NOTES for Luk 4:37-44

Why do three evangelists give attention to this one of Jesus' first miracles, the healing of Peter's mother-in-law? Perhaps the reason lies in the genre of the Gospel: testimony. Testimonies are strong and convincing when they are not anonymous, when they speak not in general about some healed people whom the witnesses themselves never met, but about concrete people known to the listeners or close to those whom they know. Everyone knew Peter, and his mother-in-law is a very concrete and convincing example.

It is interesting that all three evangelists emphasize one detail: "She immediately rose and served them." This does not mean, in all probability, that such behavior was uncharacteristic of her. Rather, the point is that miraculous healing is given to a person not without purpose, for God does nothing without purpose, but for service, because this is exactly how love expresses itself in behavior.

We do not know much about the devils, but one thing is sure: these devils are against God not only by their goals, but also by their methods. If the purpose of God as regards to men is salvation and bringing to eternal life, the purpose of the devil is perdition; furthermore, if God respects and takes into consideration the freedom of man, the devil on his side tries to enslave man, to capture man's conscience, and paralyze his will (it is what we call obsession). When an obsessed man meets Jesus, he is delivered from his obsession and the devils desert him immediately. The current extract makes us know that the devils know Who outcasts them (see (James 2:19), although they do not stop being devils and continue to withstand God's will. May be that is why Jesus prohibits them to testify about Him, because man can fall in a false situation by listening to such testimonies: Man has to believe in order to receive this message…are we going to believe in demons?

Jesus commends us to testify about Him! So how important is it for us to be faithworthy people! All the ethical teaching of the Gospel is based on this; on the way we are called to live our lives, in order to have the right to be Jesus’ witnesses.

The desire to keep Jesus with oneself is very understandable in human terms. At least when one has already accepted Him inwardly and is ready to establish with Him the relationships that can truly change one's whole life. But now He is leaving. He says that He must bring the good news to others too, that He cannot remain. What then are we to do, since we have only just met Him, have barely had time to come to know Him, and so many questions and perplexities remain, so much still needs to be discussed... But it is impossible to hold Him back.

On the other hand, one can always be with Him. For He can truly be known only in His Kingdom. Together with His Kingdom. And in the Kingdom one can always meet Him. There are no distances there. And the more widely it spreads, the easier it will be to meet Him. So it turns out that it will be better for us if He leaves. He leaves in order to remain with us. In order to be closer to us. Or, more precisely, in order that we may be closer to Him.

For we truly are close to Him in the breaking of bread. In the Eucharist. And for this He must be not where we can see Him physically, at that boundary that separates the Kingdom from the world not yet transformed, but in the depths of the Kingdom. On the throne. Then, from there, we will be able to see Him everywhere. If, of course, we ourselves become inhabitants of the Kingdom. But if we do not, then communion with Him will give us nothing, even if it lasts for all eternity.

It is interesting that the more religious a person is, the more often he suspects the people around him of being possessed. Most of these suspicions are unlikely to be justified, but possession certainly does occur. It happens that damage to the sphere of the will, which can already be regarded as mental illness, is accompanied by the intrusion into a person of an alien will which at certain moments takes control of him. The Gospels describe quite a few encounters between Jesus and such sufferers, and in most cases the possession manifests itself when the bearer of that alien will, the demon, cries out upon recognizing the One who is approaching. Jesus never rejoices in such recognition or in such testimony about Him—for can the testimony of a demon be accepted? Instead, He forbids the evil spirit to speak or act and drives it out of the person. This would seem to be an unequivocal victory of good over evil, yet people's inner corruption is such that they fail to recognize good even when it is plainly casting out evil.

In Christ the prophecy was fulfilled. But whom is it speaking about? It is still possible to understand why healing is given to the broken, release to captives, and sight to the blind. But why is joy promised only to the poor, and freedom only to the oppressed? And what does that have to do with me? Of course, I am sometimes oppressed, but not all the time!

It is no wonder that not everyone in the synagogue reacted properly... Or should we still try to reread this passage once more and try to enter into the meaning of these words, to discover in ourselves the need, the thirst for freedom and healing? Otherwise Jesus will have to go to another town again...

