Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 3 / Sunday
Readings: Nehemiah 8.2-4a,5-6, 8-10 / Ps 18.8,9.10, 15 (cf John 6.63c) / 1 Corinthians 12.12-30 / Luke 1.1-4; 4.14-21
We’ve all seen those “Keep Calm” memes in red and white. “Keep Calm and Carry On”, “Keep Calm and Stay Positive”, “Keep Calm and Study Hard”. There’s even one for Star Wars fans: “Keep Calm and Use the Force.”
A favorite of mine reads: “Keep Calm Because Today’s the Day!” The day something special will happen. The day we will experience love. The day we’ll make a difference by forgiving. The day we’ll rise to the occasion and become better. Yes, this meme “Keep Calm Because Today’s the Day!” reminds us that every day is God's day of grace.
This is the good news Jesus announces in today’s gospel reading.
We are all too familiar with our Gospel story. It is the Sabbath. Jesus is worshipping in a synagogue. From the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he reads out loud about the Lord’s Spirit anointing one to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to the captives and sight to the blind, to free the oppressed and to announce the year of the Lord’s favor. He rolls up the scroll, hands it back and sits.
For some, this scene records the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. For others, it is about Jesus announcing God’s plan. But notice that all in the synagogue have fixed their eyes on Jesus. They are waiting for him to interpret Isaiah’s words and to teach them. What would Jesus say?
Jesus could have preached on the wisdom of past prophets: that God would bring Israel into the promised land where they would live in justice, freedom, and healing. Jesus could also have elaborated on the future Isaiah prophesized: that God’s promised glory would come when the poor, lowly and despised are saved and uplifted.
But Jesus does neither. He does not reach back to a past the Jews long for, nor does he look ahead to God’s future coming they hope for. Instead, he simply says, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”.
Imagine the shock of the Jews upon hearing Jesus say, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. These words must have rocked their faith — their scripture in not fulfilled in a past event, nor, will it be fulfilled in a future advent. Their scripture, God’s word, is being fulfilled, right here and now, at this time, in their midst in the person of Jesus.
“What do you mean that the Spirit of the Lord is here?” they would probably have asked Jesus. “Now? Today? That the poor can hear good news, prisoners are being released, the blind see and the oppressed receive justice?”
“How can it be?” we’d also probably echo “Yes, how can it be when there is even more inequality, more people unjustly treated, more suffering illnesses, more violently hurt and maimed today? “Really, is this God’s kingdom alive?” is a question we would have asked our parents and partners, our catechism teachers and priests, now and again.
“Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. Not yesterday; not tomorrow. Today. Yes, keep calm for today’s the day. The day of the Lord that is our day too, our every day.
How many of us really celebrate each day as God’s day with us and for us? Often, our struggles, frustrations and disappointments color how we see our days: “bad” is that sad word we use. Sadly, I think we grumble and complain about our days more than we count them as our blessings.
If we have to think of each day as God’s day, we tend to do so through the lenses of “past” and “future”. A past when we were more Christ-like and responded so freely and lovingly to God. A future we fear we cannot live well because we are sinners, never good enough for God’s mercy and salvation. If we mourn our past intimacy with God, we’ll live in regret and grief. If we’re fearful of a future without God, we’ll live with anxiety and doubt.
As a result, today is lost, and its gift of God’s grace forgotten. But if today is indeed God’s day — especially because God’s Word is being fulfilled as we live—then "today" is a deeply dangerous spiritual reality. It insists that we put aside both our memories of the past and our dreams for the future in order to be free to embrace fully the now, the time of this day, the grace of God being with us today.
Then, we will discover that we are actors in the most important drama we will ever be part of — God’s sacred drama that our lives are.
What is our role? To speak of God's desire unfolding in our varied lives and to enact it for the world with the different gifts we have, as St Paul describes in our second reading. This is how we must be in accomplishing God’s mission: one body in Christ.
We will know this two-fold role when we begin to see that the most radical thing Jesus announces in our gospel is “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. Radical because Jesus is challenging us to return to the essence of Christian life.
An essence best discovered best through the Latin word vocātiō which means a call. Today Jesus is calling us to see that the Spirit of God is always at work in our midst. This is how we will know that what God says, “I will be with you”, is more than a promise: it is our reality.
This is why today’s gospel passage must matter for our Christian life. For Jesus is asking us to open our eyes, to see God’s labor in our lives, to become more attentive to God present with us and for us, no matter how difficult and disappointing our circumstances may be. It would be a pity if today’s gospel went through one ear and out the other; we will be shortchanging ourselves.
“Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. This is how Jesus challenged the Jews then, as he challenges us now, to see God in the grace of each day we live in more clearly.
He is calling us to go past our disappointment and despair with our immediate sins, family trials, society’s injustices, and human evil. He is, in fact, calling us to recognize and embrace the ever-present reality of love — the mercy of God and our compassion for neighbor — upon which everything else profoundly rests. This is the foundation of Christian living you and I are being invited once again to see, to experience and to grasp in the course of today and each day we live: for love is God's grace actively at work everyday of our lives.
If we do these, I believe that we no longer need to fear so much, hate so uncharitably, and discriminate so hurtfully. We no longer need to because we will recognize that in the midst of all things — not matter how bad, difficult or despairing — God is indeed with us and for us.
“Keep calm because today’s the day!” Yes, today’s the day when Jesus’ radical announcement assures us again that God is indeed with us and laboring for us right here, right now. So, let us rejoice, be glad and share this good news!
Preached at Church of the Transfiguration Singapore
photo: teatime at the museum by adrian danker, sj @new york city, dec 2013
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