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Gospel Commentary – September 1, 2025
It is clear that Jesus knows what He is doing and what He wants to make of His life. This becomes evident when the evangelist places on His lips the words of the prophet Isaiah and has Jesus comment with what we could call the shortest homily in history: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The ones who are not so clear about things are those who listen to Him. At first, they marvel at what Jesus says. They approve and even rejoice. But then they turn to their own concerns. In other words, they want to twist things to their advantage—as, in one way or another, we all try to do. Put simply, they want a prophet who proclaims God’s word but who also, above all, solves their practical problems: someone who heals the sick in their village as He has done elsewhere, who improves their harvests, and so on. But since Jesus doesn’t go down those paths, they end up discrediting Him. He cannot be a prophet, they say, because He doesn’t heal us or fix our problems. That is the real reason for their rejection. But what they actually say is different: that Jesus cannot be a prophet because He is “Joseph’s son,” because they have known Him all His life, because they are familiar with His ways and His family, and so forth.
The people of Nazareth, perhaps like ourselves so many times, are not really looking for a God who opens up a path of hope, who walks with us in our effort to grow as free and responsible persons. We prefer a God who helps us pass our exams, who heals our illnesses, who solves the practical problems we face each day (isn’t that, after all, what we so often bring to prayer and ask God for?). We prefer a God we can manipulate, who serves our short-term interests, who does us the favors we want Him to do. But nothing more. Afterwards, we’d rather He not bother us, that He let us live our lives without interfering.
The God of Jesus is not like that. He is free, and He teaches us to be free. He wants to help us grow as persons, to become responsible for our own lives, to face our problems as adults.