FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME.

Ezek: 2:2-5  Ps 123  2.Cor 12: 7-10 Mk 6:1-6

1. Today is the story of the rejection of two prophets: Ezekiel and Jesus. Ezekiel was working 600 years before Jesus. God sent him to preach to the people of Israel, but God warned him, you will find

A people who are stubborn

A people who will not listen to you

A people who will not change

If I were Ezekiel, I would say, excuse me God, you paint this as a hopeless task, so forgive me if I am a bit confused, “What is the purpose of my going there at all?”

2. Actually Ezekiel is thinking like a typical male. He wants a reasonable explanation for proceeding with a task, which is doomed to failure from the very beginning. At the beginning of this year, I was away from Canada for six months. My 90 year old mother wanted to exactly where I was and how I was getting on. Mom I said, you are 90. If anything were to happen to me so far out here, there is nothing you can do all the way from Canada. But a mother, will always be a mother, she cares. She gave me a clue as why God was sending Ezekiel even when the task would fail. God cares and even if the People of Israel would not change, God would continue to protect them. However they did not listen and they were taken into captive by the King of the Chaldeans, and their temple was destroyed in 587 BC.

3. Jesus is faced with a similar attitude of “we will not accept you.” Jesus spoke to his fellow Israelites. He brought light into their liv es. The problem was that the light also showed up their sins and shortcomings, their weaknesses. In the face of this there are several responses, and several reactions:

Some shielded themselves from the light. They did not want to face change

Others just ran away from the light. They were comfortable as they were.

However, in the Gospel today, the Jews of the village of Jesus, rejected him.

3a They tried to discredit Jesus, like Nathaniel who said, “what good can come from Nazareth?” – the people from his village, said, “how can he teach us anything, we know who is, which home he came from, who his parents were. In a word, he is one like us, he is ordinary.

3b And then there were people who accepted the light, John would tell us in the first chapter of his Gospel: People who did accept the Word made flesh, were born of light, they would be called children of God.

In our first reading Ezekiel does give the Israelites who are in exile similar hope. God has not abandonned his people, they will return to their home country. They will rebuild their temple.

4. The problem with being a prophet, with being a messenger of God’s word is –

we the messengers are imperfect,

we have sinned,

we sometimes misunderstand the message. Only Jesus was perfect. 

Paul saw that as a stumbling block, an obstacle to his own preaching the Word of God. How can people accept my preaching when they see my weakness? He speaks of a thorn in his flesh, which he asked the Lord to remove.

People are constantly speculating about this thorn. It could have been

a physical defect – stammering or stuttering, or

a mental or psychological handicap like depression, melancholia, anxiety,

Paul was a man of passion, and could loose his temper very easily.

5. Paul tells us that God did not take the “thorn away” lest he get too inflated with success and forget that it is God’s work. God began the ministry, God continues to give the message its success.

A mother and her little son were visiting the Basilica of St. Paul’s in Toronto . The sun was streaming through the beautiful Stained Glass Windows. And the boy stood in utter wonder with mouth open. What is that Mummy, oh, she replied those are saints of God. The next day when he went to school, the teacher was teaching a class on Angels and Saints. Does any one know what an angel or saint is.  I know, I know said the eager boy. I saw one=2 0yesterday. A saint is a STAINED GLASS WINDOW through which the Lights shines. How true,

We are stained: - we are sinners

We are glass, we are so fragile

We are windows, through whom the Light of God will shine… and that is precisely what a Prophet is called to do. Let the Light shine on the people of God.

Second possible ending:

5. Paul tells us that God did not take the “thorn away” lest he get too inflated with success and forget that it is God’s work. God began the ministry, God continues to give the message its success. Remember the admonition of the Bishop at the ordination: Accept the word of God and m ake it your own, respect it, teach it and practise what you teach. It is an admonition we all received at our baptism: “keep the flame of faith burning brightly so that it is still burning when the Lord comes to meet you at the end of your earthly life.”

6. As we do so, we will meet people in the same way Ezekiel and Jesus did. They will be people with a stubborn heart, they will not want to change, and instead of rejecting the message, they will try and destroy the messenger, as they did in the case of Jesus. They nailed on only his body, but his message as well to the Cross. What they did not realize was the prophecy of Jesus, “When I will be raised up, I will draw all things to myself.”  So said, so done. 2000 years later, there are 2 billion people who will accept Jesus as the messiah.