Lent Year A-II Day 20

Luke 4 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s
hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah,
when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe
famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at
Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the
prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When
they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him
out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so
that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and
went on his way.

1. It is our erratic way of reasoning and sensing, that the ordinary tends not to be important. As
the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. If we are not careful, we can easily stop seeing
the Lord God in the Sacraments. We can easily desecrate holy objects. We may fail to see God
in His creation, in all its beauty and grandeur (Ps 8:3-4, 19:1).
2. We reject our Lord Jesus Christ whenever we do not see Him in the ordinary people and events,
in the very ordinary things of life; in the poor, captives, blind and oppressed (Lk 4:18), and in
the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, sick, and prisoner (Mt 25:34-46).
3. When God speaks in thunder and lightning, we fear and ask someone else to go speak to Him
for us (Ex 20:18-19). But when He is incarnate in the everyday and becomes one of us, we
don’t consider Him God (Jn 10:33). Our sense can be erratic. We reject Him because we no
longer consider Him divine. We simply see the carpenter of the village. And we become
astonished, even envious, when that carpenter suddenly speaks wonderfully. Rather, we should
celebrate our God who lives in our midst, our Creator who is accessible to us; before whom we
appear; whom we adore in the Blessed Sacrament; and we receive Him on our tongue; being
so close (Lk 22:19-20). He speaks to us in whispers (1 Kgs 19:11-13). And rather, we should
celebrate the good fortune of our friends and those in our communities.
4. God’s salvation is for all humankind. Luke’s Gospel shows how Jesus always reaches out to
the foreigners, the excluded and marginalised, the poor and sick. In the Acts of the Apostles,
Luke presents the mission to the gentiles, which continues to this day, to the remotest ends of
the earth (Acts 1:8). We are sent to bring the Good News of God’s salvation to all creatures (Isa
61:1-2, Mk 16:15). We are sent to heal the world in every way we can; with words if necessary.