Today’s readings have very opposing concepts. One reading talks about love – the greatest attribute a person could have, and two of the readings talk about violence – trying to kill the prophets who tell the people about God’s absolute love. Paul wrote so eloquently about God’s love in the second reading.
Prophets are sent to challenge us to evaluate what we believe and how we live our lives in accordance with the Scriptures. The message of the prophets is that God loves all people unconditionally. We, on the other hand, only seem to love when it’s convenient or when we get something in return. We especially don’t want to love someone who is outside our group or circle of friends.
The verses at the start of today’s Gospel tells us that after reading from the scroll of Isaiah, Jesus said “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And Jesus began teaching in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. “And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
John Kavanaugh, SJ wrote “It would not be easy. Jesus himself, after he announced the good news to the poor, first amazed, then angered his audience. He was too ordinary and too close to give such prophetic utterance. It cannot be real. He cannot be real. Eventually they were filled with rage and wanted to cast him out.” They asked, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?”
The people began to doubt because Jesus was too close to them. Jesus was expected to follow in his father’s trade just as all young men did in ancient times. Here was Jesus, teaching in the synagogue. But his father was not a Rabbi or a Pharisee or a Sadducee, his father was an artesian who worked with wood and stone.
What raised the anger of the people to the point that they wanted to kill Jesus? The hard truth was that God loves all people. Jesus reminded them that God provided help and healing to Gentiles in the past when there was suffering in Israel. These were foreigners, Gentiles, who were considered unclean and enemies. Foreigners do not deserve our love or God’s love.
Peter Kreeft, a contemporary theologian, wrote “In today’s Gospel, God’s warning to Jeremiah comes true in the life of the greatest of all prophets when the congregation that had heard Jesus’ messianic sermon in the Nazareth synagogue and had admired his speaking then turned against him viciously and even tried to kill him when he dared to challenge them for their self-righteousness, as all the prophets did. There’s not much profit (or not much to gain) in being a prophet. Most of them get martyred.”
Paul, like the prophets before him, was called to become God’s prophet, this time to the Gentiles. Paul was able to write this beautiful chapter on Love because Paul experienced God’s love on the road to Damascus.
He said “Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way.”
Think about that; a way that is more excellent than the greatest spiritual gifts. Paul continues:
If I speak in human and angelic tongues,
but do not have love,
I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy,
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing,
If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast,
but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Paul goes on to list the many attributes of love. I encourage you to take a few moments to read these again when you get home as a family. Then talk about how we can express our love for our neighbor as Jesus taught us. Paul, like the prophets of old, is challenging us to love as God loves.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus taught that we must love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. There were no exceptions. Paul reinforces Jesus’ teaching writing that Love exceeds everything else.
Gerald Darring wrote “The message of Jesus and the prophets before him was to love all people as God loves them. The reason why they ran into problems is that so many people do not want to hear about “love for one another even as God has loved us.” The love that Jesus preached “is not snobbish,” so it includes the filthy poor and the stinking homeless.
God’s love is not exclusionary. God’s love is for everyone, the filthy poor and the stinking homeless person, the politician that has an agenda in opposition to everything we believe and the extremely wealthy person who looks down on us. God’s love is for you and for me. And God commands us to love others with the same love that he has for us!
This coming week when we see a homeless person on the street corner holding a sign asking for money, will we turn our head the other way, so we don’t have to look at them? Or will we look them in the eye and smile, showing them the dignity that everyone deserves, even if we do not give them money?
When the envelope comes in the mail asking for a donation to help someone in another part of the world, will we throw it away because they are in another country, and we don’t want to be bothered? Or will we thank God for the many blessings we have received and send a donation to provide food to a person we don’t even know?
When the relative we can’t stand calls and wants to talk about the problems in their life again, will we brush them off with a quick excuse? Or will we ask God for his help to listen patiently to share God’s love with them?
St Paul said “Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way.” He continued:
if I do marvelous deeds:
but do not have love, I am nothing.
And again if I give everything away:
but do not have love, I gain nothing.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Let us spend some time this coming week asking God to fill us so full of his love that that we can love even the person we despise. “Am I willing to spend the time in God’s presence necessary to let God’s love fill me so much that I can share it with everyone I meet?” Especially the beggar, the homeless person, and the person I despise?
