I remember the first time I tried to criticize my parents' lifestyle. I had discovered the social teaching and values of the Gospels, and felt that my family was overly materialistic and self-occupied. I tried to tell this to my father. It didn't go very well. After all, this family I considered materialistic and self-occupied had taken care of me for 20-odd years. I probably was terribly self-righteous, and there was no way that my dad was going accept a spiritual challenge from me. He had seen me make plenty of my own moral errors during my life. Who was I to judge him?
In today's Gospel reading Jesus returns to his hometown and his friends and neighbors are chagrined that this local boy is being touted as the Messiah of Israel. "Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?" In other words, Jesus' friends and neighbors can't imagine that someone they have known since his childhood could hold such an exalted position.
Familiarity may not always breed contempt, but it can certainly breed incredulity. Most of us are not ready to be challenged or inspired by someone familiar to us. Why? In some cases it is because we have seen the flaws and failures of that person in the past. That is certainly true of my attempt to challenge my parents in my righteous youth! In the case of Jesus and his neighbors, one can imagine that it is difficult to acknowledge that someone who has appeared more or less normal up to now suddenly carries a unique and revolutionary message from God.
Today's Gospel reminds us that God can speak to us through any one, at any time. In the case of Jesus' friends and neighbors, they could not see the presence of God in the holiest person who ever walked this earth! For you and I, the challenge is more likely to be to remain open to the people around us who's flaws and failures are well known. The holy ones among us do not always appear holy to the watching world or to the local community.
When I was a campus minister at an Ivy League school, a mentally challenged fellow used to attend a lot of our meetings. Someone asked him why he came, and he said "Because I like to be happy. Don't you?" It struck me at the time that in many ways I do not like to be happy. I like to focus on what is wrong in my life or in the world, not on what is right and good. I look for opportunities to be sad more than I look for opportunities to find joy. At the same time our little community was creating something that was a source of joy to others, including this young man. This man, who I would have thought had little to offer our group of highly driven university students, taught us about joy.
It is a challenge to identify the prophets in our own midst. We must believe that they are there. If we are lucky, they will help us to see and experience the life giving presence of God among us. Bill Peatman writes from Napa.
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