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THIRD
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
24-01-2010
Once upon a time, there was a man who was imprisoned for
stealing and involving himself in violence. He spent 10
years in jail and on the day he was released, he was a
happy man. He comes home, and meets all his family
members. He was a changed man. There was no anger, no
impatience, he seemed relaxed and content. Then he sees
a big cage at his home with so many love birds chirping.
He watches them and at one point goes near the cage and
opens the door and lets all the birds fly free. When
questioned by his family members, he affirms the
invaluable beauty of freedom and respect to all. Well,
he was an enlightened changed man for sure.
HOW TO BOIL A BULLFROG? – LESSON OF TRUE FREEDOM
Years ago some scientists did a simple experiment on a
bullfrog. They threw a bullfrog into a container of
boiling water, and the bullfrog instantly popped out of
the boiling water. Next they put the bullfrog into a
container of cold water. The bullfrog liked it and
stayed in the container. The scientists then turned on
the heat at the bottom of the container. As the water
got warmer, the bullfrog relaxed and took a nap. The
bullfrog was so comfortable that it stayed in the
container and was “cooked”.
Most of us are in the “comfort zone”. We have a house to
go home to, a nice bed to sleep on, food in the fridge,
a group of friends to mingle with, along with some basic
necessities of life. We have worked hard to get to where
we are now. So why should we change this? The truth is
most of us are like the bullfrog, because we feel warm
and comfortable, we refuse to get out of our comfort
zone, and prefer to stay where we are. In life we are
either creating or disintegrating. There is no such
thing as “staying where we are”, because there is always
movement. So if we are not moving ahead in life, we must
by nature, be moving in the opposite direction.
"It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the
most victorious life when we are not cautious. The human
spirit is never finished when it is defeated... it is
finished when it surrenders." True freedom proclaimed by
Christ is not the one that leads us to laziness, rather
to hard work and never giving up.
Homily:
During the Ordinary Sundays of this year it is Luke’s
story about Christ that we will be following. Today’s
Gospel passage is in two distinct parts. It begins with
the opening paragraph of Luke’s account. It is addressed
to a friend, Theophilus. Luke implies that Theophilus
has already been instructed orally in the message of
Jesus but Luke will now present him with an accurate and
orderly account of Jesus’ life and teaching. Luke
clearly acknowledges that he himself never saw Jesus.
His gospel was written at least 50 years after Jesus’
death and resurrection. Yet he wants to assure his
friend that what he writes is accurate and is based on
the experiences of people who did know Jesus personally.
At the same time, it is important to remember that Luke,
like the other evangelists who have differing versions
of the same events, is not writing a biography. His
first purpose – as we see in the second part of today’s
passage – is to tell us the meaning of Jesus’ life,
death and resurrection for our personal lives and why we
should accept and follow Jesus as our King and Lord.
A preparation for his work
The second part of today’s passage involves a jump in
the text. We leap from the opening paragraph of Luke’s
gospel to Jesus’ first public appearance in his hometown
of Nazareth. In between are the story of the
Annunciation, Zachary and Elizabeth, the births of John
the Baptist and of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus and the
temptations in the desert. We have, in other words,
jumped from chapter 1 to chapter 4 in our text. All that
has been described before is really a preparation for
today’s scene. For what we are seeing here is the solemn
inauguration of Jesus’ public life and mission.
Immediately before this he had been down at the River
Jordan with his cousin, John the Baptist, and, following
his baptism, he had his strange experience in the desert
[to be discussed on the First Sunday of Lent]. So the
Gospel says that Jesus “with the power of the Spirit in
him” (arising from his Baptism and his triumph over the
Evil One) “returned to Galilee”. Galilee is the northern
province of Israel to which Jesus belonged. And he went
back to Nazareth “where he had been brought up”.
A purposeful journey
Luke very deliberately has Jesus start his work here.
His public life will be a single, direct journey from
Nazareth to Jerusalem, the focal point of the story told
by Luke in his gospel and in the Acts. Unlike the other
accounts, there will be no going back and forth between
Galilee and Jerusalem. And it is in Jerusalem, the city
of peace, that Jesus will suffer and die. It is here
that he will rise to life and become our Lord and
Saviour. And it is from here too that his disciples will
go forth to every corner of the world with the Good
News.
