Monday of the Third Week of Lent - March 21, 2022

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2 Kings 5:1-15ab     Luke 4:24-30

It’s sad when our faulty expectations of life and of God cripple our relationships with both.  That’s what’s happening in today’s Scriptures. In the Gospel earlier this same day the people had been quite impressed with Jesus’ preaching, only to later become so disillusioned with him that they chased him out of town and wanted to throw him off a cliff.

The reason for their quick change in attitude was that Jesus didn’t turn out to be what they expected he would be, or should be. They wanted him to work miracles for them, heal their illnesses, protect them from all hardships, stimulate their economy, and such good things. So when they realized that wasn’t why he came, they thought, ‘He’s no good to us; let’s just dump him.’

But before we become too judgmental, we might ask ourselves how much we might have in common with them. We have certain expectations of our lives, of our marriage and our family, of our success, of our parish and church. We continue to be stressed out by this pandemic and all the upheaval it has caused us.  

And sometimes when our life’s desires aren’t met, we blame God and walk away from God and all God has to teach us. We become disheartened, negative, cynical, angry and self-absorbed. We pray less and rarely go to Mass. We throw out our sense of joy, of hope, of peace, of compassion.  When that happens, we have more in common with those Nazareans than we might think.

Lent invites us to examine and adjust those false expectations we harbor and bring them more into line with Jesus’ life, his eachings, and especially with his loving self-sacrifice for us. And we do that so that we won’t end up like Jesus’ fellow citizens. So we’re not tempted to jettison our relationship with God, but instead try harder to become Christ’s disciples, following him through the ups and downs of his life so that we will stay connected with him through the ups and downs of our life.

Q: When have I ever wanted to jettison Jesus out of my life?  How will I, this Lent, try harder to become a disciple of Jesus, following him through the ups and downs of life?


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