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Sacred Scriptures/Liturgy- Commentary on Sunday's Readings |
Jesus the Preacher
Third Sunday of Lent
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap, Pontifical Household Preacher
www.zenit.org
Exodus 3:1-8a,13-15; 1 Corinthians
10:1-6,10,12; Luke 13:1-9
The Gospel for the Third Sunday of Lent offers us an example of
Jesus' preaching. He takes his cue from some recent news (Pontius
Pilate's execution of some Galileans and the death of twelve persons
in the collapse of a tower) to speak about the necessity of
vigilance and conversion.
In accord with his style he reinforces his teaching with a parable:
"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard...." Following the
program that we have set out for this Lent, we will move from this
passage to look at the whole of Jesus' preaching, trying to
understand what it tells us about the problem of who Jesus was.
Jesus began his preaching with a solemn delcaration: "The time is
fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in
the Gospel" (Mark 1:15). We are used to the sound of these words and
we no longer perceive their novelty and revolutionary character.
With them, Jesus came to say that the time of waiting is over; the
moment of the decisive intervention of God in human history, which
was announced by the prophets, is here; now is the time! Now
everything is decided, and it will be decided according to the
position that people take when they are confronted with my words.
This sense of fulfillment, of a goal finally reached, can be
perceived in different sayings of Jesus, whose historical
authenticity cannot be doubted. One day, taking his disciples aside,
he says: "Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell
you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and
did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it" (Luke
10:23-24).
In the sermon on the mount Jesus said among other things: "You have
heard that it was said (by Moses!) ... but I say to you." The
impression that these words of Christ had on his contemporaries must
have been fairly uniform. Such claims leave us few options for
explanation: Either the person was crazy or simply spoke the truth.
A lunatic, however, would not have lived and died as he did, and
would not have continued to have such an impact on humanity 20
centuries after his death.
The novelty of the person and preaching of Jesus comes clearly to
light when compared to John the Baptist. John always spoke of
something in the future, a judgment that was going to take place;
Jesus speaks of something that is present, a kingdom that has come
and is at work. John is the man of "not yet"; Jesus is the man of
"already."
Jesus says: "Among those born of woman there is none greater than
John and yet the littlest one of the kingdom of God is greater than
him" (Luke 7:28); and again: "The law and the prophets were until
John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached and
everyone enters it violently" (Luke 16:16). These words tell us that
between the mission of John and Jesus there is a qualitative leap:
The littlest one in the new order is in a better position that the
greatest one of the old order.
This is what brought the disciples of Bultmann (Bornkamm, Konzelmann,
et al.) to break with their master, putting the great parting of the
waters between the old and the new, between Judaism and
Christianity, in the life and preaching of Christ and not in the
post-Easter faith of the Church.
Here we see how historically indefensible is the thesis of those who
want to enclose Jesus in the world of the Judaism of his time,
making him a Jew just like the others, one who did not intend to
make a break with the past or to bring anything substantially new.
This would be to set back the historical research on Jesus to a
stage that we left behind quite some time ago.
Let us go back, as we usually do, to this Sunday's Gospel passage to
glean some practical guidance. Jesus comments on Pilate's butchery
and the collapse of the tower thus: "Do you think that these
Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because
they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent you
will all likewise perish." We deduce a very important lesson from
this. Such disasters are not, as some think, divine castigation of
the victims; if anything, they are an admonition for others.
This is an indispensable interpretive key which allows us to see
that we should not lose faith when we are confronted with the
terrible events that occur every day, often among the poorest and
most defenseless. Jesus helps us to understand how we should react
when the evening news reports earthquakes, floods, and slaughters
like that ordered by Pilate. Sterile reactions like, "Oh those poor
people!" are not what is called for.
Faced with these things we should reflect on the precariousness of
life, on the necessity of being vigilant and of not being overly
attached to that which we might easily lose one day or the next.
The word with which Jesus begins his preaching resounds in this
Gospel passage: conversion. I would like to point out, however, that
conversion is not only a duty, it is also a possibility for all,
almost a right. It is good and not bad news! No one is excluded from
the possibility of changing. No one can be regarded as hopeless. In
life there are moral situations that seem to have no way out.
Divorced people who are remarried; unmarried couples with children;
heavy criminal sentences ... every sort of bad situation.
Even for these people there is the possibility of change. When Jesus
said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a
needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, the
apostles asked: "But who can be saved?" Jesus' answer applies even
to the cases I have mentioned: "For men it is impossible, but not
for God."
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
