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4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Lk 4/21-30 |
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| Background: Jesus
patently did not see himself as a political and military leader. Indeed his claims are in
striking contrast of the messianic portrait in the reading from Jeremiah which is the
first reading today. However, his claims were clearly offensive to his fellow townspeople.
Indeed, he might have had less trouble with them if he announced, like several other
populist leaders of his era, that he was proclaiming a holy war against the Romans and
would lead a march on Jerusalem. As we saw last Sunday, however, his vision of the New Age
was drastically different. So he was offensive to his neighbors both because he made and
outrageous claim and because the claim was not, as they saw it, radical enough. |
read the padre |
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Story:
A famous novelist came back to his home town after many
years. He had pledged to contribute two
million dollars for a new hospital. Many of his friends from his school days were invited
to a reception for him and his wife. Some of them ignored the invitation. Why only two
million, they muttered. He could have paid for the whole hospital with all the money he
has. The rest went to the party, but they were not particularly happy about the whole
event. Who does this guy think he is? He’d been a quiet, unobtrusive little guy when
he was in school, the kind of person you’d hardly notice. He generally was not
invited anywhere. None of the women in his class would have considered dating him if they
had been asked, only he never asked. They had heard rumors that his novels were about the
town and about them. They believed the rumors of course, but since they hadn’t read
any of his books, they didn’t know for sure. He had to find a freshman to take to the
senior prom! So he’d made a lot of money on his novels? Why did that make him a big
deal? OK give the money for the hospital, but you should have given more with all you
have, but don’t show up in town and expect us to cheer for you. You’re not a big
deal now and you never were. Nor were they impressed with the beautiful woman he had
married. (They had known her an obnoxious freshman.) Anyone can look beautiful if her
husband has a lot of money. She was still cheap despite all their money. They didn’t
join the receiving line, because they didn’t want to have to talk to either of them.
However, he had the nerve to walk around the room and say hello to everyone and recall
incidents from their school days which they never remembered. They tried to be polite but
it was very hard. Then they went home and said to their children. He’s not a big
deal. He never was.
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