Tuesday in the 27th Week of Ordinary Time, October 3, 2023

Luke 9, 51-56

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

“When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.”  St. Thomas Aquinas points out that the first three Gospels concentrate on the final year of the Lord’s Public Life, with Saints Matthew and Luke adding accounts of his Birth, early life, and the calling of the Apostles.  St. Thomas tells us that the first year of the Lord’s Public Life consisted in his Baptism by St. John the Baptist, his temptation by the devil after forty days of fasting in the wilderness, and his sojourn by the Jordan, during which he met the men who would be his first Apostles.  His first public miracle, at Cana in Galilee, occurs a full year following his Baptism.  The next two years  see him tirelessly moving from one town to the next, preaching and healing.  His message at first seems to follow St. John the Baptist’s: Repent, for the Kingdom of God had drawn near.  With the arrest of John, during the Lord’s second year of ministry, he begins he reveal himself as the Son of God who has come into the world in order to redeem it.  This is the time of the great discourses, the parables, and the unparalleled miracles.  At the end of the ninth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, which comes to about halfway through it, Luke begins his description of the Lord’s final journey to Jerusalem.  To think of this in another way, most of the Gospel  according to Luke (and this is true of the other Gospels as well) is about what happened on just a few days of the Lord’s life.  Knowing this helps us to appreciate how much activity the Lord packed into his days, especially towards the end of them, and how relentless we’re his efforts to save us from our sins.

“When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.”  Literally, “He fixed his face to travel to Jerusalem.”  St. Luke emphasizes here the Lord’s steadfast will to do this, knowing what would be done to him.  He would not be swayed from it by the begging of his Apostles or by the threats of those who opposed him.  “He sent messengers ahead of him.”  By sending the messengers he made it clear to everyone that he was coming, despite the attempts of the Jewish leaders to kill him previously.  Once arrived, the messengers would alert his followers within the city.  “They entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there.”  That is, the messengers entered the village ahead of the Lord and his Apostles.  Samaria lay between Galilee and Judea and one had to pass through it in order to get from the one region to the other.  Normally, the Samaritans saw this as a chance to make a profit because the Jews would buy food there while camping outside the towns.  This particular village, however, did not want the Jews there at all.  

“When the disciples James and John saw this.”  This is the only time John names himself in his Gospel.  He does so in an unflattering way, and shows why the Lord called the two brothers “the sons of thunder”.  “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”  James and John fully expect Jesus to restore the Kingdom of Israel when he arrives at Jerusalem and so their readiness to call down the wrath of God upon this village should be seen as an opening blow in the ensuing war.  Yet their desire appears strange because the Lord has not destroyed or threatened anything during his ministry.  Even when he casts out the moneychangers from the Temple, he does not harm them though he could have if he had so chosen.  The kind of punishment James and John desire for the village recalls the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  This may indicate that as the wicked people in the cities committed acts against nature, here this village was committing a similar action, rejecting its Lord.

“Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.”  He rebuked them because his desire is not for the destruction of the human race but for its salvation.  Very likely, James and John preached to this very village after receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

We see in this short reading the Lord’s rock-solid desire to save us, whatever it would cost him.  So let us be rock-solid in our desire to be saved by him and also to be prudent and watchful in our relations with our unchurched neighbors, for though they may not be ready to hear the Gospel today they may be ready at another time.