This year, the Christmas liturgical cycle ends with the wedding feast of Cana from John's Gospel.  We are now in the C cycle of Common Time when Luke provides our major readings from the Gospels. 

            Luke presents Jesus' ministry as a model for our own, providing us with images of what we should be doing for each other and for the peoples of the world. He does this in much the same way that he provides patterns for our creation of a con-temporary Church in his Acts of the Apostles.  Last Sunday, Luke told us about the thread provided by Isaiah (Is. 61,1) that is necessarily woven into Jesus' entire life.  God's creative and liberating Spirit has given him authority to fulfill the prophet's dream: radical change for the poor, captives and imprisoned set free, sight for the blind, and all debt forgiven.  Good news for the debtor and bad news for all who are owed.  This statement by Jesus in Nazareth is the foundation of Jesus' message of reconciliation.  It is a forceful statement of how the world can be with God truly reigning.  It represents the key to the reconciliation theme at the heart of Luke's Gospel presentation.  Luke is telling us that, without these basic changes, there can be no truthful reconciliation between the rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed, men and women.  One known modern slogan to express the same fact would be, "No peace without justice".

            In today's Gospel, Jesus suffers the consequences of his remarks.  While the hometown audience was willing to applaud his expression of prophetic theory, they seek to throw him off a cliff when he accuses them of not practicing it. 

            Our first reading tells us of how God will support the prophet Jeremiah in spite of the people's hatred for his words.  The intimation by the Church is that, in spite of what the community may think of Jesus' message, he is on the right track, and the God who is central to his life will sustain his word, no matter what.  The reconciliation called for by Jesus and honored by the prophets will happen over the base, content and results of this message given at the synagogue of Nazareth.  Like Martin Luther King's message to white people everywhere, the oppressor will never be free until all the oppressed have digested freedom. 

            I would like to suggest two other points for our meditation and action that clarify what Luke tells us today: what we read from John's Gospel two weeks ago and what we hear in Paul's First Letter to Christians at Corinth during these present weeks. 

            John's narrative on the second Sunday in Ordinary time is about the central place of love in the Christian community.  The story of Christ's presence at the marriage at Cana is a parable about what happens to us when God who is absolute and unconditional love be-comes central to our lives.  The jars filled with water simply tell us what can happen if we live our lives until they spill over.  What was water becomes wine that turns our conversation into song and our walk into dancing.  But more importantly, the base of justice that Luke asks from us for true reconciliation is nothing less than the love of self and others that resides at our center.  If that God who is love is truly incarnate in Jesus, surely Jesus can ask for nothing else in the lives of his disciples.  

            In the second reading from last week, St. Paul told us that the creative and freeing Spirit of God is one and that our gifts of ministry serve the one community by uniting in that Spirit.  This week he tells us that we can truly serve Christ's purpose in that Spirit only if we love with the fervor and quality of the love that God is.  The apostle lists love's values for our understanding just as he did the community's ministries last week. 

            How can we best put the wealth of Luke's message to work in ourselves, our families and community?  As the neighborhood Church, do we promote the changes that can remove poverty and oppression?  Does our service as a ministerial people promote God's agenda expressed by Christ last week?  Does our love hold all the values that St. Paul presents as important characteristics of God's love for us and our love for self and for each other?  Do we live the Good News Christ proclaimed at Nazareth or, like his hometown folk, are we still afraid of it?