New situations

Today’s readings: Jer. 1, 4-5.17-19; 1 Cor. 12, 31 - 13,13; Luke 4, 21-30.

For so long the Christian faith has been the foundation stone and source of our civilisation. But now the prevailing sensation is one of rejection. Jeremiah’s call in today’s first reading to brace ourselves up for action, and Jesus’ warning in the gospel that no prophet is ever accepted in his own country sound very significant and pertinent.

The founding principle of the Christian faith is in the words of the prophet Jeremiah when he says: “I am with you to deliver you”. It sounds very much in tune with what Paul says in his Corinthian ode to love “Love never ends”. Yet, it transpires from the start that the gospel is by its nature a sign of contradiction.

We are no longer playing home when we talk God or speak about the faith. In many senses, even our own country and culture are becoming alien to the message that was once the backbone of our beliefs, values, and traditions.

We’ve come to a point when we need to rethink seriously much of what we’ve been for long taking for granted. We need to refurbish our ways and freshly refer back to the source of the real driving force of Christianity in time.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spent years in prison for wrestling with a deeply corrupt and corrupting regime. In one of his letters from prison he wrote how often the New Testament tells us to be strong, and he concludes: Christ not only makes people ‘good’; he makes them ‘strong’, too. The gospel message is not simply about setting a new example or about a new ethical teaching. So many people belong to no religion at all, yet manifest sublime examples of good and honest behaviour.

Jesus in today’s gospel uncovers the contradiction in which his people lived because on the one hand they believed themselves to be the sole depositaries of the old promises, but on the other hand they themselves hindered the realisation of those same promises.

This text from Luke must have had particular significance for the first Christians because it presents Jesus as the one who dismantles the presumption that the Jews had some form of monopoly on the truth about God.

For this, and in his own hometown, he was first acclaimed with admiration and soon after rejected. It was in their own synagogue that Jesus offended their religious pride when he spoke of how God manifests his power outside the confines of their religion. He speaks about prophecy, which by nature never makes mainstream religion.

Prophecy is about persevering in doing things with passion; it is about never giving in to lip service; it is against opportunism even in Church circles; it is about never turning back on your first love in whoever you are and whatever you do.

Prophecy is rarely the driving force of mainstream behaviour. This unfortunately applies across the board to politics, administration, business, and so many other aspects of public life.

At a time when Christianity is experiencing fierce estrangement on the cultural, social and political levels, we need to reclaim the true driving force of our faith which no longer lies in the tradition that gave us identity as a Christian people. The words of Jeremiah at a time of futile efforts for reform and renewal within God’s people, call for urgent action even in our present troubles: “So now brace yourself for action. Stand up and tell them all I command you.”

Paul, in the reading from Corinthians, seems to harp on this same need: “Be ambitious for the higher gifts and I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them”. Paul is here effectively raising the standards of Christian living.

We need to own again the pride of claiming to be Christians. We need to rise to present-day situations and rediscover the transforming power of that love which Simone Weil holds to be a virtuous circle, the “new, marvelous, intoxication goodness”.