Today’s gospel shouldn’t really be separated from the gospel reading we heard last week; it’s Part Two of a story that is all one. Last week, Jesus stood up in the temple in his hometown, to read the scriptures at the liturgy, and he read from the prophet Isaiah, who told people that he’d been sent to proclaim freedom and good news to captives, and it picks up today, when Jesus tells his listeners that Isaiah’s prophecy is being fulfilled right in front of them. They clearly don’t understand that he is talking about himself, because it says that his audience is pleased at his eloquence, the same way that we might be pleased to hear one of the well-thought-of students from the high school, give a nice talk about how the ideals of freedom are still alive today.
But then, today, the situation changes dramatically, and we get to the issue we need to think about. Jesus turns on his audience, tells them some things that offend and shock them deeply, and gets himself thrown out, not just thrown out but pursued to the point where the audience that was so satisfied to hear him just minutes before is ready to kill him, even this early in the gospel, years before another crowd, in another city, will succeed.
What did he say that got them so angry so quickly, and what does this whole episode mean for us?
First, what he said: What got them so angry? He tells stories about Elisha and Elijah, two other prophets, once again implying that he, Jesus, was reliving their stories and their words as he is reliving Isaiah’s. This alone might provoke some offense, since we can assume that there could be a big element of “who do you think you are” in the response of the locals who were listening to this. But that alone might not provoke this violent a reaction. What really sets them off was pointing out that those prophets, much as his audience might have liked to forget it, were received outside their own people, by non-Jews, better than they were by their own circle, that God seemingly sent those prophets to everyone, not just to Jews, and Jesus is implying that God again is bringing his presence to people who are unclean, who have contact with diseases and illnesses, who are ritually impure, who aren’t part of the hometown temple audience.
Many Jews in the Roman Empire were concerned that they not have too much to do with that Empire, they wanted to maintain their separateness, and when we hear that “tax collector” was a despised occupation it was as much because tax collectors had to deal with and interact with everybody, all classes of people, Jews and non-Jews, clean and unclean, as because some were suspected of being cheats and taking more than they were due. Few things would be more provoking to Jesus’s temple congregation than pointing out to them that their self-contained world was missing a great number of people they not only excluded, but in some way despised. It’s taking people who are trying hard to control their lives, and telling them that the control they have been striving for is not God’s, that giving up control and exclusion is the only way God has open for us.
Now we’re at the heart of it. There are still very few ways to get people angrier faster than by questioning the way whatever way they have and whatever justifications they have for excluding other people from their thinking, from where they live, from their faith. Prophets don’t do well in their own town because they know how their own town draws its boundaries. Prophets point out who’s missing, and they ask people why they’re missing, why they have been forgotten.
If you think the same thing doesn’t go on today just as powerfully, you can read the story of the rabbi in this country who wrote an editorial in response to the latest wave of violence in the Middle East pointing out to the people of Israel that the creation of their country displaced people, Palestinians, just as they themselves were once displaced, and that whatever solution is ever arrived at there is no justice without recognizing the plight of the other. Even saying this has brought him threats of death from his own people, his own hometown, just for pointing out that the hated enemy has a point. You can get the same reaction today, perhaps not as violent but just as strong, in any neighborhood where you point out that poorer people are not present and suggest perhaps that more of them should move in, or in a workplace where you ask why people of other races aren’t being hired. Same for people with contagious diseases; same for people with mental illnesses and addictions and prison records. Every community has its reasons for keeping them out, and not reasons they like being asked about.
So what does this willingness of Jesus, to make everyone angry, to provoke offense and violence, mean for us? One thing is clear: We’re not called to be offensive. That’s much too easy — listen to the radio and check out how many people are good at it. In fact, we’re called to something much harder, something that requires remarkable judgment, judgment and love and prayer.
St. Paul in that famous second reading tells us that love is never rude, never unkind, always patient, so it’s not our job as Christians to offend people with brutal honesty and criticism whenever and wherever possible. Love is all-important. But apparently, that same love calls us to notice, always notice, who we exclude, who our hometown excludes, who our country excludes, that same love calls us to have an identity and a vision that can see beyond our work, our office, our hometown surroundings. That love asks us to listen to those who call us to account, and maybe even one day, just when we see that no one else notices the truth, to stand up in the temple and say it ourselves. If that happens, you may quickly be without honor in your hometown, but everyone trying to follow Jesus will understand exactly who you are.