'The Way' with Deacon Fournier: Are We Driving Jesus Out of Our Lives?

I suggest we take these Gospel accounts as an invitation to ask ourselves a sobering question - and to answer it honestly. Where are we refusing to allow Jesus into our own lives?

These biblical accounts need to be read, re-read, prayed over, and then read again and again and again. They need to be applied in our own lives, if we want to fully experience the healing of the wounds caused by our own sin and be freed from our own spiritual blindness. I suggest we take these Gospel accounts as an invitation to ask ourselves a sobering question - and then choose to answer it honestly. Where are we refusing to allow Jesus into our own lives? Where are we, in effect, driving Him out through our own sin of pride?

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic online) - On the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, I proclaimed the Gospel at Holy Mass. (Luke 4:21-30) It was the continuation of the account from the Gospel from last Sunday concerning Jesus reading the Prophet Isaiah in the synagogue of his youth. (Luke 4:14-21)

This week, in our daily Gospel readings at Mass, we will also hear of the unfortunate response of the faithful to their own encounter with Jesus. After initially "speaking highly of Him", they realized where he was from. So, they began to question their initial response, and His claim to be the fulfillment of this Messianic prophecy. They succumbed to their  pettiness and gave into the proclivity to sin which is a part of the human condition. In this instance, they gave into the very root of all sin, which is pride.

They wondered how this fellow from a carpenter's family, could actually break open the deeper meaning of the great prophet Isaiah - and then have the audacity to claim that He was its fulfillment, the promised One. They then took offense at His strong response to their lack of faith. This was clearly revealed in the reference Jesus made to the story of Elijah and the widow and Elisha the leper, from the Hebrew Scriptures - of which they were quite familiar as faithful Jews. He rebuked their lack of faith, and they did not like it at all.

So, rather than repenting, turning away from their sin of pride, and turning toward the Lord, they drove Jesus out of their neighborhood. They became so blinded by their disordered emotional reactions, that they actually tried to throw the Lord off of a cliff! They lost the gift of an encounter with the Word Incarnate - and all that it could have entailed in their own lives- because of their spiritual blindness.

The Gospel passage for Mass on Monday of the fourth week in Ordinary time is from St. Mark. (Mark 5:1-20) It contains the stunning and dramatic story of Jesus setting the Gerasene demoniac free from the torment which was being inflicted upon him by evil spirits. This poor man dwelt in the tombs, ravaged by evil spirits. 

This man's deliverance from the anguish of this possession should have been a cause for great rejoicing by all of his neighbors. However, just like those who had gathered in the Synagogue of Nazareth, they too tried to drive Jesus out of their neighborhood, and thereby out of their lives.

There are many insightful reflections in the Christian tradition as to why the people of the village  may have responded in this manner. Some point to the involvement of the pigs in this account; after having been cast out by Jesus, the demons went into the animals and 2,000 of them ended up drowning - driven by the evil spirits into the sea.

These sources suggest that the townspeople were gentiles who were involved in pig farming and they probably lost substantial profits in this entire affair.  Thus, their anger was precipitated by a business loss. They suggest that the disordered love of economic affairs can still blind us to the wondrous works of Jesus. 

However, what is common to both stories is that each of those crowds encountered the Lord in their midst and failed to recognize Him as the Messiah. They witnessed the manifestation of the Kingdom of God and were too blinded by their own self absorption to respond in faith. Thus, they not only rejected all that could have been theirs if they had responded appropriately to this encounter - but they also chose to give in to their own disordered response patterns and, in so doing, rejected the fullness which was being offered to them by Jesus Christ.

In doing so, they also became blinded to the glory of God as it was - and still is - fully revealed in Jesus Christ. They missed the opportunity for their own deliverance and liberation. They did not recognize the Lord coming to them to save and set them free! How very sad.

We can hear or read such Gospel accounts on many levels. That is part of the reason why the Bible is such a treasure. For all who honestly recognize themselves within these accounts, and prayerfully respond by turning to Jesus Christ, the words can leap off of the page and into the heart. They go from being stories of something which happened two millennia ago, to occasions of God's grace occurring today, inviting our own response!

These biblical accounts need to be read, re-read, prayed over, and then read again and again and again. They need to be applied in our own lives, if we want to fully experience the healing of the wounds caused by our own sin and be freed from our own spiritual blindness.

I suggest we take these Gospel accounts as an invitation to ask ourselves a sobering question - and then choose to answer it honestly. Where are we refusing to allow Jesus into our own lives? Where are we, in effect, driving Him out through our own sin of pride? If we are, now is the time to repent and turn toward Jesus Christ. He can - He will - set us free.

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Deacon Keith Fournier is an ordained minister in the Church, a Catholic Deacon, with an outreach to the broader Christian community. He and his wife Laurine have been married for forty years. They have five grown children and seven grandchildren.

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