Friday Gospel Recharge
A Reflection on Matthew 13:54-58
(17th Friday of Ordinary Time, Year B of the Liturgical Calander, 2024)
Avoiding Familiarity's Contempt
We are all familiar with the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt.” This expression suggests that an overexposure to someone can lead to annoyance or disdain. However, the phenomenon of contempt arising from familiarity has various associated causes.
One explanation why this phenomenon occurs is boredom. Over time, due to repetition and over exposure, we can become bored with a person. When this happens, their presence can lead to a sense of ennui and frustration. As a result, we may begin to hold those we once valued with contempt.
In today’s Gospel, we glean again the people’s contempt for Jesus. Like many of us, Jesus is rejected by his people due to familiarity. The Gospel recounts how the people asked, “is this not the carpenter's son?” They were amazed at Jesus’s teachings, wondering where it had originated. However, their contempt for Jesus was not based on boredom or frustration on unmet expectations for the Gospel tells us that he left his audience astonished. Instead, they rejected Jesus based on his social standing as a commoner. As a commoner, Jesus knew better: he had no right to amaze them with his teaching; instead he was supposed to remain silent.
It is obvious Jesus understood the concept of familiarity breeding contempt. In this Gospel, Jesus is given the last reply, addressing his adversaries with the saying, “a prophet is only despised in his own country and his own house,” before moving on to a neighbouring village to preach. Here, Jesus highlights that familiarity proved an obstacle to his ministry.
As baptised people, we are commissioned to spread the Gospel, often beginning where it’s most convenient: familial territory. It is natural to begin there because there is degree of attachment to friends and kinsmen that we don’t have with strangers; even Jesus began there. However, this Gospel teaches an important lesson: those we know and love dearly will reject us.
This does not mean we can’t communicate the Gospel to people we love. Home is often where our heart is, and that’s where we usually begin. Effective preaching and teaching must be done intelligently to avoid breeding contempt among those who know us well. This might mean steering away from a particular topic or waiting for the right time to share with those who might normally find a topic displeasing. For instance, people don’t like discussing the moral conundrum of premarital sex or divorce, and lapsed Catholics may not want to be reminded of their obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Feast Days of Obligations such at Easter and Christmas. Therefore, any sharing of the Good News requires discernment about when and where to communicate it.
The late pope
Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, wrote that a
“Christian knows when to speak about God and when it is better to say nothing.”
His sentence emphasises the discernment that us Christians must exercise in our
interactions with others. It suggests that actions can speak louder than words
sometimes. This idea aligns with the notion that familiarity requires a balance
of words and deeds. To avoid breeding contempt among those familiar to us, we
must be smart in our interactions, speaking at the right time while always
being a virtuous agent in the world, guided by the Holy Spirit.
While we should be prudent in our preaching, there will be times even in our best efforts may give rise to contempt. Reflect on Jesus in today’s Gospel. Jesus, being God, he knew when to speak and when to remain silent. As Christians, we ought to be prepared to face rejection and learn to accept it without personalising it, especially when it results from our work in Jesus’s name. Recently, the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics demonstrated this contempt in its blasphemous parody of the Last Supper, which hurt and offended many of us Christians. While we may feel sensitive to this, it's important to remember that blasphemy is ultimately against God and not us, even if we are the recipients.
Many Christians think that they cannot change
anything. However, we should stand up and be counted, not only to at least try
to change something but also to register our protest when necessary. Without
doing anything, we are passively blaspheming as well. Again, Jesus leads by
example, objecting the people’s contempt for him, in the last reply, saying, “a
prophet is only despised in his own country…” Following Jesus’s lead, we can register our objection
by sending emails, organising a parish petition, or encouraging the local Ordinary
to protest on an international level, showing that making fun of our faith and
traditions is not acceptable.
This week, let’s make pray for
the right words to share with others and the courage to accept rejection for
the sake of our Lord and Saviour.
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