Jesus knows the teachings of the Jewish tradition. After he has been away for a while he returns to the local synagogue and reads from its teachings. He is thus known again by the men of his village as being one of them. However, Jesus then interprets the reading in such a way that it violates their tradition. They reassert certainty of knowing him and his fidelity to their traditions, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” Jesus cannot be confined by these chosen men to their traditions. Jesus knows people cannot be so confined. Each person is a child of God, equally loved. The chosen men of the synagogue become angry at Jesus for attempting to change their religious tradition.
Tradition tells us what we know. It does this by passing on yesterday’s ideas, beliefs, and practices. Through tradition we are connected to those who have gone before us. We are encouraged to be grateful for their contribution to our lives. Tradition wisely influences us to consider where we have come from, to whom we belong, and how those who have loved us have been, and still are, shaping us. If tradition and conserving it is all our life or culture is about, however, it will not so much root us as it will root bound us. It will proscribe for us our proper place and train us in keeping to it. We will know the importance of living honorably in relation to the past. We will not so much know living adventurously to create a loving future. Tradition will most especially tell us all we need to know through the God chosen men have imagined into existence. Thus, we will know the Ten Commandments but rarely the Eight Beatitudes. We will know of a Covenant for a chosen people but rarely the Community of God for all. We will know of a deity that keeps track of our sins and condemns us to hell for eternity but rarely of a human being who freed us from such a deity by loving sinners and inviting us all to live heaven on earth. In the spiritual life, can we say we know God? Who is the God we know? Is it the God of someone else’s past, of our present, of our future? Do we know our word, symbol, or meaning for God; Love, Spirit, Mystery, Abba, Beauty, Breath, One, Source, Joy, …? Jesus gives witness to a communal loving energy flowing within us and between us. We are opened to an uncertain but adventurous future. We will be changed, found vulnerable, made wonder-full. We will not know so much as we thought we knew and yet we will know so much more.
How do we know each other? Is it in the intimate love of – “before I formed you in the womb I knew you”; the intimate love of – “Love is patient, love is kind. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, … At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Do we know each other in all this love and so much more?
Prayer: Source of all; we live in an eternity of love.
Question: Who is the God I want to know?
January 31, 2016 Gospel Luke 4:21-30 Fourth Sunday In Ordinary Time