists reflect.

Thus, in Friends and Brothers it is the Risen One himself who escapes. And he resumes the path, crossing those who want to do him in (v. 30) for reasons of self-interest or neighbourhood advantage.

 

At all times, the witnesses make one think: they do not seek compliments and pleasant results, but recover the opposite sides and accept the happiness of others.

They know that Oneness must run its course: it will be wealth for all, and on this point they do not let themselves be inhibited by nomenclature.

Although surrounded by the envious and deadly hatred of cunning idiots and established synagogues, they proclaim Love in Truth - neither burine hoaxes (approved as empty) nor ulterior motives (solid utility).

In fact, without milking and shearing the uninformed, such missionaries give impetus to the courage and growth of others, to the autonomy of choices.

All this, by fostering the coexistence of the invisible and despised; in an atmosphere of understanding and spontaneity.They love the luxuriance of life, so they discriminate between religion and Faith: they do not stand as repeaters of doctrines, prescriptions, customs.

Based on the Father's personal experience, the inspired faithful value different approaches, creating an unknown esteem.

They confront young sectarian monsters [the Pontiff would say], old marpions and their fences, with an open face, advocating new attitudes - different ways of relating to God.

Not to add proselytes and consider themselves indispensable.

Even though 'at home' (v. 24) they are inconvenient characters for the ratified mentality, the none-Prophets make Jesus' personalism survive, wrenching it from those who want it dormant and sequestered.

Like Him, at the risk of unpopularity and without begging for approval.

 

With the scars of what is gone, for a new Journey.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

In the 'homeland' are you considered a local child, or a prophet? A ratified character, or inconvenient? In fashion, or unpopular?

Is your testimony transgressive or conformist? Does it make Jesus' personalism survive, wrenching it from those who want it dormant and sequestered?

 

 

God wants faith, they want miracles: God for their own benefit

Last Sunday, the liturgy had proposed to us the episode in the synagogue of Nazareth, where Jesus reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah and at the end reveals that those words are fulfilled "today", in Him. Jesus presents Himself as the one on whom the Spirit of the Lord has rested, the Holy Spirit who consecrated Him and sent Him to fulfil the mission of salvation on behalf of humanity. Today's Gospel (cf. Lk 4:21-30) is a continuation of that story and shows us the amazement of his fellow citizens at seeing that one of their countrymen, "the son of Joseph" (v. 22), claims to be the Christ, the Father's envoy.

Jesus, with his ability to penetrate minds and hearts, immediately understands what his countrymen think. They think that, since He is one of them, He must prove this strange "claim" of His by performing miracles there, in Nazareth, as He did in the neighbouring countries (cf. v. 23). But Jesus does not want and cannot accept this logic, because it does not correspond to God's plan: God wants faith, they want miracles, signs; God wants to save everyone, and they want a Messiah for their own benefit. And to explain God's logic, Jesus brings the example of two great ancient prophets: Elijah and Elisha, whom God had sent to heal and save people who were not Jewish, from other peoples, but who had trusted his word.

Faced with this invitation to open their hearts to the gratuitousness and universality of salvation, the citizens of Nazareth rebel, and even assume an aggressive attitude, which degenerates to the point that "they got up and drove him out of the city and led him to the edge of the mountain [...], to throw him down" (v. 29). The admiration of the first moment turned into an aggression, a rebellion against Him.

And this Gospel shows us that Jesus' public ministry begins with a rejection and a threat of death, paradoxically precisely from his fellow citizens. Jesus, in living the mission entrusted to him by the Father, knows well that he must face fatigue, rejection, persecution and defeat. A price that, yesterday as today, authentic prophecy is called upon to pay. The harsh rejection, however, does not discourage Jesus, nor does it stop the journey and fruitfulness of his prophetic action. He goes on his way (cf. v. 30), trusting in the Father's love.

Even today, the world needs to see in the Lord's disciples prophets, that is, people who are courageous and persevering in responding to the Christian vocation. People who follow the 'thrust' of the Holy Spirit, who sends them to announce hope and salvation to the poor and excluded; people who follow the logic of faith and not of miracles; people dedicated to the service of all, without privileges and exclusions. In short: people who are open to accepting the Father's will within themselves and are committed to faithfully witnessing it to others.

Let us pray to Mary Most Holy, that we may grow and walk in the same apostolic ardour for the Kingdom of God that animated Jesus' mission.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 3 February 2019]