January 30, 2022 (Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time)

“Isn’t This God’s Son? God’s Daughter?”

by Fr. Dominic DeLay, O.P.

[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]

Isn’t it baffling how quickly Jesus’ hometown goes from amazed to murderous? I’m not surprised they get upset after he insults them and tells them he wasn’t sent for them. But there’s something that happens between their amazement and his insult: They say, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” From our perspective, that sounds like more amazement. But from Jesus’ perspective, it might have sounded like judgment: Who is this upstart? Who is he to turn his back on his father’s trade? Have you ever felt like people back at home don’t get you? You visit family and everyone wants you to act like the same person you were when you left? And I’m not just talking about college students. This happens no matter how old and smart and fantastic we get.

We get put in a box all the time. Stanford undergrads are relieved if disoriented to leave behind high school cliques, but it doesn’t take long before they start categorizing each other here: Where are you from? What year are you in? Are you STEM? [surprise] Humanities? Huh. How quickly we move from curiosity to judgment.

We can even be eager to put ourselves in a box. I was talking with a frosh the other day who’s feeling pressure to choose her major. If she waits too long to choose her major, or at least to take certain classes, her future may be limited, at least if she’s going to follow traditional timelines. It’s good to choose a major, a career, or a relationship, so that we can go deeper. But we don’t want to wall off the mystery of who we are.

How about the way we put others in a box? Why do we do that? It’s only natural that we put labels on people in order to make sense of the mystery standing in front of us. But sometimes we’re jealous of someone, so we put them down or underestimate their gifts. We like comfort, so it’s easy to discount someone when they’re saying or doing something that’s challenging us: Who made them an expert?

Do we put Jesus in a box? Or try? Most days, we don’t try to toss him off a cliff, but we like to domesticate him and jettison his unseemly qualities, teachings, and actions. We soften, homogenize, and try to contain what he says in the gospels. We ignore the surprises and mystery he presents to us in the gospels and in our daily lives.

We try to limit Jesus for some of the same reasons we try to box in others: we don’t like to be challenged or uncertain. We also limit his power in our lives, not wanting to believe in his mercy and love because we fear it will be withdrawn. The good news is just too good to be true. We try to contain Jesus, and he passes through our frantic spiritual grasp just as he passed through the angry, confused hands of his hometown crowd.

The good news – the great news – is that God doesn’t approach us with prejudice. God doesn’t label us according to yesterday’s actions but graces us with the power to let God’s love in today and to let that love out for others in new ways. God knows us better than we know ourselves. God doesn’t need to categorize us in order to make sense of who we are. Today’s prophesy from Jeremiah puts it like this: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.

With God’s words to Jeremiah, Jesus invites, challenges, encourages, and empowers us to flourish in new ways: Before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you. The lectionary skips over the challenging yet reassuring next part in the prophesy: “Ah, Lord God!” I said, “I do not know how to speak. I am too young!” But the Lord answered me, Do not say, “I am too young.” To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you.

In today’s letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul also calls us maturity, calling us beyond the limitations others impose on us or that we impose on ourselves: When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. We are constantly, at all stages of our lives, summoned by the Spirit to greater maturity. We are called to move beyond merely following the moral rules to forming and following our consciences. We’re called to ask questions about our faith. And not just to ask, but to pursue the answers, even if they are sometimes unanswerable.

We are called to discover the mystery of who we really are by pursuing the mystery of who God is. We do this most deeply by praying, laying our whole selves and experience before God and allowing God to open our hearts to the mystery of God’s love for us. St. Paul contrasts our imperfect knowledge with the perfect knowledge we look forward to in heaven: At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

Our prejudices about Jesus – isn’t this the son of Joseph? Isn’t this the nice guy I heard about in church? – give way to an exclamation of awe: This is the Son of God! And we finally hear Jesus’ categorical, non-categorizing label for us: You are God’s son. You are God’s daughter.