FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - C

FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – C (Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Cor 12:31 – 13:13; Luke 4:21-30) Theme: Jesus invites us to embrace the salvation with freedom and with love Reflection: The presentation of the program of salvation - God presents his plan of saving man: We enter into the fourth Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Liturgy. Today, the word of God invites us to accept and to embrace the possibility of the salvation offered to us. The salvation is open to us and we are only invited to receive it. We are obliged. We are not forced. God keeps his plan and work of salvation open. He calls every person to enter into it, not out of compulsion but out of committed love and personal freedom. In fact, God reveals this act of salvation, not only with the arrival of Jesus. From the beginning God loved the humanity that he wills that no one is lost. It is the plan of his love to save the humanity. He presents the program of salvation in the time and in the history: he chooses a group of people for himself, offers them the liberation both from the slavery of the enemies and from the bondage of sin and death, and finally, places the salvation open to all. For this he has elected the prophets. They have appeared time and again when the chosen people were not in the grade of accepting the word. They have made known again to them the project of God’s love and redemption, by calling them back to the fidelity to the Alliance. Whenever there is a prophet to encourage them people renew their act of faith and thus accept the God’s way. Often being preoccupied with the problems and troubles they get us against the prophet and his word and finally rebel against God with the ignorance and with the pride. They become unfaithful to him and thus they reject the possibility of salvation that God desires to offer them. - The act of salvation begins with the chosen people: God’s salvation is not only for the chosen people of Israel. God, who wants to save man/humanity from the loss of dignity and life, begins to act. For the initiation of his act, he calls a group of people through the Patriarchs and guides them through the Judges and Kings and finally promises them both the temporary liberation from the various slaveries and eternal liberation from the clutches of death. It is true that God begins his deeds of salvation with the small group. But his salvation has no boundaries and limits. It goes beyond the small group. It embraces every being in the world. This is the message God proclaimed through the prophets. Though the message is directed immediately to the Israel, it does not stop there, it is directed to the entire humanity. With the various instances God manifests his love for the world. His love for the poor, for the afflicted, for the widows, for the dejected of the society, for the immigrants and foreigners is always present through the prophetic words of the Old Testament. Jesus presents two small examples of God’s divine salvation, not only for the elected people, but for those outside. He cites from the Old Testament the two persons chosen and helped: the widow is saved from the hunger and the Naaman the Syrian is cured from the leprosy. They do not belong to the chosen people. Yet, God’s salvation is manifested to them. It show that no one can stop God’s act for those he loves and God loves every human being. John proclaims it: God loved the world so much that He sent his only Son … so that all may have life through him (3:16ff). - The gift of salvation is offered to all: Already with the presence and predication of Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God, the message of salvation for all is manifested. This is what we have already meditated upon in the last week. Jesus taking the scroll of prophet Isaiah and reads from it: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, He has sent me to proclaim the good news to the poor, liberation to the prisoners, good sight to the blind, the year of the grace for all…(Luke 4:18ff). Jesus reveals that the prophecy is ultimately about himself. He reveals that this is the mission, promised by God and prophesied by Isaiah, that he has come to accomplish. The message of the prophecy is clear: God offers his love and his salvation to everyone – in particular the rejected and neglected of the society – to the entire world. Jesus confirms it in front of his people, the chosen people, declaring with the one phrase comment: Today, this Scripture is fulfilled before your eyes (Luke 4:21). He confirms that the salvation that God will for the entire humanity will be fulfilled in and through his person and his mission. It is through Jesus that God ultimately throws the light of salvation on all and invites all to respond to it with the choice of freedom and love. Readings: Message of salvation creates admiration but faces the rejection - Jesus proclaims that the promise and the prophecy of the Lord – the Scriptures – is fulfilled in his person and in his mission and that he has come to bring the good news of salvation to all. The words that have come from his mouth have created an admiration and a wonder in the minds of the listeners. His town people, his relatives and his kith and kin are taken up by the marvelous attitude of Jesus when he has read the scriptures and commented on it very briefly and more authoritatively. But the admiration of the people is soon turned into a jealousy and anger. They know who Jesus is and thus they could not accept the beautiful words to be true and authentic. They know that Jesus is one of their relations and is son of Joseph, the carpenter and therefore, for them, he is one of the normal and ordinary Jew. They could not believe how such a power comes from him and how he is able to proclaim with such an authority. They could not believe that a messenger of God can be one of them. They could not believe that the message of salvation can originate from their country. Above all they could not believe that God can act in such a simple manner because they always had the idea that the savior would be very royal and powerful and will come with the mighty army. - Wonder and rejection at the same time: It is true that there is wonder at the beginning. They would have meditated and reflection upon the God’s word, referred and proclaimed. Their wonder which is true and authentic could not last longer. Their preoccupations and their visible and tangible knowledge of Jesus have blocked their spirit of wonder to the words of grace. They made their mind victorious over their spirit of joy. They have give more importance to their minimum knowledge of their relative, Jesus. They are unable to go beyond their rapport with him and see who this Jesus could be in truth and what his words mean to them. They stopped their knowledge of him basing themselves on his father, mother, brothers and sister. Specially, the religious and political authority present for the liturgy of the word of that day could not bear the wonderful and promising words that have come from his mouth. They have perceived soon that this message is particularly against them. They thought that he is instigating his people to accept his preaching to be a call for salvation. They, the authority of the temple and the leaders of the politics, would reject Jesus soon. Further, they make the people to reject him because he is proclaiming something that is never heard before. They could not bear the message of