Fourth Sunday of the Year
Today’s gospel needs to be heard and understood in the context of last week’s gospel where Jesus is in the synagogue and reads from the prophet Isaiah. Those words from Isaiah and Jesus’ comment outline the character and agenda of his ministry. He outlines his political platform, which is good news to the poor, release to the captive, sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, declaring God’s favor; right now, here, today. This political platform is about how our relationships are ordered, how we live together. Jesus’ listeners would have heard him say, “When I talk about God freeing the oppressed and giving sight to the blind, I’m talking about God blessing the people you avoid, the people you don’t want to be near, those you call ‘enemies.’”
Jesus was doing just what he was anointed to do. He was opening the eyes of those before him to their racism and nationalism. He was reminding them that God’s love extends to everyone – and so should theirs. No wonder they were angry. No wonder Trump and comrades were angry when a diminutive female bishop (Mariann Edgar Budde) was by her gentle and graceful pleas to him for mercy. She reminded him and his followers of the boundaries they created, walls build and the fostering of hate with ‘us’ and them’ mentalities. This was enough to have her metaphorically thrown over the cliff as was Jesus. When we create walls and erect borders, we can put ourselves inclusively on the good side and other people or groups on the outside – like MAGA (Make America Great Again). The need to secure and defend borders then becomes more important than the other person or group thus making it difficult or impossible to see the pain of others, to hear their cries, or care for their well-being. This woman bishop, as did Jesus, and many other voices for peace exhibit a politics that not only challenges but contradicts their politics. As we see in Australia, the USA and Europe, separation and division defines our relationships that lead to conflict, violence and many other injustices. Such divisions were at the heart of the conflict between Jesus and the people of Nazareth in the gospel today and at the heart of contemporary conflicts. The readings today have a common theme of love despite having diverse expressions but constantly related to equity, peace, reconciliation and forgiveness.
In the first reading, Jeremiah could not suppress or silence God’s seductive love which pushed him reluctantly, into the world to speak God’s pointed word with its personal threats and dangers. Jesus’ message turns sour when he draws on past prophets to drive home a point that prompts murderous rage from his listeners. Like people who condemn the current repression of Palestinians, Jesus looks like a self-hating Jew when he made clear that being chosen by God is not linked national identity but the poor and oppressed. He reminded them that Elijah passed over all the hungry widows of Israel to feed a widow outside of Israel and that Elisha passed over all the lepers in Israel to heal a foreign leper, an outsider. It showed that God’s circle of embrace, welcome and hospitality go beyond the usual lines, that they were not exclusively special, and his vision included ‘others.’ These stories were not new. The people knew them, but amnesia was in the air. In our present context it would be more apt to see the Palestinian People as God’s chosen people. They are the dispossessed, oppressed, killed, and crippled for life – with impunity. And Jesus’ message was that God will plough through the boundaries we create and that was a hallmark of Jesus’ as it extended to eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, touching the untouchable and healing people on the Sabbath.
Prophetic words from young and old people, from Indigenous people, urgently ring out telling us the world is not working; that the Earth is gasping for breath; the poor are dying. We are being reminded – though often ignored - that we are in this together, that we have a living relationship to the earth and one another. These voices sound the alarm against conformity, prejudice, exclusiveness, bias, greed and stinginess. Like Jesus, then remind us of God’s agenda which is to hear ‘the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth,’ that the pain and hurt of poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression know no boundaries and neither does the good news. And, these should have no boundaries in our lives.
But, can we hear the voice of God in ‘the poor’ and the marginalised earth today? Last Sunday, we commemorated Australia/Survival Day. We have had countless opportunities to let the First People speak and tell their stories of concern, trauma, grief, dispossession, neglect, racism and loss. Similar stories are emerging from Gaza today. God has seen and sees their need. Do these stories touch us in our humanity? Will we be God’s presence and voice? We were ‘formed in the womb’ as were Jeremiah and Jesus. What a thought! ‘I appointed you before you were born’. Each of us is appointed from the womb to be God’s heart and presence in the world. When we say ‘we have to protect our way of life’ are we aware that it is this way of life that deprives the majority of people on this planet what they need to live fully human lives.
When Jesus says, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ he is saying that life-turning upside-down kinds of things are about to happen in ‘our’ midst. The message of the gospel is coming out into the harsh light of day and each one of us are called to live out God’s love for the world. The broken systems of sexism, inequity, racism, homophobia, violence and war that displace the most innocent and vulnerable need to change. We cannot spiritualise the words from Isaiah that Jesus proclaimed. We cannot ruminate about what could happen with a change of government. Change has to start with us. We must make hard decisions on behalf of ‘the poor’ – those unlike us. It is, was, a political platform. It still is. It is the way we order our relationships and relate to one another; how we live together and how we get along.
Let’s not be Nazareth. Let’s not demand Jesus go away. Let’s cross some borders and go with Jesus on his way.