{"id":7938,"date":"2019-02-03T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-02-03T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/turski.me\/?p=7938"},"modified":"2019-02-03T00:00:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T00:00:09","slug":"4th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=7938","title":{"rendered":"4th Sunday in Ordinary time"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m Father Tad. T-A-D. I\u2019m not Father Ted. That\u2019s a completely different character (I hope). From my accent you can rightly guess that\u2019s I\u2019m \u2018nae Scottish\u2019; or – to be more precise – neither was I born nor brought up in Scotland. But, according to my DNA research, I\u2019m 11.3 percent Scottish. Is that good enough? Well, I hope so. I certainly love Scotland; otherwise I wouldn\u2019t have stayed here for over 11.3 years. As for the rest of my genetic composition, I\u2019m Central European, Baltic (very appropriate for weather in Aberdeen) and Jewish. To make things even more confusing, I\u2019m legally British. In other words, I am a pure breed mongrel – and proud of it. What am I doing here, in this parish? Dare I say, I\u2019m responding to the call from today\u2019s first reading: \u2018Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you came to birth, I consecrated you; I have appointed you as prophet to the nations<\/strong>.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that the last sentence catches our attention. It should. Because it was absolutely revolutionary at the time of its original pronouncement and remained so for another few centuries afterwards. The ancient people of Israel considered other nations as inferior and kept themselves separate as much as they could. They were God\u2019s chosen nation; other peoples were condemned. So, such an announcement as in today\u2019s first reading (I have appointed you as prophet to the nations)<\/em> was dangerous. How dangerous? We can see that in today\u2019s gospel. Jesus refers to two miraculous events that happened in the past; in both cases the miracles happened to the pagans. The way Jesus presents those two stories is shocking to his audience: \u2018There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah\u2019s day; but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha\u2019s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.\u2019<\/em> The congregation responds with fury; Jesus is hustled out of the town to be thrown down the cliff, i.e. killed. Going against well-established national and religious perceived supremacy was dangerous to the point of death. In some places it\u2019s still that dangerous. I hope Aberdeen is not one of them.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned earlier on, I\u2019m here in response to God\u2019s call: I have appointed you as prophet to the nations.<\/em> Two elements here need some explanation. The word prophet<\/em> in the Bible means \u2018a person regarded as an inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of God\u2019<\/em>, not someone foretelling the future. Clairvoyance certainly isn\u2019t one of my talents. Whether I am an inspired teacher only time will tell; but don\u2019t hold your breath. The second bit that needs some explanation is this: nations.<\/em> It\u2019s plural. In practical terms it means that I am not \u2018a Polish priest\u2019 or \u2018a Scottish priest\u2019 or any other \u2018ish\u2019. I am a Catholic priest. The word catholic<\/em> means universal. I was ordained to serve each and every one God wants to send me to, regardless of their nationality, gender, race or political views. God created us in so many different shapes and forms; so it must be good. Such a great variety of individual and collective experiences, cultural, national and historical backgrounds can be extremely enriching, if we keep our hearts and minds open. Of course, it\u2019s not going to be easy. That\u2019s why all of us ought to take to heart another call from today\u2019s first reading: \u2018So now brace yourself for action.\u2019<\/em> Whatever form or shape that action is going to take, the driving force behind must be the one St Paul described beautifully in today\u2019s second reading: \u2018Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people\u2019s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Image by NeuPaddy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m Father Tad. T-A-D. I\u2019m not Father Ted. That\u2019s a completely different character (I hope). From my accent you can rightly guess that\u2019s I\u2019m \u2018nae Scottish\u2019; or – to be more precise – neither was I born nor brought up in Scotland. But, according to my DNA research, I\u2019m 11.3 percent Scottish. Is that good enough? Well, I hope so. I certainly love Scotland; otherwise I wouldn\u2019t have stayed here for over 11.3 years. As for the rest of my genetic composition, I\u2019m Central European, Baltic (very appropriate for weather in Aberdeen) and Jewish. To make things even more confusing, I\u2019m legally British. In other words, I am a pure breed mongrel – and proud of it. What am I doing here, in this parish? Dare I say, I\u2019m responding to the call from today\u2019s first reading: \u2018Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you came to birth, I consecrated you; I have appointed you as prophet to the nations.\u2019 I don\u2019t think that the last sentence catches our attention. It should. Because it was absolutely revolutionary at the time of its original pronouncement and remained so for another few centuries afterwards. The ancient people of Israel considered other nations as inferior and kept themselves separate as much as they could. They were God\u2019s chosen nation; other peoples were condemned. So, such an announcement as in today\u2019s first reading (I have appointed you as prophet to the nations) was dangerous. How dangerous? We can see that in today\u2019s gospel. Jesus refers to two miraculous events that happened in the past; in both cases the miracles happened to the pagans. The way Jesus presents those two stories is shocking to his audience: \u2018There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah\u2019s day; but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha\u2019s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.\u2019 The congregation responds with fury; Jesus is hustled out of the town to be thrown down the cliff, i.e. killed. Going against well-established national and religious perceived supremacy was dangerous to the point of death. In some places it\u2019s still that dangerous. I hope Aberdeen is not one of them. As I mentioned earlier on, I\u2019m here in response to God\u2019s call: I have appointed you as prophet to the nations. Two elements here need some explanation. The word prophet in the Bible means \u2018a person regarded as an inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of God\u2019, not someone foretelling the future. Clairvoyance certainly isn\u2019t one of my talents. Whether I am an inspired teacher only time will tell; but don\u2019t hold your breath. The second bit that needs some explanation is this: nations. It\u2019s plural. In practical terms it means that I am not \u2018a Polish priest\u2019 or \u2018a Scottish priest\u2019 or any other \u2018ish\u2019. I am a Catholic priest. The word catholic means universal. I was ordained to serve each and every one God wants to send me to, regardless of their nationality, gender, race or political views. God created us in so many different shapes and forms; so it must be good. Such a great variety of individual and collective experiences, cultural, national and historical backgrounds can be extremely enriching, if we keep our hearts and minds open. Of course, it\u2019s not going to be easy. That\u2019s why all of us ought to take to heart another call from today\u2019s first reading: \u2018So now brace yourself for action.\u2019 Whatever form or shape that action is going to take, the driving force behind must be the one St Paul described beautifully in today\u2019s second reading: \u2018Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people\u2019s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.\u2019 Image by NeuPaddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-c"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}