|
When I fire up my computer each morning, I immediately go to my
MyYahoo! page to catch up on the horoscope, comics, weather, and
news…in that order. Concerning the comics, I follow four: Calvin
and Hobbes, Garfield, Non Sequitur, and Classic Peanuts.
During the past two weeks, Classic Peanuts has followed Charlie
Brown’s baseball team during the bottom of the ninth inning of a
game where the team needs one run to tie and two runs to win.
As the team’s player-manager, Charlie Brown tells the first batter, Snoopy,
“I want you to go up there with teeth-gritting determination and get
on base. Let’s see you grit your teeth.” Snoopy complies and after
observing Snoopy gritting his teeth, Charlie Brown says, “That’s
fine. Keep gritting your teeth, and you’ll get a hit!”
Now at bat and with teeth-gritting determination, Snoopy is thinking
to himself, “I feel like a fool.”
But, lo and behold, Snoopy gets a hit.
Linus is next up to bat and Charlie Brown gives Linus the same
instructions. “If you grit your teeth, you can’t fail,” Charlie
Brown says.
Now at bat and gritting his teeth, Linus thinks to himself, “If I
get hit in the mouth, I sure can fail.”
But, lo and behold, Linus gets a hit.
Next up to bat is Lucy.
“Let’s see you grit your teeth”, Charlie Brown says. “Fantastic!
You’ll scare their pitcher to death! Keep gritting your teeth and
go get a hit.”
Walking toward home plate and gritting her teeth, Lucy says to
herself, “Get a hit?! I can’t even see where I’m going.”
Now at bat and gritting her teeth, Lucy gets an infield hit to load
the bases.
“It goes to show what teeth-gritting determination can do!” Charlie
Brown tells Sally.
The story about Jesus’ rejection by the people of his hometown of
Nazareth is both about them gritting their teeth in disbelief
and about Jesus gritting his teeth in the face of overwhelming
rejection that, in the gospel of Mark, begins first with his family,
then extends to his hometown, and ultimately, to his disciples.
In today’s gospel, the folks of Jesus’ hometown grit their teeth and
reject Jesus
for the reason they believe he’s just too ordinary to be capable of teaching in the
synagogues as well as performing exorcisms and healing the people as
well. For those hometown folks, Jesus is just a local carpenter.
Everyone knows that Jesus is just “one of us.” After all, they know
Jesus, his family, his playmates, and his history since his
childhood. They knew everything about Jesus, or so they thought.
But, Jesus’ displays of divine power didn’t
just “take them by surprise.” No, we are told, they were “astounded.”
Rather than ask about the source of those displays of divine power
they’ve
witnessed,
the hometown folks grit their teeth and ask among themselves, “Why is Jesus pretending to be
someone he isn’t?”
This behavior—incredulity at what an individual who we believe
completely incompetent is able to accomplish—is instructive for us
to contemplate, in that it reveals a sin we’re very prone to commit.
What’s that sin?
Oftentimes, the very last people we allow to grow, develop, and change are
those who are closest to us—family members, classmates at school,
neighbors, and co-workers. Filled with envy at their success, we’ll
do practically anything to prevent them from “shining” or getting a
“one up” on us. We’ll tear down what they’ve built up and, if need
be, we’ll
even
deny that they built it or could have built it. Even worse, we
refuse to acknowledge that they’ve grown, developed, and changed. How often
have we said, “I know you from way back.” Or, “Leopards don’t
change their spots and zebras don’t change their stripes”?
That’s one sure fire way to try to get in God’s way, just like those
people in Jesus’ hometown did.
The challenge for us today is to examine how we continue to
participate in the same evil by asking ourselves, “Who among
my family members, classmates at school, neighbors, and co-workers
have I rejected?” We also need to ask ourselves, “Of whom have I
said, “Just who does he think he is?” Lastly, we need to ask
ourselves “Whom have I put down, claiming this individual is
‘crazy,’ a ‘good for nothing,’ a ‘drunk’ or ‘addict,’ or ‘comes from
a family whose members are nothing but a bunch of losers’?”
The gospel of Mark speaks to a profound irony. That is, sometimes
those who are physically closest to God’s
presence are the physically the farthest away from God’s presence...due
to their lack of faith in God’s
power to work through ordinary people, especially those we have
judged to be somewhat less than ideal candidates.
The people in Jesus’ hometown are blind and are going to
remain blind to all of those mighty deeds through which Jesus has
brought God’s word to life—his preaching, exorcising demons, and
miraculous healings. Instead, the people in Jesus’
hometown—in their blindness—have
already judged him...just another one of us.
Jesus seems to have recognized the fact that the people in his
hometown won’t recognize who Jesus has revealed himself to be,
namely, God’s only begotten Son. So, Jesus grits his teeth and moves
along…eventually leaving his hometown of Nazareth behind.
Could Jesus have performed additional wonders and miracles in Nazareth?
Absolutely. But Jesus couldn’t compel his family
members as well as his hometown folk and disciples to believe what
they had seen for themselves but wouldn’t
believe. Their self-chosen attitude blinded
them to way God was revealing Himself right there in front of them.
Considering the gift that God had offered the people of Nazareth,
they ended up being the real losers.
In the same way, God cannot compel you or me to believe in Him,
to listen to his Word made Flesh among us, and to follow God’s
Word
in our lives. We have to grit our teeth, have faith in God’s
power to forgive our sins, and then, just like
Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy, step up to the plate and take a swing.
How?
In this first encyclical, “God is Love” (“Deus caritas est”),
Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that the heart of our vocation as
Christians is to understand the nature of love and to be open to the
possibilities of what true love opens before us. Love is the
foundation of our life and belief, the Holy Father wrote, and love
always expresses itself in acts of charity. In light of today’s
gospel, faith requires more than simply knowing the Bible and the
Catechism of the Catholic Church and attending Mass. God expects us
to bring our love into the world through personal acts demonstrating
our love of God and neighbor as we see and appreciate people as God does, not as we
judge them according to our personal standards or those of the
world.
|
HOMILY
