Fat Tuesday: Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

Posted by admin on January 25, 2010 under 2. Fat Tuesday |

Our gospel passage begins this Sunday with the same line that last Sunday’s gospel ended: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” While the initial reaction to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom is quite favorable (people remark at how gracious his words are), tension begins to creep in: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” Implicit in this identification of Jesus as the son of Joseph is the expectation: as one of our own, he should be of great benefit to us.

Jesus confronts their attempts to define him (and thereby control him) by pointing to a reality of the kingdom that his closest neighbors and friends do not like: the paradox that those who seem most ready for it end up rejecting it, while it is readily accepted by those least expected. The very inclusivity of the kingdom becomes cause for rejection by those demanding exclusive rights to it. This reversal is a recurring theme of the Gospel of Luke: he has filled the hungry with good things while the rich he has sent away empty.

Is our faith supple enough to appreciate the often unexpected ways in which grace manifests itself in our lives and in the lives of others? Or do we turn good news into bad news?

Fr. Peter Walsh, CSC is an assistant chaplain at Saint Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University.