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FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (NEXT SUNDAY) Gospel: Luke 4:21-30 Link to all three Readings on USCCB SITE. Jesus began speaking in the synagogue, saying: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. 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. Again, 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.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. 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. But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away. We are fortunate this weekend in that the Gospel selection from Luke follows last week’s text sequentially. In, fact the two texts overlap, last week’s concluding sentence (4:21) is this week’s opening sentence. “Today this Scripture passage (Isaiah 58) is fulfilled in your hearing.” I commented last week that the response to Jesus’ statement in his home synagogue was hostile, but in researching Joel Green’s The Gospel of Luke (213ff) I discovered that the text is considerably more complex and involved. Green explains that the initial reaction to the claim in verse 21 is very favorable. As Luke himself writes, “all spoke highly of him” and were amazed at the words that came forth from his mouth, particularly Jesus’ statement that today the promises of Isaiah were being fulfilled in Nazareth, through him. The reader of the entire Gospel narrative to this point, notes Green, knows that this imminent fulfillment has already been taking place since the moment Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the Temple three decades earlier. You and I know more of the full story at this juncture than the Nazarenes in the synagogue. The question then comes from the assembly, is this deliverer of Good News the same son of Joseph? This is more an expression of surprise, even praise, than insolence, something like bragging that you and Bernie Sanders attended Warren G. Harding High School together. But it does reveal that the Nazarenes do not have a clue about the origins of Jesus, which again puts today’s reader at an advantage. We know from Luke’s narrative that Joseph is not the father of Jesus, but rather, it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is conceived. As Green writes, “Their understanding of Jesus was erroneous,” (215) and their expectations regarding redemption were parochial, a hometown savior of their own blood come to buttress their vision of Judaism, which by Jesus’ day was corrupt and ineffectual. So it is Jesus, then, who voices his discontent with their position. He will correct them and set them straight. He begins with the old saying from antiquity, “Physician, heal thyself” (or “your own”). The sentence makes sense in light of his next utterance regarding healings in Capernaum, most notably, the healing of a paralytic dropped through a ceiling into Jesus’ presence. (Mark 2; Luke 7) Capernaum carries a certain symbolism in that it is “not home” in the sense that Nazareth is, and in the Gospels of Luke (5:17ff) and Mark it is a place where Jesus stretches the definition of his messiahship far out of the contemporary box with his announcement that he has come to forgive sin. Jesus goes on to quote from the Hebrew Scripture (specifically Nehemiah 9:26) a truism about prophesy, that no prophet is accepted in his home town. Here Jesus is stating clearly (1) that he is a Spirit-filled prophet, indeed the Spirit filled prophet, and (2) that true to popular wisdom, he will be without honor in his hometown, an implicit admission that his townspeople are incapable of grasping the fulfillment of God’s plan and the attendant salvation that comes with it. Jesus then goes on to give several well-known Biblical examples of salvific acts extended to those outside of Israel’s territorial and theological boundaries. He compares his ministry to the great prophets Elijah and Elisha from the Book of 1 Kings, affirming again his own role as a prophet but particularly as a universal prophet. Green offers a number of critical points about these two examples. In the first place, Israel was poor (“there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah” during a multi-year drought). Second, Elijah was sent to a widow in Sidon; the passive voice indicates that God did the sending. Likewise, with Elisha, there were many lepers in the homeland of Israel, but again the prophet is ordained (by God) to heal only Naaman the Syrian. This narrative of Luke is his own way of conveying the God of Israel is the Lord of all the nations. Think back to the First Reading of the Feast of the Epiphany, where Isaiah 60 describes a day when all nations of the earth will stream to the holy city of Jerusalem on the mountaintop bearing innumerable gifts. This text is aptly paired with Gentile Magi bearing gifts to the child Jesus. Jesus the Messiah would be neither a local deliverer or protector of the status quo. Membership in the Kingdom of God would no longer be defined by blood or shopworn legal observance, but by faith in God’s universal Son. This first exercise of Jesus’ ministry almost cost him his life. His final exercise would indeed lead to his crucifixion. Green sees in this (possibly miraculous) deliverance from a violent death a prefiguring of God’s saving his Son at the Resurrection. In any event, Jesus is delivered from premature martyrdom and “went on his way,” an idiom for the continuation of the mission for which he was anointed.
