Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

Open Your Ears, Your Eyes!

What is it that blocks the ears of the heart from hearing? The eyes of the heart from seeing? It even happens with people who are closest to us: family, friends, neighbors, people we work with. We just don’t hear what they are trying to tell us, or our ability to see falters. We tend to see people only as they once were and not as who they have become. We stop looking beyond the surface, saying, “Oh, I see” when we really don’t.

This seems to have happened with Jesus when he returned to his hometown after preaching and teaching all through the Galilee region up north. He had been working wonders: casting out demons, curing the sick, healing lepers, even raising the dead daughter of a local synagogue official. And yet when he returns home to Nazareth, goes to the synagogue and teaches there, people respond only with astonishment, not faith. We hear two of the saddest lines in the Gospel: “he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

The same thing happened to prophets in the past. Men like Ezekiel were even warned by God that the Israelites were “hard of face and obstinate of heart.” And Paul certainly had his problems, even with communities he had founded. Today’s readings remind us of two sobering realities: God continues to talk to us and we continue to exercise our freedom not to listen.

Consider/Discuss

Can you recognize in yourself any tendency to be “hard of face and obstinate of heart”?
How do you take steps to “listen” for what God might be saying, to “see” how God might be trying to get your attention?

Responding to the Word

God, giver of all good gifts, help us to see you in the world around us, to hear your voice in the many ways you try to speak to us. Give us that gift of faith so that you can continue to work your wonders in our midst and bring life to your creation.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Ezekiel has an official mission, with all of the authority that this entails. He is to be the representative of God, sent by God to deliver a message from God. The Israelites, to whom he is being sent, are a rebellious people, “hard of face and obstinate of heart.” They have always been rebellious, from the time of their ancestors to the prophet’s own day, and so there is little reason to think that they will acquiesce to a message from God now. Still, whether they resist the prophet or heed him, they will know that he is a prophet of God, because dire consequences of their rebelliousness will fall on them.

Paul knows that it is foolish to allow himself to be overly elated or lifted up because of any spiritual favors that he has received. Such self-aggrandizement could easily develop into a personality cult. If he became the center of attention, it might be detrimental to the gospel that he had been sent to preach. Lest this happen, he is stricken with a thorn in the flesh. The nature of this affliction is not clear. Whatever its nature, it humbled him just at the time he might have been exalted. Praying to be relieved of it, he is told: “Power is made perfect in weakness.”

The people of Nazareth were not ignorant of Jesus’ teaching and the marvelous works that he had accomplished. However, they challenged the source of these wonders. Who did Jesus think he was? The point of the story is the rejection by those who knew Jesus the best, but apparently understood him the least. It was a situation not uncommon for those who have been drawn out of the group by God to speak God’s word to that group. The people here lacked the faith required for the power of God to be effective in their midst. Though astonished by Jesus, they were scandalized by him, and he was amazed at this.

Jan 30 2025

Gracious Living

How many times have we taken to heart the opening greeting often used at Sunday Eucharist: “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you”? To live graciously is to live within and out of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In today’s reading from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul commends the community for excelling in many ways but expresses the hope that they will excel in imitating the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is referring to their acting in imitation of Christ’s self-emptying. Christ who was rich in divinity became poor by pouring himself out for others. In self-offering, he gave himself both in ministry and especially on the cross, that others might be freed from the power of sickness and death.

Today we see Jesus graciously reach out to two desperate women. One had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, making her continually “unclean,” so she could not be in any contact with friends or family, or worship with others. She had lost everything, was truly impoverished. The other was a twelve-year-old girl whose frantic father had come for Jesus to heal her. To both women Jesus showed the gracious love of God, a healing touch restoring them to life.

The book of Wisdom states that God did not make death. God calls us to live graciously, generously. In Christ’s death and resurrection we glimpse the divine plan: that we die to self so as to live in God.

Consider/Discuss

What does being gracious mean?
How have you known the grace of God?
Can you see ways in which God’s grace can touch others through you?

Responding to the Word

Amazing, gracious God, look kindly on us and fill us with your grace. Expand our hearts so we might be generous to others as you have been to us. Bless our days that we might spread the light of your life to those who feel trapped by the darkness.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

The claim that God did not make death calls to mind the story of the first sin, which brought death into the world. The Wisdom author’s view of immortality is influenced by both the Jewish idea of covenant bond and the Greek concept of immortality. He claims that “justice is undying.” Since this immortal justice characterizes the covenantal relationship of human beings with the immortal God, this relationship is undying as well. The author further argues that, though mortal by nature, as images of God human beings were meant to be imperishable.

Paul pleads with the Corinthian community to come to the assistance of less fortunate Christians. He exhorts them to embrace this new venture with the same enthusiasm that they have shown in other areas of Christian living. He then turns to the example of Jesus, who willingly relinquished life itself for the sake of the Corinthians. He is merely asking that they give out of their abundance, for this is the basis of Christian sharing. Paul assures them that those with whom they are generous have riches to share as well. These may not be material treasures, but they are resources for which the Corinthians have need.

The Gospel reading consists of two healing accounts. A distraught father throws himself at the feet of Jesus and pleads for the life of his daughter. While on his way to heal her, a woman suffering from a hemorrhage seeks a cure by touching Jesus. Both stories demonstrate the faith in the power of God working through Jesus. The healing of the woman, though performed in public, was really a private affair. The raising of the girl, though accomplished in private, was in danger of becoming widely known. At the heart of each of these stories is the invitation to faith in Jesus and his power over sickness and death.

Jan 30 2025

Seeds of Hope

I watch most of the children in my three brothers’ families growing into what is called “emerging adulthood.” It must be very difficult at times for parents, only being able to watch, hope, and pray as their children start to move away from home and begin to make their own way into the world. Will they be safe, make the right choices, be happy?

Making use of images from nature, scripture reminds us that God gives the growth, whether it is to mighty cedars springing from small shoots, ripened grain sprouting from the blade, or a fully grown mustard plant emerging from the tiniest of seeds to offer its large branches as housing for the birds.

Such poetic language calls us to reflect on the mystery of the kingdom of God, whose seeds were found in the various covenants extended to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, and then fully enfleshed in Jesus so many millennia ago. This kingdom continues to sprout in our day, often where least expected.

Sometimes it breaks through like a mighty cedar, but more often it is a quieter blossoming, suddenly emerging like stalks of grain, or the first signs of life carried in a mother’s body. I am sure God has worried for all the children of every age who have filled the earth. The kingdom of life won by Christ continues to have the power to carry all God’s sons and daughters into the loving arms of the God Jesus taught us to call Father.

Consider/Discuss

What do you see around you that speaks of the mystery of growth? What encourages or discourages growth?
What is God presently calling to grow to fullness in your own life? In the life of your parish community? In our world?

Responding to the Word

God of all life, we thank you for the many ways life continues to flourish in our world and in our land. Bless the life you have entrusted to our care. Guide us in raising it to harvest. Remove any obstacles we place in its way. We ask this in Jesus’ name.