4 TH SUNDAY ORDINARY, 30 JANUARY 2022,
JER 1. 4-5, 17-19, 1 COR 12. 31 - 13.13, LUKE 4. 21-30
Focus: It is God who created us and consecrated us to be His own. It is He who sends us on His own mission. Therefore it will be surely He alone who would accompany us to accomplish the mission
1. The Word of God time and again recurrently places before us the theme of mission. Today too, in the first reading from the book of Jeremiah, we come across the call narrative of the prophet Jeremiah, his vocation, his consecration, and mission. The same holds good for us as well. God knows us from eternity even before we take shape in our mother’s womb; He consecrates us even before our birth.
2. Therefore we are His, His own. We belong to Him. But this vocation and consecration are not just to belong to Him as His private possession. It is with a mission. He appoints us to be prophets to the nations. Thereby we need to be dressed for His work, and that is, to address to the people everything that He commands to say.
3. However, this mission is not an easy task. It is enormously arduous and strenuous. The challenge is mainly the type of world in which we carry out this mission. What kind of world it is? We get a taste of this in the gospel. It is a world that is very unsteady, fluctuating, peripheral, non-committal, resentful toward truth, and villainous even to the extent of killing.
4. The very people who “spoke well of him and marveled at his gracious words” within no time, “were filled with wrath”, “rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill… so that they could throw him down the cliff”. How unsteady and oscillating and non-committal they were!
5. It was all because he began to confront their lack of receptivity and faith. He spoke bluntly that the pagans received God’s favors in preference to them. These words were distasteful to them. As long as he spoke of good things in his mission manifesto, they were very pleased. But as soon as he began to lay bare their defects, they resented.
6. They were so peripheral and superficial in their perspective as well. Immediately they began to dig out his family background, his humble origins. “Is not this Joseph’s son?” They would not go beyond the externals; they would not see and accept the divinity in him.
7. Now, the first requirement in accomplishing the mission of the Lord is to be deeply aware of this nature of the world. We must be realistic and avoid the two extremes of abysmal pessimism and overrated idealism. These both can lead to undue criticism, and end up in either aggression or depression. Instead, we must be wise and humble enough to take stock of reality as it is and be prepared to face it.
8. Then, another essential condition for mission is to “be deeply rooted in God”. This is to place our wholehearted trust in God’s assuring presence, sustenance, and guidance. Let us be unshakably rooted in God as he promises Jeremiah, “Do not be dismayed. Behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the Lord, to deliver you”.
9. Still further, another essential equipment to fulfill the mission is to “be groomed in Love”. Love alone will be the greatest weapon on our mission. What kind of love? It is not that love that we see in the world, a love mostly reduced to self-love and lust. Rather, it is that love, glorified by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 13, in today’s second reading. It is a love that is bearing and caring, a love that is patient and persevering, a love that is humble and noble, a love that is gracious and generous, a love that is pleasant and radiant.
Direction: A wise realism, soaked into humble and profound rootedness in God and a fervent and enduring flourishing in love will alone surge us ahead, steady and strong in our journey of the mission of the Lord
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