The Gospel of Luke set the theme for the liturgical year with a strong endorsement of a ministry of liberation (4:14-21). And, throughout the Gospel, Luke sets Jesus off on a journey to Jerusalem, spreading the Good News of Liberation in word, in relationship, and in action.
These first three weeks in which the Liturgy employs the Gospel of Luke have a missionary and prophetic aspect. “Missionary” comes from the Latin word meaning “Send”; “Prophecy” from two Greek words meaning to “Speak Out”. Last week Jesus announces the Good News of Liberation; today, we are called to “speak out”; and the third we consider what it means to be “sent”. Clearly, the Good News of Liberation is not designed to be private or hidden – with Christ, it is to be spoken out clearly and forcefully to all.
In the Old Testament and the Gospel reading today, we find that it is extremely difficult to “speak out”. In the first reading, the whole nation was “up in arms” about what the prophet Jeremiah had to say; in the Gospel, no sooner did Jesus announce a Season of Liberation than did people discredit him because he was “one of them” – the knew his family and when he was a child.
Why would people not want to hear Good News of Liberation??
Often, the most liberating news we are not willing to listen to or able to accept. If you tell an addict that there are programs out there that could help them deal with their addiction; if you tell an overeater that he or she can change his or her diet and maybe save their life; if you tell someone in a dead-end job about training programs they could take in the evening – the list goes on and on. We can preach liberation to others, but do we really want to liberate ourselves?
Fear of change, then, is one of the greatest enemies of Liberation. The Prophet is a “change-agent” at the deepest level. Rather than cherished and valued, the Prophets in our midst are often scorned and rejected.
If it were not the solidarity the Old-Testament prophet experienced (sometimes in dramatic ways) with the source of their News, if it were not for their intimacy with God, the prophet of the Old Testament would have been an isolated and lonely individual. In today’s first reading, God promises to protect Jeremiah, making him a “fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass against the whole land.”
We, on the other hand, are a Prophetic Community. We were Baptised into Christ the Prophet, just as we were into Christ the Priest and Christ the King. Our Baptism and the Christian community are our fortification, the pillars of iron around us, and walls of brass” so that we bring the Good News of Liberation into the most oppressed of situations.
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