The Real Truth About You

January 24th, 2010

Luke 4: 14-21 (last part of Sunday's Gospel)
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

It’s sometimes easy to just skim over the Gospel readings because they are so familiar. Like this one. You might have read it over and perhaps had a few fleeting thoughts about how much courage it took for Jesus to read this scripture in the synagogue and then tell those listening that he was the one who was the fulfillment of it. Perhaps you briefly pondered on how dangerous it was for him to make such a statement because he was openly inviting judgment. He was making himself vulnerable to the people, people who had known him all his life, and he was giving them the opportunity to either condemn him for being incredibly arrogant or accept him completely as one who is telling the truth.

I don’t know if you realize it or not, but each time you have read this scripture you, too, have been called to make a judgment as to whether Jesus was arrogantly deluded or if he was revealing the Truth. You either rejected what he was saying or you accepted it. Most likely, right now you are saying, “Of course I accepted it.” Good. Now, I want you to go back to the above scripture and read verses 18 and 19 again (in italics) only this time I want you to imagine that instead of Jesus reading the scroll, you are. Every time the word “me” occurs, it means you personally.

Do you accept that or do you reject it? If you see yourself in that scene and you are the one claiming an anointing, would you feel you are being arrogant and delusional – or would you be stating the truth?  The truth was that Jesus definitely had been anointed by God to bring good news to the poor and to proclaim release to the captives etc. If, for the sake of appearing humble, he had proclaimed anything less than what he did or if he had said anything that would indicate that he didn’t feel should assume that this was a role meant for him he would have been practicing false humility. Christ’s claim to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s scripture passage was true humility: full acceptance of who he truly was and full acceptance of what he had been anointed to do.  No more, no less. He was doing what his Father required of him: walking humbly with his God. (Micah 6:8)

There is an inclination in all of us to gloss over our relationship to certain aspects of Jesus’ life and ministry just because he was the Son of God. We think that everything he did and said was a lot easier for him than it would be for us just because he was God incarnate. We feel he was filled with all these graces and gifts that we don’t have access to so we can’t hope to truly emulate his mission and ministry.

Scripture says differently. In John 14:12 Jesus said, “I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself; he will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father.” The Mass, too, acknowledges that we have access to all the same graces Jesus had access to: “Almighty God, we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to your altar in heaven. Then as we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood of your Son, may we be filled with every grace and blessing.” Or how about: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

We also know scripture says that Jesus experienced all the temptations that we do. He would definitely have been faced with the temptation to question his own importance, his relationship to the Father and what he felt the Father was calling him to be and do. He would have been tempted to practice false humility. “Who do I think I am? I’m nothing special. I’m just a carpenter from a poor village. My mother thinks I’m special but all mothers think their sons are special. But I keep having these inner yearnings toward people around me. I feel such love for everyone I meet and I ache to be able to lift up their hearts and give them hope and to me every one of them is so amazingly precious. But I can’t just claim the authority to go around trying to touch people’s hearts or tell them about how wonderful the Father is. I’m just plain old Jesus from Nazareth and they know it. They would think I’m trying to be someone I’m not.”

Jesus had to deal with this temptation. He had probably heard and read that scripture from Isaiah many times and perhaps each time he heard it, a huge desire stirred within him, each time a little stronger than the time before. Eventually he had to pay attention, go to the Father and ask, “Does this mean me?” He had to decide if he was going to believe it and accept it and if he did decide to believe it, what then?

Through baptism and confirmation, you, too, have been anointed. The Holy Spirit has been sent to stir and move you just as he came to Jesus to stir and move him. Ignoring or downplaying this aspect of your spiritual life might feel to you like you are being humble. There is a huge temptation in the spiritual life to pay more attention to one’s sinfulness than to the freedom and calling we have received through Christ’s sacrifice. There is a mistaken sense that if we pay a lot of attention to how bad we are, the Lord will be pleased because we aren’t being proud and arrogant about ourselves.

False humility.

It is absolutely true that we are broken people, that we make mistakes, sometimes awful ones, and that we often have need of God’s forgiveness and reconciliation but if we ignore the stirring of God’s Spirit within us and are too afraid to acknowledge that each one of us is beloved of the Father, that we have been called to the Royal Priesthood, that we have been clothed in Christ and that we are filled with the same dignity and authority of Christ, then we are being tempted to define our worth through false humility. We all need to continually ponder upon three questions:

1. Who am I?
2. What was I anointed to do and be?
3.Do I really accept and believe this? (Am I prepared to practice true humility?)

Every once in a while, a spiritual hymn or song comes along that just seems to hit everyone right in the heart. It instantly becomes everyone’s favorite song for a time and whenever the hymn is announced you can feel the entire congregation perk up. One hymn like that came along several years ago and to me it was very significant that this song seemed to touch everyone in a very deep place. It was, “Here I Am, Lord”.

Here I am, Lord.
Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord,
If you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

Even if you got heartily sick of this song because it was sung so often, go back to the words. Contemplate the message and the meaning and try to accept that God really is calling you in the night, longing for you to recognize his voice. Pray for the grace to be able to accept that it is definitely you he is calling and that you, truthfully and in all humility, are allowed to say,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me. He has sent me...”