St. Mark tells us in today’s Gospel that in Nazareth, Jesus “could work no miracle”. This certainly cannot mean there was any absolute limitation to Jesus’ power. St. Mark records him elsewhere healing lepers, giving sight to the blind, driving out demons, raising the dead. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus rebukes the storm and it ceases; he walks on water; he twice multiplies loaves. He is put to death, and three days later he rises again, as he said he would.
No: we must say that when Jesus met stubborn and hard hearted refusal of belief, he could work no miracle, compatibly with fulfilling his mission, according to the will of the Father. Similarly, when Satan urged Jesus to turn stones into bread, or when the by-standers called on him to come down from the Cross, he would not comply; he could not, compatibly with doing what he was sent to do.
Normally in the Gospels Jesus requires evidence of faith before performing a miracle. He is no magician pulling off clever tricks to overawe people into belief. He does not coerce anyone into following him. He gives sufficient evidence, by word and deed, so that anyone with an open heart and mind will accept him as good, as faithful to God, as a true Prophet. But then there has to be a jump of faith: that we go on to confess him as the Messiah, the Son of God and Saviour of the world. To make this confession requires grace, and involves a choice. Such a choice is not just rational, but also spiritual, and moral. It includes a surrender to God, and it must involve our whole person, and the whole course of our life.
The renunciation of works of power by Jesus reflects the same disposition in God. God will never force people to be good, to worship him, to love him. He will not stop us making a mess of our lives, or from hurting ourselves and those around us. People sometimes complain about this. They want God to keep intervening to sort out the chaos we create; to take away the consequences of our actions; to let us all do what we like, even if that’s evil, but then somehow bring it about that we all land up happy and safe. But God won’t do that. He ever calls us to himself, but he leaves us free to respond or not. The condition of our share in his divine life is that it be in freedom and love. And if we won’t have that, he allows us to go out on our own, into the darkness.
What a dreadful thought it is that with some people, apparently, God can do nothing. Their hearts are hard, their minds closed, their ears shut. It doesn’t matter what evidence is presented to them, they won’t ever believe. If they did, they’d have to change their life, and they don’t want to do that.
Sometimes one feels our whole generation fits this category. A few generations ago, this country by and large was Christian. Now it definitely isn’t. Now, by and large, God is regarded as an irrelevance, or even as an enemy, and the Churches, by and large, are empty.
That might make one feel gloomy. Must we then resign ourselves to being like the people of Nazareth? Must Jesus marvel at our refusal to accept him, and find himself unable to work any miracle among us?
I’d like to offer three little comments on all that now.
First of all, as St. Mark makes clear, it is never as bad as it might seem. Jesus did work miracles of healing in Nazareth, by laying his hands on sick people. So in our day. Even though we richly deserve it, God never does quite abandon us to our unbelief. Miracles continue on, and plenty of them too. Saints continue to be raised up, here and there, to bear convincing witness to the truth of the Gospel. Also: the Eucharistic sacrifice, which is a miracle of grace always, continues to be celebrated - thank God - all over the world; the Gospel does continue to be preached; God is still worshipped, and people continue to live in heroic fidelity, even amidst great suffering.
Then secondly. We shouldn’t be too dismayed when the number of the faithful appears small; when most people around us hear the Gospel and reject it; when our own efforts at bearing witness seem to meet with insignificant results. It has been like this from the beginning. It’s sad, for sure, and we should certainly not be complacent about it. But God typically does his work through small, often unimpressive minorities. He likes to bring about great things, using very small and unpromising material. It’s how he works, and it shows that the achievement is always his not ours. I think the failure of Jesus in today’s Gospel can be a great encouragement to all of us when we meet failure in our lives. If Jesus can fail, in spite of his best efforts, then maybe it can be acceptable for us sometimes to fail too.
Lastly: we should lose no opportunity to strengthen our own faith; to affirm it, to nourish it. We have also to resist any temptation, by attitude or word or deed, to indicate a lack of attachment and commitment to Jesus. Let us, at least, be the fertile soil in which his seeds might fall, to bear abundant fruit for the Kingdom. Let us not lose hope, but continue to bear witness before the unbelieving world. Today as always, and maybe even more so, we are called to be bold in bearing witness to Jesus, Son of Mary, Son of God, Saviour of the world. He is our Lord, our King, our God. We proclaim that he died for our sins and rose again for our justification. May he be praised and blessed forever. Amen.