4th Sunday C

4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

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

            In this Sunday's liturgy we learn that despite Jeremiah and Jesus' being rejected by their own people, God's life giving word will still triumph over the powers of evil.  Let us give voice to our hope in the victory of God's kingdom as we sing this Sunday's psalm of trust: "I will sing of your salvation" (Ps 71).

            Jeremiah's account of his prophetic call stresses both his role in God's plan and the opposition he will meet in performing his task.  Even before Jeremiah was formed in the womb, the Lord had appointed him to be "a prophet to the nations."  But the Lord warns that he will have to fight against Judah's recalcitrant leaders and people who will stubbornly persist in sins of social injustice, idolatry, and political intrigue.  “For it is I this day who have made you a fortified city,/ a pillar of iron, a wall of brass,/ against the whole land:/ against Judah's kings and princes,/ against its priests and people.”  Despite relentless opposition that will all but crush him, the Lord assures Jeremiah of his deliverance. “They will fight against you, but not prevail over you,/ for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”

In the reading from 1 Corinthians Paul continues to treat the spiritual gifts.  He exhorts the Corinthians to set their hearts on the higher ones and then contrasts the more spectacular gifts (tongues, prophecy, knowledge, miracle working, charitable acts, and martyrdom) to love, the least impressive, but only necessary gift.  The person who has the others without love possesses "nothing."

            Paul uses the word agape for "love" to distinguish it from the traditional Greek notion of love, eros.  Eros aims at self-fulfillment through union with the beloved, but agape, as Paul describes it, is unselfish love, concerned with the welfare of others to the point of giving up self-fulfillment.  Paul characterizes agape with two positive adjectives, "patient" and "kind," and then follows with a series of negatives which contrast it with selfishness.  Agape is "not jealous or boastful," "not arrogant or rude," "not self‑seeking," "not irritable or resentful," "does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right."  He concludes his encomium by praising agape as a divine gift which endures into eternity.  "There is no limit to love's forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure."   The other gifts will pass away; only "faith, hope and love will last, and the greatest of these is love."  

            The Gospel for this Sunday continues from last week Luke's story of Jesus' first public appearance in the synagogue at Nazareth.  Recall that Jesus has just read the Isaiah passage about the one who is anointed by God's spirit "to preach good news to the poor," "to proclaim release of the captives,"  "recovering of sight to the blind," "to set at liberty those who are oppressed," and "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."  Now Jesus announces solemnly to the people of his hometown, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

            Their response reminds us of Jeremiah's fate in the first reading and foreshadows the ultimate outcome of the gospel message in Luke‑Acts.  Nazareth rejects Jesus as the mere “son of Joseph,” and he in turn chastises their resistance by a series of proverbial sayings: “You will doubtless quote me the proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself,' and say, ‘Do here in your own country the things we have heard you have done in Capernaum.'  . . . ‘No prophet gains acceptance in his native place.’”  Jesus then recalls that in the past the prophets Elijah and Elisha were sent to Gentiles like the widow of Zarephath in the land of Sidon and Naaman, the Syrian leper.  When "all in the synagogue" rise up against him and attempt to throw him from a hill, Jesus passes through their midst.  This pattern will be repeated in Jesus’ Jerusalem ministry where he will be rejected for his preaching in the temple and crucified only to arise and ascend into his glory (19:45‑24:53).  Despite this rejection, God's saving word will triumph.  In his parting words in the gospel, Jesus commissions his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they “are clothed with power from on high” to be witnesses who will  preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name to all the nations (24:44‑49).