Monday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 4, 2023

Luke 4, 16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. 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.”  Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?” He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. 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. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

St. Luke puts events in their chronological order that are in thematic or some other order in other Gospels.  St. Matthew, for instance, shows Jesus moving to Capernaum before returning to Nazareth, but St. Luke shows that Jesus went back to Nazareth, was rejected there, and then moved to Capernaum.  The rejection was the cause for the move.  The move was the sign that the Lord accepted their rejection.  And it was a warning.

“Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day.”  Throughout his Gospel, St. Luke shows his Gentile readers that Jesus obeyed the Law on every respect and fulfilled the Scriptures pertaining to the Messiah: it is the high priests and Pharisees who do not obey the Law and falsely accuse Jesus.  He was rejected by his own people bot because he was a bad Jew but because they were.  

“He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.”  Synagogue services did not include worship, which was restricted to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Rather, they were discussions on the Law and the Prophets.  Anyone could read on a given Sabbath and lead the discussion.  Jesus chooses to read from a scroll containing the Book of Isaiah.  Almost every synagogue in Israel at that time had a complete copy of the Law and the Prophets.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.”  This was a text considered to speak of the Messiah.  “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”  The Lord identifies himself as the Messiah with these words.  We note that he does this not at Jerusalem or even in the town his Mary and Joseph’s family was from but at the town where he grew up.  He was according this insignificant out-of-the-way settlement an immense honor in which the inhabitants could have basked.  Instead of Capernaum, he could have drawn his first disciples from there, and used Nazareth as his base.

At first, the response proved favorable: “And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”  But as the talk continued, it turned negative.  How could this be the Messiah?  “Is this not the son of Joseph?”  According to the Pharisees, no one was supposed to know where the Messiah came from.  His claim contradicted this widely accepted idea.  Jesus seems to preempt another objection: “Physician, cure yourself.”  Some of the earliest Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, wrote that the Lord possessed some sort of deformity such as a bowed back, and this would seem to answer the proverb the Lord quotes and it would also make it less likely that he could be the Messiah.  “Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.”  The crowd now realizes it has only heard of the miracles the Lord has performed; they have not seen any themselves.

“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.”  The Lord reminds the people of how the Prophets whom they now revere were themselves rejected and persecuted by their own people.  Then he cites how the two greatest of them accepted this rejection and went and performed miracles for others instead.  “When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury.”  The murderous nature of this fury, this riot, eludes us a little.  But the Lord’s comparing them to the ungrateful people at the time of the Prophets touched some deep feeling within them.  Perhaps they were of the mind of the Pharisees: “If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets” (Matthew 23, 30).  In this case they would have seen Jesus as telling them that they were no better than their ancestors, who persecuted the Prophets.  Ironically, they endeavor to fulfill this: “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.”  The Lord shows his divine patience in not destroying the town but in simply slipping away: “But he passed through the midst of them and went away.” 

Nazareth would hear much more of the Lord’s miracles over the next few years but he would never return there.  They had rejected him and he accepted that rejection.  They will be accountable for it at the great judgment.  Let us grasp the Lord gratefully with our hearts and ever seek to obey his commandments of love so that he may his home in our hearts.