Last
evening, I watched a rerun of the television series, Frazier Crane.
There was something important Frazier had to tell his brother, Niles.
Frazier had to take a risk, however, because he wasn’t quite sure how
Niles would respond to what Frazier had to say. After telling Niles
what was on his mind, Frazier said, “I hope you understand, Niles, that
I told you this because it’s important. I’m your brother, Niles, and I
told you…because...well...I love you.”
Have
you ever found yourself in the position of having to relate something
important or difficult to someone you loved, not sure about how that
person would respond?
Parents
oftentimes have to do this raising their children. Husbands and wives
oftentimes have to do this to raise their spouse. (No, just kidding.
“To perfect one’s spouse.”) And, when they do, parents as well
as husbands and wives oftentimes aren’t exactly sure how a child or
spouse is going to respond. After rehearsing various formulations and
anticipating various responses, they go ahead and say what needs to be
said…because they love the child or spouse.
The
selection from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel concludes with what is,
for me, a rather surprising statement. What the text states is:
“Whether they heed or resist—for they are a rebellious
house—they will know that a prophet has been
among them.” What I find surprising is the use of tense in this
statement. The present tense speaks about the people, “they are
a rebellious house.” But, the text continues: “They will
know that a prophet has been among them.” The future
tense describes when the people will realize the errors of their ways.
The past tense tells us that it will only be in retrospect that the
people will realize this, long after their rebellion and its negative
fallout.
“Good
gracious,” some of you might be wondering, “has Fr. Jacobs gone mad? So
what about the use of verb tenses? What difference does it make?”
Well,
last time I was tested, I hadn’t gone mad. And, my intent this morning
isn’t to use my homily to provide a lesson in English verb forms. My
purpose instead is to describe the difference this use of tense makes
and what it means that is what I believe to be terribly important for
us.
One
clue concerning what the use of these three tenses may mean is found in
today’s Gospel. God sent Jesus—the “incarnate Son of God,” the “Word of
God made flesh,” and the “One who was like us in all things but sin”—to
the kind of people God was describing to the prophet, Ezekiel. As the
term was used in today’s first reading, these people are “rebels” who
have grown “hard of face” and “obstinate of heart.” These people have
revolted against God, the text states, “to this very day.”
Have
you ever experienced this type of person? Someone you have told time
and again what is right and what is wrong? Someone whose face becomes
like stone when you confront him or her with the fact of one’s
self-chosen rebellion? Someone who refused to listen and whose heart
has become hardened by years and decades of stubborn intransigence? Do
you remember how it all started when you had the courage to speak the
truth—God’s word—to this person?
Furthermore, when you’ve raised the issue, did you suddenly discover
that you became the problem and that you really aren’t all so perfect
yourself? You’re asked: “Who made you God? Who elected you guardian of
right and wrong?” Or, this person rejects you altogether. “Get
out of here!” you’re ordered. “You’re no longer welcome here, so don’t
come by to visit and don’t telephone me!” Even worse yet, beyond these
personal indignities, perhaps you’ve suffered abuse or even violence at
this individual’s hands. What compounds the pain of this ridicule,
indignity, and perhaps even pain, is that you really do love this person
and raised the issue only because love impelled you. There was no
personal agenda or selfishness behind what you said.
Today’s
gospel tells us that this is the very type of rejection Jesus
experienced in his hometown. Having done nothing more than to teach the
people what God sent him to teach, here’s what Jesus’ family, friends,
relatives, and neighbors had to say about him:
·
“So,
Mr. Smarty-Pants, where did you get all of this knowledge from? Note:
this question is actually a challenge. Jesus spoke God’s word and it
cut right through their stone faces and hardened hearts. Terrified that
Jesus saw right through them, the people chose to attack Jesus’
credentials rather than to deal with the truth.
·
“What
kind of wisdom has been given him?” Note: instead of dealing with the
facts, the people get increasingly snide and more personal in their
attacks, in effect saying, “Since you don’t have the credentials to
teach us in this way, just what gives you the right—what wisdom do you
possess—to tell us we should listen to you?”
·
“Is he
not the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses
and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?” Note: In
effect, the attack has become more bitter. “We know who you are!” the
people say. “You’re just one of us…” and, furthermore, “…no better than
any of us.”
The
text continues: “They took offense at him.”
Jesus
may have been popular and famous because of the miracles he worked.
But, when Jesus taught God’s word to the people of his hometown—the
people of Nazareth—as well as what God’s word meant for them in terms of
how they have rebelled against God, they no longer believed in the
“hometown boy done good.” In fact, the text tells us that Jesus was
“amazed at their lack of faith.”
However, their rebellion didn’t stem from what Jesus taught. No, they
heard what Jesus said. But, the people of Nazareth refused to listen
because they decided, in their rebellion against God, that Jesus had
nothing of value to teach them. The excuse for hearing but not
listening? Jesus’ family, relatives, friends, and neighbors believed
they knew Jesus all too well.
Indeed,
for bringing God’s word to a people who were in open revolt against God,
Jesus “was not able to perform any mighty deeds there.” That’s when
Jesus said: “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country,
and among his own kin, and in his own house.” And, from that point
forward, things don’t get any better for Jesus. This scene is only a
foreshadowing of the ultimate pain, suffering, and rejection Jesus will
experience.