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JANUARY 24, 2016
GOSPEL: THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME LUKE 1:1-4; 4:14-21 Link to all three readings from USCCB site Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all. He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The Gospel texts for this Sunday reflect the sometimes conflicting aims of the editors of the Lectionary: providing the Catholic worshipper with exposure to the four Gospels in a way that is true to the intent of the sacred author (as opposed to cherry-picking texts) while building a pastoral framework inclusive of the liturgical calendar and the other scripture texts of the day. It does happen that these goals, while mutual, sometimes reflect the challenge of the task, and this weekend coming is one of those times. The chapter citations alone tell you we are dealing with two distinct texts from this gospel, and you probably would have gathered that from looking reading the texts anyway. The opening paragraph is actually the opening preface of the entire Gospel, and ahead of even the Infancy narrative. The second and third paragraphs jump over the Infancy narrative of chapters one and two—which we heard in the Christmas cycle of feasts—as well as chapter three, which includes an extensive treatment of John the Baptist. I regret that the description of John’s message did not make the “lectionary cut.” This is why I recommend the private reading of the entire Gospel for the year’s cycle, not just the “Sunday readings.” I am doing this with Joel B. Green’s commentary, The Gospel of Luke, which includes the whole text. Don’t be afraid of a “substantive text; as one Amazon reviewer out it, “it is a hard read at times and I felt lost at certain areas but I am grateful for the information it gave me.” The introduction to the Gospel (Green, 33-46), or the “prologue,” has fascinated the Church throughout its history. Luke is the only evangelist to introduce his work and explain how he did it, his methodology. The style of 1:1-4 is a common form of introduction indicating that the author is adopting the historical style of writing history handed down by the ancient Greeks Herodotus and Thucydides, western civilization’s first objective investigators of the past. Luke tells us that “many” have undertaken to write an orderly exposition of the Christ event. In terms of the books considered inspired by the Church, only St. Mark for sure (and possibly St. Matthew) preceded Luke, so other accounts have probably not survived. Moreover, these other writers were using material handed down to them by eye witnesses. Luke is very clear that he is no eye witness, but a later day historian with a theological story to tell. His factual sources come from others before him, though it will become clear through the year that Luke will weave factual narrative into Old Testament fulfillment and Holy Spirit potential. The identity of Theophilus (‘lover of God”) is one of history’s mysteries: A Godly gentleman, a patron, a (prospective) convert, a Roman official—all of these identities have supporters. The critical term in the prologue is “fulfilled.” Luke makes the point that his subsequent sequence of events has been “fulfilled among us.” This word turns out to be the connecting rod to the second part of Sunday’s Gospel, which concludes with Jesus announcing in his local synagogue that Scripture is being fulfilled in the midst of the worshippers there. Paragraph two jumps to Jesus’ adult ministry. He has already encountered the Baptist, heard his message at great length, accepted his baptism, prayed (a very intense word in Luke), enjoyed the public favor of the Holy Spirit, and had his lineage traced back to “Adam, son of God.” (chapter 3) Luke opens chapter four with a detailed account of Jesus’ in the desert, having been led there by the Holy Spirit to face the temptations of the devil. (That text will be read on the First Sunday of Lent.) We join the story at Luke 4:14 on Sunday, where he reports that by the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus has become a teacher who works in synagogues throughout Galilee Jesus returns to his home town of Nazareth and as a Jewish layman takes his turn in reading the Scripture, which here happens to be Isaiah 58 (Luke quotes—and edits—just a representative portion.) There is a great deal to say about this Isaiah text, but Green (206ff) focuses on just a few words. The word “poor” is not intended here simply as material poverty or depravity of spirit; it is used, per Green, “in a holistic sense of those who are for any number of socio-religious reasons relegated to positions outside of the boundaries of God’s people.” Put another way, Jesus is expounding a doctrine of “non-exclusion” in the face of a religion and a culture that burdened under the weight of division and boundaries. A second key word is “release.” The coming of Jesus, throughout Luke’s Gospel, will be a series of “releases”: release from infirmity, from sin, from captivity, from the power of Satan, and in a particularly pertinent Old Testament style, release from debts, the beloved Jubilee Year, now writ large. The conclusion of this second portion is the dramatic announcement of Jesus that on this very day the passage from Isaiah is fulfilled in the hearing of his townsfolk. If you read the next paragraphs after the Sunday Gospel text, you will discover that Jesus’ words were badly received. Was it his new (sounding) interpretation of the Scripture directed toward a religious culture where eating with unwashed hands was an abomination? Or was it anger at Jesus’ seeming impertinence, even blasphemy, that this age of deliverance and unsullied blessings would come though him personally? The parallels here between the Lukan Christ and the efforts of Francis to make 2016 a year of mercy are so obvious that I can think of nothing more to add. This week marks the first anniversary of our daily blog. For my impressions of the first year and plans for 2016, click here at your leisure.
