FIRST READING: Jeremiah 1: 4-5; 17-19. The word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. “Gird up your loins; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.”
SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 12: 31; 13: 1-13. Earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
GOSPEL: Luke 4:21-30. Jesus began to say to all in the synagogue, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here also in your own country.’” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away.
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The normal and accepted way of doing things, of running the country, of conducting business, left the prophet Jeremiah deeply disgusted. He clearly saw that they were miles away from what, according to his convictions, he considered just and tolerable. Yet, in his opposition to them he knew that he was outnumbered, vulnerable and mostly ineffectual. This even scared him, as the first reading attests, a reading from just before the Babylonian exile. Nevertheless, Jeremiah battled on, secure in his faith and in his determination to do what is right. He refused to comply; he repudiated being counted with the unjust.
Paul gives a name to such a refusal and repudiation. He calls it love. It is, he declares, ‘the most excellent way’. The love he speaks about in his amazing hymn is not the romantic, sentimental type which we hear about in songs, fake spiritualities or passionate avowals. It is a profound commitment towards justice, in the full social and political sense of the word. It is a faithfulness towards what is genuine, integral and decent. It is a bid to shun compliance, and stand, alone if need be, for what is right.
Jesus had not been afraid to do so. Or, if he was, he did not allow fear to paralyse his love. He did not allow himself to be intimidated. The people at the synagogue thought that he is one of them, one with their falsity, one with their injustice. But Jesus makes it clear, despite the danger of retaliation, that he refuses to be part of the herd, and never will be. Compliance is not his piece of cake.
