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3d Sunday in Ordinary Time Lk 4/14-21 |
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| Background: The scene in today's Gospel is not quite as
spectacular as the one in the first read, but in a sense it is much more dramatic when it
is read from our perspective. Jesus is laying down a claim to be the sign of the messianic
age. Though later he would on occasion dodge the question of whether he was the messiah
because the role of that person was so badly misunderstood (as a military and political
leader), he made clear at the beginning of his ministry that the messianic age, properly
understood as a new age of creation, was also beginning. The people in the synagogue must
have been thunderstruck. They knew Jesus and liked him, but how could anyone claim to be
fulfilling personally the prophecy of Isaiah? |
read the padre |
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Story: Once there was a truly great
high school basketball team that everyone said would win the city championship without
even trying. So they swept through the season without even trying. Why work hard to beat a
time that was no big deal. That year there were no big deal teams in the whole city,
except our friends. So they won all their games by fifteen points or more and were hailed
as the best ever. That came the championship match against a team they'd already beaten
twice. However, the other team was all pumped up, the refs were manifestly unfair, and
crowd was for the other team. The coach, who had warned them all season about being flat
on the wrong day, screamed at them to know avail. Then at the beginning of the second half
he screamed at the refs for a blatantly unfair call. The refs threw him out and then the
assistant coach who screamed and the refs through him out too. So the only adult on the
bench was the second assistant who was just out of college and who had played on the team
a couple of years ago (and wasn't truly great) took over. He called time out and said,
look, guys, we may be down by ten but we can beat these clumsy oafs and I'm going to tell
you how. They're rotten ball handlers. We'll put on a full course press and steal the ball
from them every time they try to bring it down. What does he know a couple of guys said as
they returned to the court? Who does he think he is? But they put on the press and caught
up almost at once and were ten points ahead when the final quarter started. We've got them
on the road, guys, the acting coach said, keep up the press. But the guys were fed up with
this punks enthusiasm and decided to ease up. What happened. The score was tied with only
three minutes left and they were five points down with two minutes left. Let's do the
press, someone said. Only by now they were too tired. So they lost by ten points. Moral:
You take your prophets wherever you can find them.
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