TOO SIMPLE
God's ways are different from our own... God prefers the simple,
unassuming approach.
In today's
Responsorial Psalm we acclaim, "Sing to the Lord a new song... Tell His
glory among the nations; among all peoples, His wondrous deeds" (Ps 96:1,
3). Jesus speaks the glad tidings of God's "favor to the poor... liberty
to captives... sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free... a year
acceptable to the Lord" (Lk 4:18-19). The initial reaction to Jesus by the
people in His own town synagogue was favorable. When they realized, however,
the full implication of what He was saying, that He was the fulfillment of the
prophecy, their favor turned and they began to wonder how this could be. How
could the son of a carpenter be all that he claimed to be?
Think about this
for moment. This problem develops during the social hour after worship; over a
cup of coffee and a donut. The people ask Jesus a couple of questions about His
homily. He explains exactly what He meant by "liberty" and "glad
tidings." His two examples are too many for the crowd - hearing things
like a widow is cared for and a leper is healed. To the crowd, it was anything
but good news.
Widows and lepers
were foreigners - outsiders - and not a part of God's people. Jesus is
challenging them to expand their notions about the people with whom God's favor
rests. Maybe if Jesus had had better credentials, such as wealth, grandeur and
prestigious parents, He probably would have been readily acceptable to the
populace. As it was, everything about Jesus was too simple.
We hear in today's
first reading that St. Paul preached in a similar way to the Thessalonians:
"Therefore, console one another with these words" (1 Thes 4:18).
God's ways are different from our own. Some people wonder why God does not make
use of His power to crush all the bad things that can happen to us in this world.
Others yearn for Christ Jesus to come again in majesty and splendor in order to
convince all the skeptics that Christianity is right after all. God prefers the
simple, unassuming approach. He is like the confident person who is aware of
his authority and ability and does not feel that he must prove it to anyone.
We do not
understand all the reasons why God chooses to do things the way He does. If we
did understand His displays of power and majesty it would leave little room for
faith. God wants us to accept the simple words of Sacred Scripture as His
inspired Words. He wants us to see through the veil of bread and wine to the
reality of the Eucharist, despite its ordinary appearance. And He wants us to
accept that the son of a carpenter is actually His own divine Son. Faith - a
complete, fully accepted kind of faith - is the mark of one who is truly
devoted to God and to His way of doing things, not our own.