God
continues today to send prophets into our midst and commissions them to
speak God’s word to our rebellious house. But, when these prophets
speak God’s word, they shake us up, make us feel uncomfortable, and
sometimes offend us. Like the people of Nazareth, we hear these
prophets but oftentimes we refuse to listen, especially when God speaks
through people like our parents, family members, relatives, or friends.
Yes, we hear what they say because we react to it. However, we don’t
listen to what they say because we stubbornly refuse to allow it to
change us.
“Familiarity breeds contempt” and it is true that the better we know
people the more likely we are to find fault with them and maybe even
grow to dislike them. Taking them for granted, we allow ourselves to
grow deaf to what they say and, as a consequence, we underestimate their
capacity to do what God has asked of them, namely, to speak God’s word
so that it takes root deep within and changes us. So, the words go into
the ears and are processed by the brain but they don’t go any farther,
like descending down into our hearts where they would have the power to
change us for the better.
Have
you got the idea?
In each
generation, God sends prophets to announce God’s word to rebellious
people…and that’s all of us. Upon hearing God’s word, rebellious people
grow insecure, upset, angry, and even, irrational…and that’s all of us,
too. Rather than taking the message to heart, rebellious people seek to
destroy the messenger. Furthermore, rather than deal with the truth,
rebellious people—again that’s you and me—will go so far as to eliminate
the messenger instead of turning away from sin and experiencing gracious
God’s offer of salvation.
So,
what has all of this got to do with the use of the future and past tense
in the selection from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, “They will
know that a prophet has been among them”? What has this
go to do with our lives? Note well: the future tense speaks about when
the rebellious people will realize the errors of their ways…in the past.
Think
about it. How often have you found yourself saying, “If only I knew
then what I know now”?
The
implication is, of course, that had I known then—in the past—what I know
now—in the present—I would have acted differently. But, because of
arrogance, pride, and stubbornness, rebellious people cling greedily to
their ways and don’t listen to or allow themselves to be changed by
God’s word. Imagine this: if only Jesus’ family, friends, relatives,
and neighbors knew then what they discovered only after they rejected
Jesus, think of the miraculous deeds Jesus could have effected then and
there on that very day in Nazareth!
How
many times have we caught ourselves saying privately, “Gosh, my parents
were right…”—note the use of the past tense—“…I should have listened to
them. But, I gave them grief instead. I turned the house into a war
zone.” How sad! The fourth commandment is very clear: “Honor your
father and mother….” Think of what could have been in our homes
and in our relationship with our parents had we not hardened our faces
and allowed our hearts to become stubborn! Only now do we recognize
what we did in the past, what we have forsaken in the past, and what we
cannot undo.
If
married, think of all those times you have allowed all of those things
your spouse said that were true and needed to be changed but you instead
allowed to interfere with forming a very deep, loving, and intimate
relationship with your spouse. But, now you say privately, “If only I
knew then what I know now, I’d not have let all of those things get in
the way. I really shouldn’t have, but I did.” How sad! You weren’t
forced to pronounce the vow, “I promise to love you, honor you, and obey
you, all the days of my life.…” So, what word is null and void?
Filled with grief and guilt over everything that might have been, these
individuals rebelled and allowed sin to harden their hearts and to set
their jaws like stone. Only now do they recognize what they have done,
what they have forsaken, and what they cannot undo.
This is
precisely what we do when we choose to rebel against God’s word. Think
of all the miraculous deeds that could have been effected in our lives,
in our homes, and in our marriages were we not rebellious and deaf to
God’s word! Looking to the past, scripture states, “They will
know that a prophet has been among them.” Yes, it’s
obvious that we heard God’s word because we rejected what we heard.
Then, because of our rebellion, we stubbornly refused to listen to God’s
word and allow it to change us.
The use
of past and future tense in today’s scripture forces us to recognize a
not-all-too-pretty picture…about ourselves. We are those rebellious
people. We have revolted against the prophets God has sent to speak His
word to us!
On the
one hand, God’s word presents a harsh indictment of any of us who would
ignore, belittle, or persecute those people God sends to teach us the
truth about our lives. While we may resent what these prophets have to
say and we may stand the prophet in front of our verbal firing squad, we
are in reality only indicting ourselves. And, in the future when we
reflect back upon the past, we will see what we’ve done. The important
lesson for our lives? “Rebellious house: don’t impede those God
has sent your way!”
On the
other hand, God’s word also commends to us speak the truth even when we
encounter resistance, ridicule, and persecution. No one in his or her
right mind would go out and apply for the prophet’s job. It’s literally
the kiss of death. But, in the future, when the past no longer matters,
we’ll see where we are. The important lesson for our lives? “Speak
God’s word!”
Now,
while that may make us feel guilty—and that’s a good thing because, as
the psychiatrist Karl Gustav Jung wrote, guilt is “justified
self-disapproval”—we need to remember that we live in the present, not
in the past. It is today—in the present—that God once again is sending
prophets to speak His word. All we have to do is to listen and allow
God’s word to take root within and to change our stone faces and
hardened hearts.
In the
end, what matters is fidelity, whether it’s listening to the prophets
God sends our way or speaking God’s word to those God sends our way.
When we listen to God’s word, we need not fear what will, in the future,
be the past. Why? Because we will experience God’s mighty deeds having
transformed us. Then, in the future, we will have no regrets, no guilt,
and no fear of the choices we’ve make…in the past. And, when we speak
God’s word, we need not fear the present. Why? Because we will
experience the fullness of eternal life.
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