By Rev. Jean-Pierre Ruiz
I confess that I’ve preached some dreadful homilies. Calling them to mind makes me wince with embarrassment.
Still, I take some consolation from knowing that nobody ever reacted to my lousy sermonizing in the way that the people of Nazareth went after Jesus in Sunday’s Gospel: “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.” Moments earlier they had spoken highly of him, “amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” What did he say to deserve such rage from folks who had known him since he was a boy?
It was Jesus’ reply to their wondering, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” that set them off. He sensed that they wanted him to show off, intuiting that they would ask, “Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.” He wouldn’t accommodate them, offering a proverb instead: “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.” His listeners must have been disappointed.
After all, Jesus had just read from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…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.” Then he declared, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” Was it too much for his fellow Nazarenes to want Jesus to make good on those words? What harm would it have done to let them witness a miracle or two?
Here’s the point: Jesus didn’t allow himself to be domesticated. He wouldn’t settle for being nothing more than Nazareth’s hometown hero because God’s saving love knows no limits and no borders! Jesus reminded his neighbors of how God sent the prophet Elijah to the Phoenician city of Sidon to provide famine relief to a widowed woman, and how God led Naaman — a Syrian — to be healed by the prophet Elisha. So it also was with Jeremiah, whom God appointed “a prophet to the nations.”
What’s the takeaway for us? Pope Francis cautions against a Church turned inward on itself: “sometimes we appropriate Jesus just for us and we forget that a church, which is not going out into the world, a church, which does not go out, keeps Jesus imprisoned.”
We Christians (of all denominations) are called to be catholic and not merely parochial. To be catholic is to recognize the universal scope of Christ’s life-giving mission.
As for “parochial,” we should avoid the mindset that Merriam-Webster defines as “confined or restricted as if within the borders of a parish: limited in range or scope (as to a narrow area or region),” synonymous with “provincial” and “narrow.”
Enlivened by God’s Word and nourished by the sacraments in our parishes, we are sent out to share the Good News.
As Pope Francis teaches, “there is a kind of preaching which falls to each of us as a daily responsibility. It has to do with bringing the Gospel to the people we meet, whether they be our neighbors or complete strangers…Being a disciple means being constantly ready to bring the love of Jesus to others, and this can happen unexpectedly and in any place” (Evangelii Gaudium 127). In any place? Yes, and not only in our parishes and our own neighborhoods but everywhere!
Readings for Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
1 Corinthians 12:31—13:13
Luke 4:21-30
Father Ruiz, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is a professor of theology at St. John’s University, Jamaica.
