4 th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) 31 January 2010

There is a programme on television called “Who do you think you are?” A person, often well-known, has their ancestry traced. Sometimes there are unexpected, and even unwelcome, discoveries made about those from whom we are descended.

Today, Jesus is subjected to some scrutiny about who He thinks He is – “This is Joseph’s son, surely?” Jesus is the ‘local boy’ who has made a big name for Himself. He is getting to be well-known. But when you come back to where you were brought up the locals know who you are and keep you in your place. Because of this, Jesus quotes to the people in the Synagogue a proverb familiar to them, “No prophet is ever accepted in his own country.”

The difficulty was that the locals wanted Jesus to do for them what he had done elsewhere. They wanted miracles performed. They felt that they had every right to expect this since Jesus was one of their own. They were concerned that He would forget who He was!

The truth was Jesus was only too well aware of who He was and why He was on this earth. He was a local but He was also sent to bring every person into the circle of God’s love. There were to be no favourites – not even your home town could claim privilege. The more distant people were and the greater their needs, the more urgently Jesus goes out to meet them. God is the friend of outsiders.

When Jesus did not measure up to their expectations of Him, their mood changed. Last week in the Gospel we heard that “everyone praised him.” This week the Gospel has these same people ready to hurl Jesus off the top of the hill on which their town was built. I wonder if the hill on which Nazareth is built is a symbol of the day that Jesus will be crucified on the Hill of Calvary.

It is not easy being a prophet as Jeremiah found out. He was young when the call came to him. He told God that he was only a youth. God told him not to be afraid that He would look after him – “I am with you to deliver you.”

Each of us is called to be a prophet in our time. As a community we are called to be prophetic, that is, we are sent out each day to live out the message of God’s love for all people as taught to us by Jesus. The love of God that we are to let other people feel is so special. In the Mass today, we get the great hymn from St Paul to what is involved. It is frightening in many ways that it is to this Love that we are called.

Just listen to our calling both individually and as the community of St Joseph’s:

To be ambitious for the higher gifts

To love as God loves because without love we are nothing at all

To be patient and kind, not jealous or boastful, not rude or selfish, not to take offence, not to be resentful, never to take pleasure in other people’s sins, always ready to excuse, trust, to hope and endure come what may.

Reading that manifesto is enough to make me tremble. But, then I remember that I am not doing this on my own. It is Jesus living in my heart who gives me the power to even have the courage to attempt to be His witness to love in the world of today.

This is a great time to be called to be a witness to Jesus. Our world desperately needs solid example. Whether you are young like Jeremiah or getting on in years, the call is the same and the challenge great.

Aidan Troy, C.P. [Aodhán ó Troighthigh, C.P.]