In our First Reading for today’s Eucharistic Liturgy, God is instructing Moses about the liturgical calendar which God’s People are to celebrate yearly. These events are all centered about remembering. The first major celebration is the recalling of the Passover and Exodus which resulted in the creation of Israel as God’s chosen people. It is this feast which was being recalled when Jesus and His disciples were gathered for what is referred to now as The Last Supper.

The second remembering is The Fifty Days after the first planting on which day the first fruits from that planting are to be brought to the temple in dedication to God. The Christian celebration of Pentecost celebrates the first fruits of Jesus’ death bringing the first fruits of His Resurrection.

The third feast on God’s list is the feast of Booths, or Tents, or Tabernacles which is a harvest time of recognizing God’s abundant care for this agricultural nation. Persons are encouraged to constructf little huts and place themselves on the ground surrounded by various vegetation symbolizing gratitude and dependence. It was a Thanksgiving prayer-time. These three remembering-times recall the thought, that if we do not tell the stories, we will forget who we are.

The Gospel story is also a little bit about recalling. Jesus returns to His home town. The folks remember Who Jesus was, so He must still be the same. The confine Him to their control and become upset that He has changed. He teaches with “authority”. They know Him as they knew Him.

The town’s folks could not let Jesus be new, different and they were not letting God be new or making new revelations. They wanted Him to be affirming of their remembering what God had done and Jesus was inviting them to a faith which would guide them into their futures. They would have heard of His “Mighty Deeds” elsewhere and they wanted Him to perform those in their midst. He was calling them from “instruction” to “invitation” and that would require that trusting in His “authority” which would take faith. They were being called to be out of control which was provided by memories.   

Here at Creighton University, we find something similar. In our class wherein the students are guided as they experience the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, these students are invited to allow Jesus, God, prayer, virtue and faith to be something different, something less controllable. Faith can be for them frightening, because faith is not confining, but relational and unpredictable. As with the town folk, they want authority to tell them. Jesus desires a relationship with these Senior students and us as well, to be available to mystery, uncertainty and doubt, not to be clung to, but a stance from which to be invited, assured and guided. Jesus was inviting His former neighbors to be trusting in faith and they just couldn’t do it, so He just couldn’t do the “Mighty Deeds” about which they had heard. He was just too different, too personal and too new.