Year C / 3rd Sunday / Ordinary Time
Readings: Nehemiah 8.2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 / Ps 18 /
1 Corinthians 12.12-30 / Luke 1.1-4, 4.14-21
It is common that we sit
after we have done something.
We sit after we have cooked a meal for the family.
We sit with friends upon completing a day’s work or study.
And, as we just did, we sit down after the gospel is proclaimed.
To sit expresses the end of an action,
the completion of an activity.
Luke’s gospel presents us with an image
of Jesus sitting down after proclaiming
a passage from the prophet Isaiah
Seated, he says,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,”
It was fulfilled amidst all in the synagogue long ago,
and continues to be assuring words for our fulfillment today,
because Jesus is the Good News
of God’s presence to the poor,
of God’s healing for the sick,
of God’s liberation of the unfreed,
of God’s continuing favor with all humankind.
Jesus embodies for us nothing less
than God’s love for us as we are,
human, with our flaws,
yet created good in God’s own image and likeness.
This reality of Jesus fulfilling God's presence
suggests that Jesus’ sitting down does not mark an end.
Rather it heralds the beginning
of his public life and ministry,
his saving action
of revealing God’s boundless love
that forgives us
and calls us to share in divine life with God,
not only in a future to come,
but also in the here and now
of our everyday lives.
I’d like to suggest
that this image of Jesus sitting as a beginning
invites you and me to honestly reflect
on our sitting down at this time each Sunday.
We hear the Word of God proclaimed,
but what does this mean for you and me?
Is this an experience
of sitting and hearing,
and then going home unaffected before returning next Sunday?
Or, is this an experience
of honestly trying to listen more attentively to God’s Word,
letting it take root in each of us
so that God’s Word can transform us
and we can begin to live
lives that are more human and humane
and a lot more Christian and divine
this coming week, not just for myself
but for everyone we will interact with?
Luke’s image of Jesus
sitting down to begin his work
is a challenging image;
it confronts us
by asking us how we want to embrace God’s Word,
which today’s psalm reminds us is gift:
"Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life."
Gift of God’s Spirit alive in us
and gift of life with God.
This challenging image
is also paradoxically the good news
we can hope in this morning.
Jesus’ way of sitting with God’s Word,
the truth Isaiah announces as God who saves,
models for us
how we can better hear, receive and live God’s Word
for ourselves and for one another.
In Jesus we see one who
lets God’s Word inform, shape and send him
into the world to live a life of self-giving love
that makes God alive and real to all,
especially those in need.
If we mean what we profess,
that we are Christians, followers of Jesus Christ,
then our practice of faith
must be one of sitting with God’s Word,
interiorizing it in our lives
and enacting it in our words and actions
so that others can enjoy the fullness of life.
Then, our Christian faith
will be truly rooted in God’s Word,
animated by God’s Spirit.
and lived in God’s ways.
There is however an urgency
to living our Christian faith in this manner.
By declaring that the passage from Isaiah
is being fulfilled in the midst of those gathered in the synagogue
and, more so, in our hearing this morning,
Jesus teaches us that the time to make God’s Word
our spirit and life begins here and now,
not after this Mass, not later today, not tomorrow morning.
This is the time
to hear God’ Word, to embrace it fully
and to put it into action in our lives
and in the lives of others around us.
Indeed, now is the right time
to sit in God’s Word and to give it free rein
as the Spirit and life of Jesus within us
-- to reconcile with a family member who has hurt us;
-- to feed and clothe the homeless in these cold days;
-- to stand up for those discriminated;
-- to put aside what I want to so that another can have a little more.
Perhaps, if we dare to do
these simple, everyday acts of loving like Jesus did,
of fulfilling God’s good news like Jesus,
whose sitting is in fact a beginning,
we can embrace our promised salvation
with much more hope
because we can begin to die more and more
to our human wants, to our self-centered needs,
and to take on more fully and more really
the likeness of Jesus in whose self-giving love for another
is the fullness of God’s image.
And this taking on of Jesus' likeness
is indeed our rightful inheritance as Christians.
Then, as we live such Christ-like lives,
we might even hear another say to us,
“today, you too are fulfilling God’s Word in my midst.”
preached at St Peter's Parish, Dorchester, Boston
View comments