salvation to the poor, neglected, prisoners, the blind and to the least of the society because they consider these people to be the cursed of the Lord. They could enter into the message of Jesus deeply both for the fear of authority and for the cause of the jealousy. The consequence is very clear: they reject him and his message. The wonderful message face the unanimous rejection. - Nothing can stop the message of salvation: Jesus knows that he is rejected and he accepts it and affirms it: no prophet is accepted in his home town. He is not discouraged. He has not lost his heart. He knows that this situation is not only with him but even prior to him many prophets were rejected and punished. Yet, he continues his mission. Knowing their plot to destroy him he passes among them and goes on his way. If these people reject, there will be some other people who will certainly accept his message. He leaves his home town to preach the good news of God’s love to others. Message of salvation may face rejection but it cannot be stopped. Its presence and its power is beyond any human impediment. It is a will and an act of God. Nobody can stop it, though they may reject it personally. The first reading presents both the call of Jeremiah and his mission which will face the same rejection from the people. But the messenger has to continue with his mission. The message has to be proclaimed anyway. God promises to Jeremiah that it is His Loving Plan: It is I who have known you, it is I who have called you and it is I who have stabilized you to be my messenger and therefore do not have any fear but preach the message and I will be with you until the end (first reading – God promises his presence with the messenger). So, the message of salvation is always in continuous process of reaching the people, in spite of its acceptance or rejection by them. One thing is evident here: God’s salvation is offered to all as a gift and God continuously invites the people to accept it with the freedom and with love. Conclusion: What are we doing? Accept or Reject? - Let my mouth speak of your wonderful deeds (Responsorial psalm): In the responsorial psalm of today we have responded with the words: my mouth speaks of your marvels o Lord. God’s word comes to us read and proclaimed. How often we are paying attention to it? How do we embrace the word and carry with us its meaning? We come to the Church and the celebrations. We say the prayers. We sing the songs. Are we really aware of what we are doing? We have greatly repeated the words of the responsorial psalm. How many time we have allowed our mouth to speak of the words and deeds of the Lord? If we merely say the words without entering into relevance for us, what do we learn from it? Before the word proclaimed we are confronted with an answer from us. We cannot remain indifferent to the invitation of the Word of God. We need to respond to it: either we accept it or we reject it. We do not have any other way. The third way is to be pretending only. The pretense is more dangerous than rejection. Yet the message of God is facing more pretension that acceptance or rejection. - Rejection of salvation by outsiders: If the word is not heard the situation can be understood. But once the word is made known, once Jesus has extended his call, no one can stay untouched and un-responded. There are those in the world who do not believe in God, who do not believe in any other religion and those who do not want to enter into the question of God at all. They already reject the possibility of salvation offered to them by Jesus. They do not pretend to believe. They are quite clear that they do not want to entertain any idea of this kind. Whatever may be the reason they stay outside the circle of God. Yet the story can have a different angle. They have still the possibility of obtaining salvation by their good human values in which they live for others with love. At least indirectly they sow the seeds of goodness and thus they, who do not speak of God publicly but practice the virtue of charity, have an entrance into the salvation. - Rejection within the believing community: The word is proclaimed and there are few who accept it and live it with dedication and commitment undergoing lot of sacrifice and insults. They are already within the circles of salvation. They are the faithful believing community. There is also dangerous situation in the believing community itself. Often, we are not excepted, the rejection of God’s word appears inside the Church. It is more dangerous because it is neither acceptance nor rejection, but pretension. We cannot know the mind and attitude of those who pretend. So also very often we listen to the word, we accept it because it is marvelous and beautiful like the community of Nazareth. But we do not live it because it demands the total change of our life. It asks for the renounce of what we have – indeed, what we are – and to take up what is of Christ. Until Jesus and his word does not disturb our daily life and our earthly and material wants, we are fine. Once Jesus asks more from us – little more time for prayer, little more spice of love in the works, little more commitment for the Christian testimony – we feel disturbed and we feel somehow demanded more. In such a situation of discomfort we conveniently keep ourselves away from the Lord and the celebration of the Church. We do not say that we do not believe. We neither accept that we are totally committed Christians. We only escape. We only pretend. For this, we come to the Church as an obligation. God never obliges us. We want to pacify God. It is really a situation of pretense. We may pretend with the fellow beings, not with God. we cannot escape his eye. He leaves us for our freedom: we may accept him with love or we may reject him with the want of the world. The decision is in our hands. - Let us renew our attitude towards the salvation proclaimed: It is true that we are in the constant struggle to be the good and authentic Christians. It is also true that there is an interior tension between our desire for God on the one hand and our incapacities to rise above our daily troubles. Often we demonstrate a great quest for the spiritual enrichment yet finding ourselves falling to the ground before our human needs. We have the spirit of living up to the word of God, yet often we lose control of ourselves with the passions of the world. As long as we maintain a true interior struggle we are still on the way towards attaining the salvation. God’s Word comes down to us both in the form of the Scriptures and in the form of the Sacrament exactly for this: to strengthen and empower us to be authentic spiritual pilgrims. Jesus invites us to renew our attitude towards the message of salvation. It has to be constant and daily task. We are not be satisfied and content with the few prayers we recite and with the small works we accomplish. There is still a long way to go. But if we continuously try without turning back we are sure to reach. God once again promises us his ever presence with us. Jesus always sustains us with his word and bread. The Spirit is always guides us as the light towards the Christian destiny. The only thing needed from our part is this: we get from the fall, renew our spirit, put on the armor of faith and love, and keep on walking towards destiny. The Christian assurance is there always with us: nothing and nobody can stop us from the salvation if only we take up the footsteps of Jesus, the savior. Therefore, let us embrace the gift of salvation with freedom and love.