July 6, 2015
FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
JULY 4/5, 2015
There’s an old adage that tells us that familiarity breeds contempt. I’m not sure I would use such a strong word as contempt, but familiarity with another person can certainly lead to limiting possibilities in a relationship. When we become so familiar with another we tend to think we know their every thought and subsequent actions….we think they are predictable and we know how they will be. This leaves little room for change or growth.
We have a true life example of that in today’s gospel reading. Jesus returns to his home town of Nazareth and upon entering the synagogue, he begins to teach. Many, St. Mark says, were astonished at His knowledge and took offense at the knowledge that had been imparted to Him.. They knew Him as the boy who grew up in their midst; they knew his parents and all his other relatives and He was just like them. They thought they were familiar with Him and hence their preconceived ideas of who He was did not fit into the adult they saw before them. It was almost like they felt tricked and were angry about it.
Sometimes I think we are all like the people of Nazareth. We have become so familiar with God in our lives, we take His presence for granted. If we were to ask ourselves who is God to us, we would all come up with slightly different definitions that arise out of our own experience and faith. And consequently we expect God to be predictable, to respond to us in a certain way.
But what we continually hear in the scriptures is that God is more than we can ever know. We can never limit God to our own experience or expectations. And that God wants to keep surprising us in new and different ways just as He surprised the people of Nazareth so many years ago.