14th Sunday Year B

by John Vildzius

Did you know that an archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have?…the older she gets, the more he’s interested in her!…Agatha Christie said that!…I suppose these days it’s also true of women archaeologists and their husbands…

Albert Einstein once said something like, "if relativity is proved right (that’s Einstein’s Theory of Relativity) the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew." We human beings like to be associated with success…I mean just look at sport and sportspeople…successful sports people are our heroes and models while they are successful, but if they have a downer like Lleyton Hewitt lately, well people are quick to criticise, reject and condemn.

But even more than that…we have the “Tall Poppy syndrome” here in Australia too, don’t we. Even people who are successful in one field or another become targets for criticism and innuendo. We love to hear of their crashes and falls and faults. We love to spread gossip about them. By bringing these people down we build ourselves up, you see…we no longer feel so inferior alongside them.

I have here two containers…a nice bowl here and an ordinary tin container here. If we had the choice we’d always choose the nicer bowl to use for our table, wouldn’t we. It’s natural for us to look for the better looking things, the things that attract the eye, that are decorative for our table.

The lovely bowl has in it [GET CHILDREN TO COME UP and SAY]…dirt. The tin contains rich wine.

However good something looks, it’s what it contains that really matters, and it’s the same with people. Y’see those in today’s Gospel looked at Jesus and they saw tin. They knew him. He was ordinary to them. They even described him as “the son of Mary”, which in their culture was an insult because Jews are customarily known by their father’s name…so they should have called him the “son of Joseph”. And they even tasted the wine, the richness Jesus has in him when they heard him teaching in the synagogue about the God of forgiveness, when they experienced his love in the healing he brought to the sick, when they saw him spend time with the outcasts of society, when they heard him speak out for justice…but despite all these prophetic words and actions of Jesus they couldn’t see past what was tin to them. They thought they knew Jesus, but they didn’t know him at all. Jesus was considered a Tall Poppy in his own hometown.

Prophets inspire and challenge us…sometimes even make us feel uncomfortable because they point out inconsistencies and injustices in our lives and society. True prophets are the voice of God for us. The little nun from Albania challenged the world about the way we treat the poor and dying by going out into the streets and lovingly picking up the sick and dying and treating them with dignity and care. The rich love and dedication of Mother Teresa was prophetic. In 1866 a teenage girl from Fitzroy in Victoria, inspired by her faith in God, saw the great need of children in country and remote areas for education. She saw their need for coming to know and love God. She saw the needs of the poor and destitute in cities too. Mary MacKillop, with the help of Tenison Woods was prophetic in the way she inspired others to join her in recognizing and addressing these needs. Roma Mitchell was a person of justice and integrity as well of great faith in God, who was prophetic in our own state. Roma sought no glory, but was prophetic in the way she advanced the position of women in our society. William Deane is prophetic today in the way he is able to hold up our nation before our eyes and help us see who we are, where there are gaps and inconsistencies in our Australian attitudes and practices and policies.

These are vessels of great richness. You may think of others that you consider are prophets in our world today, people who reflect the love of God, the justice of God, the compassion of God, the wisdom of God as did Jesus. Do we hear and respond to what God is saying to us through them, or do we dismiss them as did the people of Jesus’ hometown?

In our time of quiet prayer, speak with Jesus about people you consider prophets, voices of God who inspire and challenge you today.