One of my favorite things to do at the seminary- though it isn’t something you may expect- was to give tours. Our tours were basically like everyone else’s, in that we’d go through all the major structures in the building, the chapel, the hallways, the classrooms, perhaps even the kitchen. That wasn’t what made it different to me. What I enjoyed the most was the reactions we would get whenever someone would walk through our front doors, and around the building. The campus at Kenrick was beautiful, in all reality. Yet, during the eight years a man is in formation there, it can seem that everything gets old- or becomes “old hat.” We pray in the chapel we have been every day. We go to class. We go to dinner. It can take on this certain atmosphere of being “familiar.” However, tours changed that. It was a constant reminder of how beautiful and how awe-inspiring everything was. How much artwork we had, but often forgot about. How we were so blessed by our beautiful chapel. There were so many things that we could often take for granted, just because we became familiar with them. We had to look through the eyes of a tourist to see how incredible things really were- and to be reminded of them again.
How often, though, do we look at our faith through these new, fresh tourists eyes? How often are we able to wake up from a sleep of indifference and start to glance at things in a new way? We are often familiar with what it means, what the Gospels are, or even what the inside of our church looks like, but all in all, we need that ability not to simply look at things as though they are old and familiar, but new, invigorating, and even at times, exciting! Whether we read scripture in a new way, or rediscover our relationship with God or the way that it looks in a particular way, sometimes it truly can be good to have those tourist’s eyes.
To begin, though, we start with the book of the prophet Jeremiah. This is a powerful section of the book, because it really shows us the humanity of Jeremiah, and the compassion and reassurance God has. This is the experience of Jeremiah’s call to being a prophet. Jeremiah has doubts about his calling to that particular way of life, and so he is in a position where he is stuck- and doesn’t know what to do. Yet, what does the Lord do? He speaks directly to Jeremiah’s heart. Jeremiah tells us that the word of the Lord comes to him: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” Further, God speaks into that feeling that Jeremiah has of being ill-equipped for ministry- and gives him words of encouragement- not to be crushed, but to rest assured that He is a pillar of iron, a wall of brass, and that he will never be prevailed over. God is aware of the feelings and the thoughts that reside deep within Jeremiah’s heart, and He wants to encounter Him in that need, and perhaps, Jeremiah will again see things a little bit differently…
The second reading is likely one that we’ve heard with a fair frequency at weddings. It is a very popular selection from Saint Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and it highlights what it takes to truly possess love. At the beginning of the reading, it reminds us- strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way… and indeed St. Paul goes directly into this more excellent way. How? By going into an exposition on what love is. Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous. It is not inflated. It is not rude… the list goes on and on- and perhaps the most telling of these is that “love never fails.” If we understand this with the ears that Paul would have us hear with, he wants to remind us of the one that is truly love itself- and that is God. He is the one that never fails. He is the one that never ceases, and he is the perfect one. The constant strand of thought here within the reading? Love is truly the greatest spiritual gift, and while it is one that requires a great deal of work, and even virtues that contribute to it, it is nonetheless the way that one begins to reflect God in a clearer way.
Finally, we arrive at the Gospel, and the ending likely sounds familiar, because it was included at the end of last week’s Gospel. The scripture is being fulfilled in the hearing of those who were there in the synagogue. At this point the people are very happy to hear him, and they are very complimentary towards him. However, notice that there is this subtle question that sneaks in- “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” Right there, we might not think much about it, because it is true, but you have to see the spirit in which the question comes out of the mouth of the people. It is a question of doubt. It is a statement that they can’t quite comprehend where Jesus is coming from. They simply think of Him as the Son of a carpenter, and nothing more.
This is where Jesus hits them where it hurts. He begins to put pressure on the fact that He is a prophet, and indeed more than a prophet. He reminds them that prophets were never accepted in their native places, but that they found acceptance elsewhere. He goes through these specific scriptural accounts and these reminders that they are missing something. What Jesus speaks to is a threat against the way things have always been. Their present assumptions about Him. How they live out their faith. How they come to experience God. Jesus is attempting, at that moment, to challenge them, and to get them to move out of that place from where they are comfortable. Jesus wants them to enter a new relationship with Him.
What do they do? They refuse, and even try to kill Him, because they are so stuck where they are. They don’t like what they’ve heard, and they are going to attempt to put a graphic end to it!
However, as powerful, and as dramatic as that scene is, it should really draw us back to that initial question. Jesus is trying to get the people within the synagogue to see things with new eyes. Not to take their faith, or even the fact that they are in God’s very presence, for granted. He is encouraging them to actually reignite and reengage with Him in a new way, and that is where they refuse, and even turn violent. Though we may not feel that we do at all, we can do something very similar in our faith. We can get kind of used to living out things the way we like. We get the Bible off the shelf, and when we are done with it, right back up it goes. We pray, but it doesn’t feel like a top priority. Is Jesus calling us in deeper- is He trying to get us to live out our faith in a deeper way?
Brothers and sisters, if we choose not to engage with Jesus Christ in a fresh and a dynamic way, we can become something much worse than we’d think. We may not seek to throw Christ off a cliff, but we might start to do that in our actions towards one another and towards Christ. We could become so set in our ways that, when Christ challenges us, we don’t want to hear it, and we simply go about our own pursuits, and we can even sink into the depths of selfishness or animosity that we can’t even see how depraved we have truly become- because we cannot even accept Christ’s voice in our life.
However, if you think about it, the voice of Jesus isn’t meant to be an affliction. It isn’t meant to contradict everything we do. Rather, though it can be challenging, it really wants to reassure us. It wants to remind us of the big picture- as it did for Jeremiah- and even the beautiful design we have in God’s eyes. Or, if you read St. Paul, we sometimes need reminded- we should be able to switch out our names with the word love in that letter to the Corinthians, and be reminded (or at least encouraged to become moreso) how patient, how kind, how secure we are- because we have put aside childish things, and are living in that way that Jesus invites us into. Yet, the fundamental point- we have to have hearts and minds open to where Jesus is going. We cannot simply put Him in a box- because that makes us very unreasonable, or perhaps upset, when He climbs out of that box- and may even disappear from our midst, because we haven’t made room. We haven’t looked through that new set of spiritual eyes.
That truly is the reminder for all of us as we hear about this episode in the Gospel. Brothers and sisters, let’s not simply settle for old perspectives, nor let our faith become something that we’ve just got set in our ways. It should be something living- that truly follows where Christ is leading in our lives. If we do that- if we look for the ways that we too can have the new and fresh eyes of a tourist in our hearts and our souls, perhaps we too can be reminded- Jesus is here in our midst, He wants to give us fulfillment, and to remind us who we are. Let us have those eyes, hearts, and souls that are open to hear Him when He calls to us and reminds us of His presence in our lives.
