Monday of the
Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
(I Thessalonians 4:13-18; Luke 4: 16-30)
It was customary for presidential candidates to begin their
political campaigns on Labor Day. They
often returned to their hometowns to present their policy agenda. Jesus does something similar in today’s
gospel.
Jesus is about to launch his career as a reforming
prophet. Quite dramatically, he returns
to Nazareth to lay out his objectives.
By no means does he profess “a rising tide will lift all boats.” No, he will direct himself to the needs of
the poor, the sick, and the oppressed.
However, everyone – poor and rich alike – will have to reform their
ways. The townspeople think that they
might be privileged because they know Jesus’ family. But Jesus quickly disabuses them of the
idea. To participate in the Kingdom of
God, he indicates, one has to work for the common good. That goal takes precedence over individual
desires.
Today, Labor Day in the United States, bespeaks the need
to reflect on the nature of work.
Whether it is to heal, to build, or to clean we should see it as both a
gift received and a gift given. We not
only have received a job but, more basically, the ability to work. We work not only for our own benefit but also
to make the world a better place. As Jesus
hints in the gospel, with this frame of reference we prepare ourselves for God’s
Kingdom.
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