So it is that on this first day he goes into the
synagogue “as he usually did” on the Sabbath day. (Jesus
was an observant Jew. His attacks were never on the Law
as such but on its interpretation and abuses. He came,
as he said, not to destroy, or replace, the Law but to
fulfill it.)
There were no priests in the synagogue, which was simply
a prayer hall. The priests were in the Temple, the only
place where sacrifice was held. Every male Jew had a
right to read the Scriptures and to speak to the
assembly.
Mission statement
As Jesus stood up to read, a passage from the prophet
Isaiah was given to him. It was a passage about the
coming Messiah. What happens now, of course, is that
Jesus is announcing that he himself is that Messiah. He
applies the words of the prophet to himself. “The spirit
of the Lord has been given to me [at his baptism], for
he has anointed me.” “He has anointed me.” That is a way
of saying “I am a king”. A king was proclaimed by
anointing. We remember the prophet Samuel anointing
David as king. The Greek for Messiah is “Christos” (Cristos)
and it means “the anointed one”. Saviour King, Messiah,
Christ – they here all mean the same thing. Jesus Christ
means Jesus King. “Christ” is an explanatory title; it
is not a name. And what kind of king is Jesus going to
be? There immediately follows a proclamation, a
programme or manifesto of what we can expect from him.
Today we might call it a ‘mission statement’. The words
are to be taken both literally and symbolically.
Good news for the disadvantaged
They are addressed directly to the materially poor,
those in prison, the physically blind, the oppressed and
exploited of the world. While Matthew speaks of “the
poor in spirit”, Luke addresses the beatitude directly
to “you who are poor, weep, are hungry and oppressed”.
The message for them is one of hope, of healing and of
liberation. This will come about not by some miracle but
by the transformation of those who, aligning themselves
with Jesus, can put an end to these things. But the
message is surely to be understood symbolically as well,
so as to include all of us.
So, in addition to the materially poor, there are those
who are emotionally underdeveloped, those who are lonely
or rejected, those who are crushed by their need to be
surrounded by material plenty… all are poor, really
poor. And they include all of us at some time.
The unfree
In addition to those held in captivity, especially those
who are unjustly in prison but also those who, guilty of
some crime, need conversion and reconciliation, there
are many, many who are far from free. Very few people
indeed are truly free and many actually fear true
freedom and the responsibility that goes with it. True
freedom is something for all of us to pray for. “Give
sight to the blind.” There is a kind of instinct that
makes people in some cultures consult the blind as
sources of a special insight. Physical blindness is far
less disabling than the blindness that comes from
prejudice, ignorance, jealousy and other emotional
blocks. Most people, said a writer, “lead lives of quiet
desperation”. Societies which often boast of their
freedom create sometimes unbearable pressures on people.
We need to become aware, here in our own society, to
what extent we are living under pressures we could well
do without.
A shared life
How do Jesus’ words reach us today? The answer, I
believe, is in today’s Second Reading. The problem with
our Christian living is that it is so individualistic.
We try to manage things on our own. And that is even
true of the way we try to live our Christian lives. But
it is not the picture that Paul describes here. He sees
the multiplicity of Christians as living members of one
Body. Each member interacts in a constant giving and
receiving. And each member gets the same respect. In
fact, it is the “weakest” and “least honourable” parts
which receive greater attention. That is how the words
of Jesus in today’s Gospel become living realities. For
it is in mutual giving and receiving as one Body that we
enable each other to experience the enrichment
(overcoming our poverty), the vision (banishing our
blindness), and the freedom (removing the oppressions
and addictions) which Jesus wishes us to have.
Finally, we cannot help noticing the contrast between
the proclamation of the Law in the First Reading and
that of Jesus in the Gospel. The Law was essential for
dignity, human rights and freedom but there is a new
ingredient in what Jesus gives – compassion. That’s what
makes the difference.
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