Last Sunday's Gospel incident and this Sunday's are the two sides of a whole, two slopes of the   same mountain, one dark and one light. For the verse that began today's excerpt was the ending of last week's. "TODAY THIS SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN FULFILLED IN YOUR HEARING."

What led up to this dictum was positive and light; what followed after it, dark and negative. The verse is some sort of fulcrum, a line of division, the balance point of two weights.

It is perhaps something of a shock when we first realize that the GOOD NEWS is not always good news to everyone. It is bad news to some. If the feet of the one bearing good tidings of peace over the mountains are blessed, blessed too are the feet bringing tidings of war. For some.

THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME
 BECAUSE HE HAS ANOINTED ME TO PREACH GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR.
 HE SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO CAPTIVES
 AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND.
 TO SET AT LIBERTY THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,
 TO PROCLAIM THE ACCEPTABLE TIME OF THE LORD.

I have news for you. It was a bad day for a lot of people.

When the Christ stood up, unrolled the book and read from it, then, finished, rolled it up again and handed it to the attendant and sat down to speak, they all looked at Him. And He said: "TODAY THIS SCRIPTURE IS FULFILLED IN YOUR HEARING." And He surely knew what was coming.

He knew they would not have it. That what He said was not welcome. Indeed, He was not welcome. And the more He said, the more obvious it became. The more He spoke, the worse things got. In a sense, it would have been better if He had not gone to the synagogue at all..Or, if He had gone, not accepted the invitation to speak. And if He spoke, not to speak on that text. As it was, He could not have done worse. Would it be appropriate to say He lacked prudence?  And not content with that, He went on to speak of yet other prophecies in detail, to mark the response His neighbors were now making to Him. And in the end, He scarcely got away with His life.

Yet, if you are a quiet observer of your own heart, none of this will seem too strange. One of the points of living apart, of going apart, or experiencing once in a while — like in the middle of the night you suddenly awake and you get a sheer, clear insight of the truth — then you know what is going on here.

Resentment in the presence of good is probably a logical reaction for anyone who feels that he has not been too much favored by the high and mighty, whether they be human or divine. In other words, poor people can hardly be blamed if they are jealous of the rich: to be endowed with intelligence, with good breeding, with some competence, with wealth, with charm. That surely gives one some assurance. And if you don't have any of them?

Sinners often respond negatively to virtue. Goodness is not universally loved. One can observe all this in little children. The sweetest little thing one day will reveal envy, spite, fury, anger when someone else outshines, outperforms, or is preferred.

Adults, with a little practice, keep their responses in control. Most of us are full of foibles, are blemished and marred. Human virtue is very limited. And thus it is generally easy to justify our abuse: and in the presence of undoubted patience in someone, we're not beyond reminding our brother that "I've seen days when you weren't so patient." Or if he is generous today: "I remember a day when he was stingy." And if the present pope is a saint, there have been popes in the past who were monsters.

What ruins all this, though, is Christ. Here was One totally good and totally rejected. Not merely driven out of His land as a child, driven out of His town as an adult, but all His life haunted and hunted and hated, and in the end done to death at 33 with a viciousness that's appalling. Yet even a common criminal hanging next to Him knew as well as everyone else: "What has this Man done?"

Here is mystery, worth pondering. Something to live with.

Nothing will bring out the evil in us as fast and as effectively as the presence of good. I suppose it is the basic reason we fear God. Is it healthy to get too close to Him? Is it safe to be intimate with the divine?

Yet to live with quiet is to know the human heart and the human landscape. And the temptation to turn our back on this heart and this landscape, and to betray our faith, this basic work, must be resisted. Not by wills of steel, not by self-assertion, not my masterful determination. No. But by keeping your eyes on the Lord. Christ heals us or we are not healed. Christ saves us or we are not saved. And it is His gazing on us that warms us, makes us tender, drives from us the fear that makes us so taut and so tight. It is the gentleness of His look that frees us from the tension and the rigidity born of doubt. And it is His mercy that makes us merciful, and empowers us to love good wherever we find it. And in loving good, find God. And so the Scriptures are fulfilled in us.    Amen.

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