4th Sunday Year C - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2022

What, would you say, was the problem with the people of Nazareth? the people of Jesus’ own hometown? What annoyed them so much that they even tried to lynch him, to throw him over a nearby cliff?

Jesus’ diagnosis seemed to indicate it had something to do with their unstated attitude: “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum. Do the same here in your own countryside.” In other words, “Work your miracles here for us!” “Make life easy for us!” “We should be ‘number-1’!”

Do you remember last Sunday’s Gospel? Jesus had shared his sense of mission, his vision, his hope of what needed to be done: “to bring good news to the poor…, to set the downtrodden free…, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.” That meant, when you think of it, a social renewal. It would involve a radical change of perspective for everyone, including those from his own hometown. It would mean, first of all, that they would need to become aware of “the poor”, “the downtrodden”. Who were they? why were they poor? who was treading them down? More than just being aware of them, they would need to care about what society was doing to the downtrodden, become aware of their own taking oppression for granted. They would need to do what they could.

Has Covid been a “wake up call” to us? Is Jesus saying to us, “Isaiah’s text…”, which he had been quoting, “… is being fulfilled today even as you listen.”

With the first shock of the virus, many of us had become alert to how much we depend on the value of the work of so many people whose work we simply took for granted: the health workers, the teachers, the cleaners, the transport drivers, the supermarket check-out operators, the fruit-pickers… The list goes on. We have depended on their readiness to face the risks of being exposed to easier infection. Governments, at first, had noticed their value - and even begun to take more care for them.

The ones who have been “blind” and in need of “new sight” have, in many cases, been ourselves. I hope we are beginning to appreciate better that we are, after all, organised as a “common-wealth”. Our ancestors agreed, some time in the past, to care for each other and to share the common wealth equitably. Early on, it had been a struggle. Over time, we began to leave it increasingly to the “market” to sort out how our common “wealth” would be divided. Others have joined in working out how “the cake should be divided”: those with influence, those already wealthy, the powerful. And we have tended to take it all for granted, as long as there has been enough “for me”.

Are we realising now that a good way to care for ourselves is to care for everyone? that a good way to ensure that we don’t fall through the safety-net, particularly as we grow older, is to ensure that nobody falls through the safety-net now, indeed is to “love our neighbour as ourselves”?

Jesus encountered vigorous “push-back” to his vision and mission. His listeners “sprang to their feet …, intending to throw him down the cliff”. They did not get him then, but eventually they crucified him. Loving our neighbour can sound a bit rich to some.