The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time C: January 28, 2007

Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
Luke 4:21-30

Dear Jesus,

      Fortune and fame can change in a moment.  One can go from idol to pariah in the blink of an eye.  The late President Gerald Ford was a popular replacement for his disgraced predecessor, but when Ford pardoned him, Ford’s political career was over.  Others have fallen from loftier heights to the depths of disgrace and infamy with a change in the wind and tide.

      What did you do that caused the throng of admirers amazed at your words and speaking highly of you to do such an about-face and want to throw you from the brow of the hill and kill you?  They didn’t start when you spoke of being the fulfillment of Isaiah’s promised era of favor with the Lord, a time of liberation and peace, even though nothing yet had happened to prove that statement.  These were the neighbors among whom you had grown through childhood to an adult.  Did they cluck and coo as they boasted to each other about knowing you when, about being friends with your parents, about their children having been your playmates?  What did you do that in an instant transformed all that into rage?  Had they been wallowing in self-indulgent and elitist pride at their collective consciousness that all the promised fulfillment of which you spoke was exclusively for them, for those who had an in with you because they were family and friends?

      In a blink of an eye you went to others of their sacred texts and reminded them of miracles and deliverance in times of famine and disease for the Israelites.  But those who were cured and delivered were not from the household but were gentiles.  No Israelite at that time had been so blessed because none had so welcomed the prophets or their message.  Did your neighbors in Nazareth hear your warning about their lack of faith?  Did they recognize your words as a challenge to them to think outside the box and imagine community with and responsibility for Gentiles?  Were you saying that God loves Gentiles, too?  And so you fell from favor.

      Things haven’t changed much in the intervening centuries.  People still want to luxuriate in a comfortable gospel that announces special favor and rewards.  They are not a few who are convinced that claiming you as Messiah and Lord will bring temporal favors and fortune.  And all of this as a sign of God’s love for them!

      I have to admit to nostalgia for the old days when lines of demarcation were clearer and the path to salvation surer and more clearly defined.  And some gloried in a very narrow definition of what outside the church meant as it applied to those who could be saved.  Going to mass was less challenging. We could be wrapped in solitude as we thrilled to Latin chants and luxurious polyphony from the ages – all of it awesome, as we adored on bended knee.  It was safer then and didn’t take nearly as long.

      It isn’t comfortable anymore.  Music and movement are part of the invitation to enter into Mystery.  But now it’s all challenge and call to conversion, a challenge to recognize the Church as the people of God and all of those who are part of it, called to be servants to each other and the rest of God’s people.  What’s in it for me?  What will be my reward?   How will I know God’s favor for me?  If we dare to come to Eucharist, it must be as part of the Assembly, one with it to be formed and transformed at the Table of the Word, formed and transformed at the Table of Eucharist, and sent.  And for what purpose?  To bring glad tidings to the lowly.

      Am I right in thinking that with you it is all risk and vulnerability?  No one can imitate you and serve from a lofty position of superiority.  The model you gave was foot-washer.  Did I correctly understand you to say that if I were to follow you I must aspire to be a foot-washer?  That type of service is a sign of the Love of God that you bring.  I think I could be comfortable with washing certain people’s feet, people close to me and like me.  But that’s not your message, is it?  That’s not your challenge.  I have to be willing to wash Jewish feet and Islamic and even pagan feet.  I must be willing to wash women’s feet as well as men, young people’s feet and those of the old.  I must wash the feet of gay people as well as those of straight people, too.  I must bow down before and be subservient to other races and creeds, people with countries of origin other than my own.  And if I strive to do that I run the risk of being misunderstood, rejected, and condemned – just like you.

      Bread broken.  Cup poured out.  Blessed.  Distributed.  Is that all there is?  That isn’t what I thought at the beginning.  That is not what I thought you meant when you proclaimed the season of favor with the Lord.  I thought it was my deliverance and my liberation and my healing.

      All of a sudden it changed.  And nothing has been the same since.

Sincerely,

Didymus