Coffee With God

Reflection: Luke 4:21-30

For three Sundays in this year, the liturgy brought to us the events of Jesus visiting Nazareth and announcing his Mission in the synagogue for our reflection. Perhaps the Church is trying hard to drive home the central message of the Gospel that is evident, but we often miss it: the messages of mercy, freedom, healing and grace. This grace manifests itself as love. Unfortunately, the world fears this love. It rises, takes love out of the town, to the edge of the hill, wanting to push it down the cliff. The evangelist speaks of the villagers rejecting Jesus and wanting to kill him. What made the people of his hometown so angry? The text used by Jesus from the book of Isaiah was a well-known text, one of the most read, known to all. Where does the irritation of the listeners originate? It was because Jesus did not read the text in full but stopped it halfway! “…He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives … and a year of grace…” and there he stopped. And the people expected him to continue reading from the passage which they were so sure of: (Is. 61:2) “… and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus did not say this. They were a people who had suffered greatly, oppressed by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. They expected the vengeance of God against the pagans who had oppressed them for so many centuries. Now they are under the rule of the Romans. They sincerely desired for the vengeance of God. But Jesus announces a time of grace – not vengeance. But Jesus calls us to be merciful and kind. “For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” That is the challenge Jesus poses before us. If you do good to those who are good, what good do you do for free? But Jesus proposes a life of gratuity. Why do you do good? Because you have received the nature of a Father who does only good. “Love your enemies.” Do good for free, and you will be children of the Most High because He shows his gratuity to us, who do not deserve it, to the ungrateful, to the wicked. This is the ‘grace’. The inhabitants of Nazareth could not accept this message of mercy. And today, we find it easier to be friends of villagers of Narareth than being a friend of Jesus. People have their expectations of their priests and preachers. Sometimes it is thought that a capable evangelist does not provoke, does not disturb but always says what people like to hear. But, the evangelist’s aim is not to please people. He must announce the Word of Christ, not what people expect.