1/27 - 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Times

Dear Parish Family,

This week-end’s liturgy juxtaposes the story of Jesus reading in the synagogue with the story of Ezra reading the law to people upon their return from exile. It recreates what happens at every Eucharist, the reading from the Scripture followed by a reflection and putting muscle to the message by our resolve to action.

Ancient Israel was captured by the Babylonian empire 586 years before Christ. The Babylonians took Jerusalem itself, and demolished the great temple built by Solomon centuries before. They deported all able bodied citizens to Babylon, leaving the less capable to manage the devastated country. After fifty years or so of their captivity, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia (now Iran), came into possession of Babylon and he let the captives go. Many by now had switched their faith in favor of foreign gods and customs, but the remainder, perhaps 5,000, made ready to return home. A lot of them had never even seen Jerusalem. Ezra—priest, scribe and teacher—led one of them on the four-month desert journey. They arrived to find Jerusalem a ruined city with widespread moral decay. Among the ruins as if by a miracle they found the scrolls of the Law and Ezra stood up on a high wooden platform made for the occasion so that he could be heard and seen. He “read plainly” from the scroll that held “the book of the law.” He started at daybreak and continuing until midday!

A similar scene unfolds in the Gospel narrative as Jesus returns to his home town. There is no rapturous reception in spite of the fact that fame of his miracles and healing had reached his village. They view his change of career from carpentry to preaching a betrayal of the family tradition. This scene in Luke is stunning. The village of Nazareth might had a population, archeologists estimate, around 150, Jesus acting like an old-time prophet shows up at the synagogue, opens the scroll of Isaiah to the place we call chapter 61, reads the first-person statement of a prophetic figure claiming to be anointed and sent by the Lord for a work of liberation and healing, and boldly applies that passage to himself.

Bringing good news to the poor, liberating people from all their oppressions, this is not some optional activity that we the listeners to these accounts can engage in only if we have the inclination or time. It is the program for which we have all been anointed for and the reminder comes to us at the end of the Eucharist, “Go forth to proclaim the Good News”.

Fr. Tom Kunnel. C.O.