Today's reading prompts us to reflect on the truth expressed in a well-known saying whose Gospel origin, however, is far from universally known today: no prophet is accepted in his own country (v. 24). By quoting a messianic passage from the Book of Isaiah, Jesus quite plainly identifies Himself as the One of whom the prophet spoke (vv. 17-21). At first glance, His listeners' reaction seems paradoxical: on the one hand they agree with Jesus, but on the other they immediately begin to doubt. How could their fellow townsman, whom they had known since childhood, make any claim to be the Messiah (v. 22)? They demand miracles from Him not as signs of the Kingdom but as proof of His messiahship (v. 23). It is then that Jesus speaks the bitter words about a prophet in his own country (v. 24).

Yet the paradoxical reaction of Jesus' listeners was actually quite understandable, and not merely because “great things are best seen from a distance.” The issue here was ordinary familiarity, which often proves to be one of the most serious obstacles on the spiritual path. Their doubts are justified, not by chance, with the thought that they have known Him since childhood: “Is not this Joseph's son?” So how could there be any question of messiahship? Of course, if Jesus had been recognized by respected people or official authorities and they had directly identified Him as the Messiah, He would undoubtedly have been welcomed with joy and celebrated as a famous fellow townsman. But there was no official recognition, and the townspeople had to decide for themselves. The force of habit weighed upon them.

Fallen human beings tend to see reality not as it is but as they are accustomed to seeing it. Clichés are common and widespread, and they arise for a reason: reducing reality to patterns and using ready-made models to describe it form a kind of psychological mechanism by which human beings adapt to the world—a mechanism without which, after the Fall, they can no longer manage. Yet this same adaptive mechanism often prevents a person from seeing what is new and unusual. It offers ready-made patterns and models where they do not apply, where the realities involved fit no pattern and can be described by no model.

The Kingdom to which Jesus bears witness is just such a reality. It fits no familiar framework. Yet Jesus' fellow townspeople do not want to lose that framework; they are prepared to defend it at any cost, and Jesus simply will not fit within it: an unrecognized Messiah, a disturber of the peace, someone passing Himself off as no one knows whom and claiming what no one in their small town had ever claimed or would ever have dared to claim. This is how He appeared to the people of Nazareth. They were left with only one remedy: to rid themselves of their excessively troublesome fellow townsman. And they would have done so if they could (vv. 28-30).

As we can see, it is not only the hatred of religious rigorists and the maneuvering of politicians that lead Jesus to the cross. He is driven there also by the narrowness of fallen human nature.

The problem of insiders and outsiders has always existed, in every society and every culture. Everywhere and always it has turned out that it is better to be an insider than an outsider. But then the Messiah came into the world, and it turned out that everything was not so simple. It turned out that an insider is not necessarily someone we know. Most often it is someone we think we know. And this is understandable: we perceive our own people as part of the familiar and known world. There is no need to look closely at them, and no need to listen carefully to their words. In general, we already know more or less what our own people can tell us.

Outsiders are another matter. An outsider is always someone you do not know. Someone who is not part of the known and familiar world, and here it does not matter where he is from: another continent or the neighboring village. Outsiders are often rejected, but they are always looked at closely. People listen to what they say. Not necessarily in a friendly way, but always attentively. After all, an outsider has to be understood. Or at least explained to oneself. Explanation is often an illusion of understanding. Understanding presupposes the perception of another person as he is. Explanation begins when we perceive this other person as we want to see him, so that he will fit within the bounds of our perception of the world familiar and known to us.

Christ can and must be accepted as He is. And He can and must be understood too - also as He is. But He does not need to be explained. Not to ourselves and not to others. Provided, of course, that we want to communicate with Christ and not with our images of Christ. And here it turns out that it is easier for those to whom He is an outsider. They know nothing about Him. His own people also know nothing about Him, but they think they know everything. Unlike outsiders, who at least are not mistaken about their ignorance. And it is this way not only with Him.

It is this way with God too. With His heavenly Father. It is no accident that Jesus gives examples from ancient Jewish history of God's not being recognized by His own people. A failure to recognize Him that separates people from God. And from the Messiah too. For God or the Messiah to begin to act, a person must want it. And must turn directly to God. Directly to Christ. But not to those images of God or Christ that he has invented for himself. Otherwise even the Kingdom may turn out to be unreal. Imagined. And so may life in it.