Jesus said to them,
"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
These cities were blessed to witness the ministry of Jesus, to hear the wisdom of his teaching and to behold the mighty deeds he did in their midst. But in spite of what they saw they did not respond, did not repent, and did not fundamentally change the direction of their lives. They failed to recognize that Jesus was not performing for their entertainment but rather to win them over so that they would open their hearts and let themselves be transformed by grace. But while it seems they were happy to receive healing and to listen to him speak it seems that it never went much further for many of them. We think of the parable of the sower where the seed that fell on the path was eaten by birds and the seed that fell on rocky ground that sprang up quickly but withered for lack of roots (see Matthew 13)
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented,
sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
Tyre and Sidon where Phoenician cities, home to peoples who had a history of oppressing Israel. It would have seemed unlikely for those peoples to be more ready to take the message of Jesus to heart than those in and around Galilee. Yet we know that people had come from those regions to listen to Jesus (see Luke 6:17). Gentiles from those cities would apparently have provided a better reception and more fertile ground than these regions of Galilee. Jesus came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel but many of those sheep proved to be complacent and unreceptive. Gentiles were often able to recognize the truth of the Gospel more clearly than the people of Israel, perhaps because they were initially at a greater spiritual remove.
At first we might think this is great news for us. The Gentiles were the ones able to recognize Jesus? And we (for most of this readership, we assume) are of Gentile descent. So then aren't we ones who are likely to hear Jesus, to see his mighty deeds and repent? Ah, but now the tables have turned, and we Christians are the ones who have become accustomed to Jesus, who have seen have mighty deeds so often that they no longer phase us. Jews and other non-Christian groups are now the ones with a sufficient distance to potentially see and appreciate Jesus more clearly. This is why converts to the faith often have such fervor and commitment. They recognize in Jesus that to which we have become so accustomed that we now all but ignore it.
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
Assuredly we have had mighty deeds done in our midst by Jesus. He is present in his Church in word and Sacrament. Where two or three are gathered he is with us in our midst he is with us. He empowers his faithful with charismatic graces and fills us with the fruits of his Holy Spirit. But even though we have such ready access to a superabundance of grace we often make very little progress when it comes to allowing Jesus to change us and make us more like him. Our hearts, which are meant to become like his own heart, which have been given new life by Jesus himself, sometimes begin to once again solidify and become like stones.
Whoever listens to you listens to me.
Whoever rejects you rejects me.
And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.
We can't change ourselves. We need the power of the words of Jesus to transform us. If we haven't been changed thus far as much as we ought to have been then let us try to listen with fresh ears, and as though for the first time, so we can recognize the wonder and the greatness of what Jesus desires to accomplish in us. We need these words to penetrate us, and must give our consent to being transformed by them, so that we may become good soil that bears rich fruit.
We have neither heeded the voice of the Lord, our God,
nor followed the precepts which the Lord set before us.
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