One would think that when Jesus returned to his own town, Nazareth, where he had grown up, he would have been well received. Surely they knew him and would have liked him. Well, they knew him, or thought they knew him, and that was precisely the problem.
They had watched him grow up. He was the local carpenter. They knew his close relatives. They were surprised that he knew so much. In the 30 years before he left Nazareth, he had probably never preached in the synagogue. That is why, in today's Gospel, we hear his neighbors say: "Where does he get all this? What wisdom is this that has been given to him? And these miracles that his hands perform? [...] And they were scandalized because of him.".
Jesus left them as the carpenter of the people. He returned as the Savior of the world. He had not changed. He had always been the Savior of the world, but he had kept it hidden. Now he reveals the truth about himself. But these people were not willing to let their comfort be disturbed. They did not want to know more.
We can face the same danger. We have little knowledge of our faith and this prevents us from wanting to go deeper. That is the great tragedy: we become complacent. We do not want to know more.
One of the worst possible curses is to know a little and think that's enough. As the saying goes: "Knowing little is dangerous." Arguably the Church's greatest theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, to whom God once said: "You have written well about me, Tomás"Later, he had a vision of God in heaven. This vision so shocked him that he put down his pen and never wrote again. Compared to what he had seen in that vision, he thought that everything he had written was "straw". He died a few months later.
God is always more. He is infinite. There is so much to learn about Him. The great mystic St. Catherine of Siena described getting to know God as diving into an infinite ocean where there is always more to discover. God will fulfill us to the extent that we allow ourselves to be fulfilled. If our desire is like a thimble, God will give us a thimble full of himself. If our desire is like a bucket, God will give us a bucket full of himself. If our desire is like a reservoir, God will fill us like a reservoir. And if our desire is like an ocean, God will fill us like an ocean. Ultimately, the question is: How much do I want to know God?
Homily on the readings of Sunday 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaA short one-minute reflection for these Sunday readings.
