Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle C
Jeremiah 1:4–5, 17–19
Psalm 71:1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 15, 17
1 Corinthians 12:31–13:13
Luke 4:21–30
To be known and loved are at the heart of human desire. When we realize that we are recognized and loved in our unique identity everything else follows. We can live up to our true potential, accepting and loving ourselves, when we know that someone believes in us.
Our world has become confused about the nature of identity. Faith tells us that each human person is unique. It is a sad commentary on our times that individuals have been taught to find something that the world imposes on them as their identity.
I am not able to be – or even to discover – my true self when I have given someone or something else the power to tell me who I am. We can fall prey to this in subtle ways, not realizing that we have handed our power to another.
This is not to deny that there is Someone beyond ourselves Who gives us our unique identity. The Creator chooses to create us in our uniqueness. Influenced by the spirit of the age, we can leave God out of the picture as we assert our uniqueness.
We seek autonomy as our goal rather than interdependence with the One Who has loved us into being and with our brothers and sisters who are destined for life eternal in their uniqueness. We limit our horizons to this world and miss eternity.
Each human being has been created through an intimate relationship with the living God. Our personhood and true identity come from mirroring, living as expressions of some divine attribute. Our faith teaches that God makes Himself known to us through Jesus Christ.
Through the Incarnation, human nature has been redeemed, re-created in Christ, so that each unique human being is a facet, an expression, a word spoken into creation by God through Christ. This allows us to live in this world, with our sights set on the next.
When Jeremiah was experiencing hardship as a prophet, the word of the Lord came to him saying, “Before you were in the womb, I knew you.” Jeremiah was challenged to stand firm in the identity given to him by the word he proclaimed.
Through the power of the word, Jeremiah would be a mirror held up to the people so that they could discover their identity as God’s rebellious people. “I am with you to deliver you.”
Jesus Himself experienced rejection by those who thought they knew Him because He grew up among them. They were not open to the message He had for them, a challenge to see things differently. That did not stop Him from moving on from His hometown to fulfill His public ministry.
He told those in the synagogue that the text from Isaiah He had read to them was fulfilled in their hearing, and they took offense at Him. When they tried to throw Jesus over the brow of the hill on which their town stood, He simply went away.
St. Paul’s hymn to love in the First Letter to the Corinthians has been heard so often (especially at weddings) that we miss the depth of its message. Once at a funeral, the priest suggested that the way to hear it for all of its meaning was to put your own name in wherever the word “love” was used. When he put in his name, the congregation laughed, which was the effect he was looking for. But when he put in the name of the deceased person, suddenly it had a new depth.
God makes Himself known through human beings. The essential identity of the living God is love. When we allow love to shine through our persons, each of us in our unique way, something new is offered to the world.
The first surprise of the world at the early Church led to a comment: “See these Christians, how they love one another!” If only we could hear the world being surprised by our lives this way today!
Can we believe again that “love never fails”?