14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – Homily
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Ezekiel 2:2-5
Psalm 123:1-2, 2, 3-4 (2cd)
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Mark 6:1-6
July 5, 2024
Ezekiel was trained to be a priest in Jerusalem but when Jerusalem fell, Ezekiel was among those taken away in Exile. Away from the Temple, Ezekiel could not offer the sacrifices as a priest.
In Exile, the Lord spoke to him and called him to be a prophet.
God said to Ezekiel, “I am sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against me.”
We just celebrated July 4th as the day our nation declared its independence from England. So began the Revolutionary War. From England’s perspective, we were rebels.
We rebelled against an unjust ruler who denied the colonists their God-given rights.
The Israelites were defeated because they had rebelled against God, a very just ruler. For their rebellion, God allowed them to be defeated by Babylon.
They did not fight a military war against God. Rather, their rebellion was one of rejecting God’s truth. They were “hard of face and obstinate of heart.” They wanted to do things their way. I’m not sure if they meant to rebel against God. Rather, they slipped away from his ways without meaning or perhaps even realizing it. When God sent prophets to show how they had gone astray, this is when they were “obstinate of heart.”
They have not kept their eyes fixed on the Lord.
Do you keep your eyes fixed on the Lord?
Do you keep the Lord at the center of your life?
Sometimes when we drift from the Lord’s way it is because things are going well and we become prideful. We think we have become great all by ourselves.
The Apostle Paul could have become prideful in this way. He was a great apostle, sharing the gospel wherever the Lord sent him. He could have become “elated because of the abundance of the revelations.” He did not.
God didn’t allow that. To keep Paul from becoming elated and prideful, the Lord gave him “a thorn in the flesh.”
Paul begged the Lord three times to take the thorn from him.
Is there a thorn in the flesh that you face? Is it from the world or is a gift from God?
In our humanity, we want to be strong. We want to eliminate our weaknesses. Yet, our weaknesses can be the very way in which God chooses to be at work in us. If all we do comes from our strengths, it can seem purely a human endeavor. We might become prideful. But when we admit our weaknesses and allow the Lord to be at work in us, it is then that we become truly strong.
Do you boast of your strengths?
Do you hide your weaknesses?
There is a better way. Recognize your strengths as gifts from God and hand your weaknesses over to God. Then, God will give you grace sufficient for what He asks of you.
The people of Jesus’ native place did not allow themselves to see the grace of God at work in Jesus.
When Jesus came to his native place, He taught in the synagogue as He had done in other places. In other places His teaching was seen as spoken with authority and He did many mighty deeds.
In his native place, Jesus “was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people.” God does not force himself on us. He allows us to make a choice for ourselves.
The people of Jesus’ native place thought they knew who He was. They knew him as a carpenter and as the son of Mary. They did not allow themselves to see him as anything more. In their short-sightedness, they did not allow themselves to see his greater side.
How do you look at things? Do you look at the world only with human eyes or do you ask the Holy Spirit to help you see as the Lord sees?
When you look at a person you have know from the past, do you see only the person you knew in the past or do you see who they have become today? Do you allow yourself to see God in their hearts today?
Do you allow God to be at work in your heart today?
Let us keep our eyes fixed on the Lord.