January 17, 2016: Second Sunday of Ordinary Time Gospel: John 2: 1-11 Link to USCCB site for all three readings. There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from — although the servers who had drawn the water knew —, the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him. Every day that I post is another learning adventure, and I certainly learned something today—that there is an insertion of the Gospel of John in the Year C narrative of St. Luke. This is one of those unusual occurrences where a Catholic Mass attendee would hear on successive Sundays Gospels derived from three different evangelists. On the Feast of the Epiphany the narrative from St. Matthew was proclaimed. On the following Sunday, the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, St. Luke’s description was proclaimed. This Sunday next, we have St. John’s narrative of the Wedding Feast of Cana. The Catholic Church—as well as many mainstream Christian Churches—has a set sequence of scripture texts for universal use. Catholic pastors, for example, cannot just sit back in their office chairs and think about what texts would be interesting to talk about…or which ones would require the least amount of research and desk sweat. There is logic to our Sunday worship (and certainly weekday as well); in the case of the Scriptures, the Church has gone to great pains to present the faithful with three sequential narratives of the life and meaning of Jesus of Nazareth. Our three-year cycle dedicates Year A to the Gospel of Matthew, Year B to St. Mark, and our current Year C to St. Luke. Thus, when the Church deviates from this established pattern, there must be compelling reason to do so. Which brings us back to the surprise visit from St. John’s Gospel this coming weekend. What is happening here? Right off the bat, the text from St. John was carefully chosen. It is the famous Wedding Feast of Cana narration, the changing of six storage tanks of plain water into an exceptionally fine wine, so good in fact that the wine steward raises the somewhat humorous point that such a good wine was too fine for a wedding party that was pretty far down the road alcoholically and ready for the “well brand.” (One of my favorite cartoons, from New Yorker Magazine, involves budget wine.) John writes that this miracle of Jesus is the first of his signs, actions that would reveal his glory (in the divine sense) and draw his disciples toward faith in him. John’s Gospel contains only about half a dozen miracles—in contrast to the other three Gospels—and John depiction of these miracles, familiar to all of you even remotely involved in the RCIA, is an entrée into a dialogue of coming to faith. Another way to put this: each of John’s miracle narratives is an epiphany of sorts, and this weekend we have his first epiphany placed before us. A few weeks ago, when writing about the history of the feast of the Epiphany, I noted that in many parts of the world, dating to ancient times, the Epiphany feast of January 6 was actually a three-part liturgical and cultural observance that embodied the revelation of Christ’s glory to the Magi, the manifestation of Jesus’ unique relationship to his Father at his baptism from John the Baptist, and the first miracle of Jesus at the wedding in Cana. January 6, then, has historically observed the emergence of the divine nature of the man Jesus by conflating three separate Gospel narrations. The Year C Lectionary of Readings has recaptured our past by extending the one feast of “Epiphany” over three distinct Sundays, concluding with our Sunday observance next week. It is unfortunate that the title of this Sunday in the calendar is the somewhat pedestrian “Second Sunday in Ordinary Time,” and I fear that the reading of the Cana wedding narrative may be heard by many as a familiar vignette, just one of Jesus’ many miracles, without the fuller context of history and belief embedded in our tradition. As for Sunday’s text as it stands, the wedding feast occurs after Jesus has been baptized by John the Baptist, though the actual act of baptizing is not reported in this Gospel. After Jesus’ encounter with the Baptist, he gathers disciples—this, on the other hand, is tended to in considerable detail. As we will see, the following events at the wedding take place precisely so that these men may come to believe. Whether the shortfall of wine at this week-long fest is due in part to the presence of the hard-drinking fishermen is something we will never know. It is known that failure to provide enough wine at a wedding was a major disgrace to a family, though Mary’s charitable intervention on behalf of the host is not the theological focus. (I have been to a few weddings in my lifetime where running out of alcohol might have saved the host a lot of money.) Interestingly, John does not use the name “Mary” in this text, and I cannot recall any instance in the entire Gospel where John does identify her as anything but “the mother of Jesus,” a highly honorific title in its own right. I have seen a number of misinformed explanations and interpretations of the mildly distressed conversation between Jesus and his mother; the very simple explanation, of course, is the need of a literary set-up for the miracle or sign. The word “wine” has theological coinage in the New Testament; consider “new wine in old wineskins.” In fact, this is exactly what happens here, as the waiters are instructed to fill “six stone water jars [drums]…for Jewish ceremonial settings. The Jewish containers are indeed “old wineskins;” the fact that there are six jugs puts them numerically one jug short of “seven,” the numeric symbol of perfection. There is another key point here involving Jesus’ words to his mother. He tells her, “My hour has not yet come.” Again, the brilliant John has created another set-up, for in Chapter 17, at the conclusion of the Last Supper discourse, Jesus prays to his Father in these words: “Father, the hour has come! Give glory to your Son that your Son may give glory to you.” At the risk of repeating myself, John’s Gospel is structured as the unveiling of the glory of the divine and human Jesus. This Gospel was written as late as 100 AD, when heresies about the nature of Jesus were well developed, on both extremes of the spectrum. Jesus was portrayed by some as a divine ghost or mirage (Docetism) or by others as merely human, a concept that would become Arianism. Properly understood, John’s Cana episode rounds out the identity phase of Jesus: in the triptych of Epiphany, Baptism, and first miraculous sign, we—like the disciples—have an inkling of the one we are to follow into glory. As I am on the road today, I have linked to John Marten's weekly commentary on the Sunday readings from America Magazine. Sunday is the feast of the Baptism of Jesus and the final day of the liturgical Christmas season. Ordinary Time begins next Monday as Week One. As time allows, I will check in with a personal thought later today.
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