14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Homily

(Content With Weakness)

  In today’s Gospel Jesus returns to his home place of Nazareth. This is not a social visit: like other towns in Galilee, Nazareth has to hear the Good News of the kingdom. When Jesus teaches in the local synagogue, many of the townspeople are astonished at the performance. They wonder at the origin of Jesus’ teaching and the nature of his wisdom, as well as the miracles that are done through him. From the unanswered questions about Jesus’ wisdom, the neighbors move to more familiar territory and focus on what they do know about Jesus. Whatever their wonder, they are not going to allow Jesus’ wisdom to interfere with their memories of him.

  So, the neighbors support each other in a chorus of distractions. Irrelevant issues are solemnly brought to the center of attention: the job Jesus worked at, his mother, the presence of his sisters. Of course, the neighbors have a vested interest in focusing on who Jesus was rather than the Jesus that confronts them now: it’s easier having a carpenter around the shop than a prophet loose in the town. So, once a carpenter, always a carpenter. Memory proves to be a useful fiction: it keeps Jesus at the level where they can handle him safely.

  Mark summarizes the reaction of the Nazareth community to their fellow citizen: ‘’And they would not accept him.’’ For them, the sheer ordinariness of Jesus cancels out his new wisdom and works. Nothing kills like frozen familiarity.

  How does Jesus react to the locals? He says to them: A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house. This is a hard saying. The other evangelists soften it, saying, ‘’No prophet is accepted in his own country.’’ In Mark’s version Jesus is rejected by his own relations and by those in his own house. Mark has already told us that Jesus’ relatives believe him to be out of his mind (3:21), now the rejection seems to be complete.

  Jesus’ experience of rejection in Nazareth rendered him powerless to do any miracle among his own people. This is an extraordinary statement about the human Jesus: people’s lack of trust limits his ministry. Jesus is profoundly affected by the way people react to him. He is not a robot, programmed for flawless performance, indifferent to all responses. Distrust disables him. So, he moves elsewhere, refusing to be enslaved by his failure to reach his own people and he never returns to Nazareth again. By coping with discouragement and failure, Jesus points beyond himself to the power of the Father. The cross of Jesus becomes the most striking symbol of weakness pointing beyond itself, beyond the brokenness of Jesus to the glory of the resurrection. New life emerges out of dereliction. This theme, so constant in the writing of Paul, is applied by the apostle to his own life.

  Paul shares a very personal experience. He has come to learn that his own weaknesses are not a problem for God, as if God has no truck with poor achievers. Paul’s human limitations, which refuse to go away, not only force him to be more realistic about himself, they also force him to change his image of God. Paul discovers through his own disability that God’s grace does work through human frailty: ‘’So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am content with my weaknesses…For it is when I am weak that I am strong.’’

Being content with our weaknesses is not an attitude that comes easily to most of us, educated to be content with nothing less than perfection. We might still suspect that God is disassociated from those who are beaten down by their own limitations; but, like Paul, we have to learn that God isn’t like that. Failure and human weakness give God immense scope to act out God’s own purposes.

  Nazareth was the beginning of a new road for Jesus. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was the occasion for a whole new way of looking at God and at himself. We know from experience that when we admit our failures and limitations, that exercise in honesty can mark the beginning of a new understanding. If our Lord and God can take failure in his stride, we might even end up boasting about God’s fantastic style!