In our Gospel today, we hear of the people from our Lord’s native town of Nazareth, at first graciously accept our Lord’s reading from the Torah, and then His words that followed this. They are amazed at the first part of His message, and oh so agreeable to its content. Yet when Jesus gets to the real point of what He is saying, namely that while the acts that He is performing so graciously are being accepted in faith in other places, what He finds with His own townspeople is just the opposite, it is a lack of faith that keeps Him from being able to do much with them. It is a calling out of the hardness of their hearts because they think they already know all about him rather than acknowledging the works that He has already performed and actually believing in Him through faith. It’s not an easy thing to do, and when they are called out for this, they react with fury rather than gaining some introspection that could instead bring about change within them. I dare say, this is often how we find ourselves reacting at first impulse. We don’t look to ourselves as perhaps the source of the issue, we instead cast it upon others.
Why is it, that our first impulse is often anger and rejection when we encounter a problem, rather than introspection? Why is it that after all we have been taught generation after generation that we still find ourselves so prone to blaming others and grinding our teeth at them? In short, it is because that is the easy path. It does not require unpleasant acknowledgment of our own faults, it does not require change that entails effort, and it is far more palatable to our baser instincts to point at someone else the way small children do whenever something goes wrong. Uh Uh – not me, I didn’t do it. Anything to avoid recognition of our own shortcomings and any perceived punishment (like having to put forth the effort to change) – this is the essence of the childlike. Yet Saint Paul tells us in the second reading that we are to put aside childish things, and to perceive ourselves more clearly like in a mirror, and to allow that which is perfect to emerge. Those things that are perfect of course do not come from us, they come from God. Things like faith, hope, and love that we so often find ourselves not exercising to their full potential in our lives. To allow these gifts to give us what we need to allow the old self and its shortcomings to pass away – to allow the partial conversion to give way to a fuller acceptance.
Of all the gifts we receive from others, if we really think back on things honestly, it is not the most expensive, or grand, or unique that will stand out in our memories. It is instead the ones that are given at personal cost and fashioned with love that mean the most to us. It may simply be the giving of someone else’s time or attention, it does not have to be something purely tangible. These are the things we actually crave from others, so is it really so surprising that the biggest impact we ourselves could have on others would also come from love? Love given at personal expense, love that shows just how deeply we are capable of caring for someone. Whether we can recall many of these things being given from those around us, there is one we do know of for certain, and that is the gift of our Lord’s life upon the cross that was given to each of us at the greatest personal cost. It is the gift that in the end, is the only one that truly matters. It is the one that gives us the model to follow that will lead to eternal life if we simply open ourselves to it. Open ourselves to love, rather than the childish things that think will make us feel good for a pathetically short while. As we grow as individuals, and also collectively within the body of Christ, we seek for more enduring gifts to sustain us, and it is these that can only come from Christ himself, and those who have accepted His teaching to allow them the grace to love.
The Deacons Bench 