Standing Up

A few years ago a Vatican department wrote to the Australian Bishops giving them a few tips. One of them was that the Australian sense of egalitarianism can work against the emergence of greatness. There was a bit of outrage about this, but it has to be said that the tall poppy syndrome is deeply rooted in Australian cultures, both indigenous and non-indigenous. We are expected to not excel too much lest we get too proud of full of ourselves. That in itself is a fair call, but the natural consequence is that we hang back with the crowd and underachieve.

In Jesus time the cultural constraints were similar. You followed in your father’s trade and did not make too much noise about it: you certainly never tried to be better than your father. The rage of the people of Nazareth, unacceptable to us, was justified in the cultural mores of the time. Jesus seemed not to ‘know his place’ and therefore threatened the stability of the society.

That is all true, but we know that Jesus had something more. He knew God.

Jeremiah comforts the people of Israel with a radical disclosure. God knows them, God cares for them, and God protects them. How easily the people of Israel forgot that time a time again. How easily we forget it as well. Jeremiah reminds the people of Israel that God wants them to brace for action, he wants them to stand up and take their place in society: Stand up and tell them all I command you. How can the people of Israel do that, how can we in our turn do that? Simple: God knows us, God protects us, God calls us.  Jeremiah tells us: They shall fight against you but not overcome you. True, life is not a walk in the park, it is an adventure, and as all adventures are, it has the full gamut of experiences from the sublime to the terrifying.

This is the life that Jesus grasped. This is the challenge he stood up and claimed in front of his kin in the synagogue in Nazareth. The secret is that it is our challenge as well, shared by Jesus with us, shared by Jeremiah with us in the knowledge that we do not do it alone, for we take up the challenge together, and it is divine.

Our faith urges us forward to take up our place. St Paul talks of growing up spiritually. He speaks of seeing his life and future more clearly. He speaks of the three pronged base of his growth: faith hope and love, the three gifts that come directly from God that spur us into action, that spur us forward to be more, to be greater, to rise up above the blanket of mediocrity that can stifle and suffocate good people.

There will be great challenges for you and me this year, this month and even this week. Use your faith to claim them, the rise up and make a difference to your life, our town and the world.

Homily OLQP Broome 2nd  Feb 2013, Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time