Central to the Gospel narrative is an experience everyone can resonate with. His neighbours were taken up by His teachings but they were unimpressed by His actions. Where could He have gotten such abilities? It is the usual phenomenon of a familiarity that breeds contempt. From what they thought of Him, Jesus had a tough crowd to please.
The response of Jesus was a natural human reaction. He could achieve no more than their faith permitted Him. It is not easy to stand up and be counted but the 1st Reading is a clue to tenacity, that is, to remain steadfast in the face of opposition. To be a prophet one needs courage to stand apart.
It is ironical that everybody wants to stand out but few are prepared to pay the price. In times past, throw a stone into a family and what do you know? It will hit a Theresa or a Mary, an Anthony or a Joseph. My Dad has 3 Theresas for his sisters because his parish is called St Theresa. Today we have special names. Parents want their children to have distinctive names, designed to stand out in the crowd. Yet, few would give up a seat for an elderly passenger in a bus or transit. It is a sad reflection of how far we have sunk when providers of public transportation are required to put reminders on buses or trains to alert us to this basic civic duty—to take care of the feeble. To sacrifice one’s comfort, there is perhaps a hidden fear that others might regard us as weak. Or as Michael McIntyre in one of his comedies about letting cars cut into his lane remarked “I am generous to the tune of one”. FOLO, the fear of losing out arises because we are afraid that we might be taken advantage of if we were too kind.
But more than this fear of losing out is the reality that once we stand out, we will suffer. A prophet, in general, stands alone and is made to pay for holding on to unconventional views. It is daunting to be steadfast. Take for example the experience of youthfulness. Many are fired by ideals and are committed to the faith or to a cause. The change occurs when they enter higher education. Some who have the luxury of an overseas education succumb to the dampening democracy of mediocrity. What does this mean? The multitude or the majority that does not practise the faith exerts an intimidating silence that forces those who believe to either tone down their belief or conform to the accepted norms. The idea that faith is private and not public is a challenge that young Catholics face. If our celebrities can cave in to the fear of cancellation and ostracisation, what more a young anonymous Catholic.
The price of faith in the Lord is also fidelity to our vocation. The 2nd Reading is therefore instructive. St Paul speaks of witnessing to Christ by bearing insults on Christ’s behalf. Both the 1st Reading and St Paul deal with being the spokesman for God, that is, to become the voice of God. Immediately we enter the territory of “right” or “being right”.
There are different ways being right. The first borders on being self-righteous. This is the type which sets itself up as the standard. The Pharisees were like that and it is not difficult to be a Pharisee. In today’s terms, it is called virtue-signalling. In itself, virtue signalling is an indication of the loss of paradise, meaning that, when we can no longer depend on God’s assessment of us, we are compelled to alert the world about how good we are. Currently, celebrities, apart from the fear of ostracisation or cancellation, they also virtue-signal. Consider how many of them have jumped on the bandwagon of the climate-change agenda? Sadly, while they lecture us on our duty to be carbon-compliant, they see no contradiction between their public announcement and personal behaviour as and when they hop onto their gas-guzzling private jets. Sipping spring water flown from the untouched glaciers of the Alps or consuming imported delicacies cast a huge carbon shadow and before they decry fossil fuel, they might want to consider how vacuous their condemnations sound.
The second type of right is having the courage to stand in the light of faith meaning that we are conscious that faith in Jesus is not merely that He can fulfil our deepest desires. Faith is also to be loyal to His calling or to be reliable in what we stand for. Therefore, to be the righteousness of Christ, it is even more important that we be seen not only to talk about it but also to live it. Modern man is sceptical of the truth not because it does not exist. Rather truth becomes empty talk because those who preach it do not live it. As St Paul VI said in Evangelii nuntiandi, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses”.
How do we speak for Christ? He faced a daunting crowd. We too have the same dilemma. Society can be fixed in its thinking, just like the neighbours of Jesus was. In a way, our fixed ideas of reality are even worse because we have been corralled in the manner we think. In the age of search engines, algorithms organise our thoughts to the point that sometimes we cannot see further than what is presented as “reality” before us. The source of our knowledge can be the echo chambers that insulate us from contrasting thoughts that may challenge the accepted narratives. When we are fixed in our thinking, we will no longer be able to see more than what is proposed.
To speak in the name of Jesus Christ requires courage to step out of the shadows cast by the enslaving technological complex. This bravery to step out can be excruciatingly lonely. Furthermore, credibility is never established from merely mouthing it. Many celebrated cultural and intellectual elites tend to pontificate. By today’s standard, Jesus could also be a celebrity. But in terms of listening to those who speak in the name of “right” or “good”, we are challenged by this fundamental question. Is a cause right because a celebrity endorsed it? Or is it right because God has ordained it. For Catholics, we derive our compass from the Church’s moral teachings. They are not popular and embracing Christ’s Way will result in suffering for Him. When we are ready to be shunned and still carry on, that is prophetic. When we are determined to suffer for Christ’s Truth, we might just gain the grace, the strength and the voice to speak for Him. The road is long and arduous. While the price is often loneliness, the reward is a Life beyond this world. What makes this Truth hard to grasp is perhaps best expressed by GK Chesterton who remarked that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried”. The cure for this myopia or short-sightedness is to live amongst the saints for they are the signs or symbols that it is possible to live for Christ alone and also to live as Christ while in this world.
