THURSDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

1.Jn 4:19-5:4

2.Lk 4:14-22

"Jesus outlines His ministry in Nazareth"

In today's gospel, Jesus is back in Nazareth and attends the Sabbath Service. It was the custom of synagogue's official to invite any willing adult Jewish man to read the scripture of the day and deliver a homily on it. The reading of a definitive book is determined by the season but the scripture passage to be read and delivered homily is left to the choice of the preacher. Today Jesus accepts this invitation. It is under this account that He is about to start His public ministry also. Before He does, He presents to the people what we may call in our language nowadays- Job description of His ministry. First and foremost he tells the people who He is, that He is the Anointed One, the Christ and the Messiah and what He wants to do.

He read that part of the book of the prophet Isaiah that says: " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim the  liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord," ( Lk 4:18-19; Is.61:1-2). This is the outline of his ministry. That He comes to proclaim the Good News of salvation; to free us from the captivity of sin; to open our eyes and free us from spiritual blindness.

However, Jesus' program of ministry is ours too. As His disciples we have to continue His ministry of proclaiming the Good News of salvation, to open the eyes of those who are spiritually blind, to liberate those who are bound to sin and even to contribute to the social and political liberation of the poor or needy, deprived, oppressed and the exploited.

Moreover, Jesus is never silent whenever there is an occasion to speak with pride and sincerity, before the people about God and His relationship with Him. From the gospel reading Jesus is challenging us to speak of our faith in God to others. It has been my experience that majority of Christians more especially Catholics fear to share their faith to others as other churches do. We are afraid of to impose our faith on others and defend it. Many of us if not few, are not even familiar and knowledgeable with the Bible, Dogmas and doctrine of our faith. At times, we speak more of ourselves as one who goes to Mass very often but seldom do we speak of what we have learned from the Mass and the gospel?

It is also our mission not to give up on loving, not to give up our goodness even if people around us don't reciprocate it. Let us take time to read and reflect  this story is we feel giving up loving and giving  up our goodness.

There was this Hindu preacher who saw a scorpion floundering around in the water. He decided to save it by stretching  out his finger but the scorpion stung him. The preacher still tried to get the scorpion out of the water but the scorpion stung him again. A man nearby told him to stop saving the scorpion that kept stinging him but the Hindu said: " It is the nature of the scorpion to sting. It is my nature  to love. Why should I give up my nature to love just because it the nature of the scorpion to sting?

God needs us to speak and to bring Him more to others.