Breaking Open the Word - 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C - January 30th, 2022
The prophet Jeremiah — detail from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, by Michelangelo
We opened our Scripture sharing this Sunday with the poignant story of the prophet Jeremiah. We heard in the First Reading how this prophet received many special graces and favors to fulfill his vocation – but did he actually fulfill it? At first glance, Jeremiah seems to have been an utter failure. He was sent to preach repentance to sinful Israel, to warn of the coming Babylonian invasion and destruction of the Temple. However, he was rejected at every turn, imprisoned, persecuted, and – according to Jewish tradition – eventually martyred. Jeremiah is sometimes called the “Weeping Prophet,” because of the sufferings he both prophesied and experienced. We can certainly sympathize with his famous lament: “You have duped me, LORD, and I let myself be duped!”
However, one Sister brought out an interesting nuance of the First Reading that begins to shed light on this apparently “frustrated” prophetic career. When the LORD calls Jeremiah, He says, “A prophet to the nations I have appointed you.” In Old Testament parlance, “the nations” refers to the Gentiles – the non-Jewish, pagan peoples of the world. If we look on a merely earthly level, this element of God’s call seems to be unfulfilled in Jeremiah; after all, the prophet was only sent to preach to the people of Israel, wasn’t he? As a matter of fact, he did become “a prophet to the nations” – but only after his death, in the dissemination of his prophetic works. Sister pointed out that we, “a bunch of Gentiles,” were still pondering the prophecies of Jeremiah thousands of years after his lifetime!
This theme carried on into the Gospel, where Our Lord’s first sermon at Nazareth is vehemently rejected and almost leads to His death. Why, a Sister asked, does God send His messengers (and even His Son!) when He knows they will not be accepted? And how could a person with such an apparently “fruitless” mission find strength to persevere? The answer we discussed was twofold. First, as St. John Paul II asserted, all mankind has a right to hear God’s word. Whether or not he receives it with an open heart, no person should be deprived of the chance to hear the Gospel. This is the reason why the Church’s missionary mandate is as important now as ever: there are still people in the world who have not heard this message of God’s love! The second answer draws on our Passionist spirituality. Thanks to the Cross of Christ, no human suffering endured with love will ever be without fruit. We may not see that fruit in this life (in fact, often we don’t), but the Scriptures and the constant teaching of the Church leave no room for doubt in this matter. What an amazing truth, and one that suffering humanity desperately needs to hear: your pain is not meaningless! You can contribute to the redemption of the world, if only you say “yes” in love!
That brings us to the Second Reading, St. Paul’s famous description of love in 1 Corinthians 13. Charity which “endures all things” is the way a suffering soul can find the strength not only to carry the Cross, but to embrace it. While it is true that “we now see dimly, as in a mirror,” the fruit of our tears and labors, we can stand in firm hope that in eternity we will see clearly and “know, even as [we have] been known.” But it is not easy to reach this degree of love. Why, one Sister wondered? God loves us infinitely, and He calls us to nothing less than identification with Himself in love. Why do we repeatedly resist, drag our feet, and even run away from Him? Because this lofty vocation can only be reached by the road of vulnerability. Even the most externally “tough” person knows deep down that he or she is fundamentally a fragile being, and we all develop mechanisms for dealing with this unsettling reality of creaturehood. Faced with God’s call to radical surrender and vulnerability, we often turn the other way. After all, it is easier to reject than to be rejected – for that is exactly what we fear God might do to us. The good news, however, is that the Lord understands our weakness and brokenness, and He continues to pursue us in love throughout our lives – no matter how many times we have rejected Him. If and when we finally stop, exhausted from our flight, and turn to face Him, we will discover that our fears were all groundless. Yes, Christ calls us to follow Him on the way of the Cross … but never alone. It is He Who will carry the cross with and in us, lavishing His love on us so that we have the strength to live up to His calling. “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for His love endures forever!”