Jesus’ amazing claim for us

If you have ever baked bread from scratch, you know that yeast is the key ingredient in the whole enterprise. The ability to raise up the mixture is what makes flour and water into bread.

We all seem, in particular with this COVID-19 virus, adept at dragging things down with our criticisms, judgments, negativity, opinions on vaccinations, masks, lockdowns and just complaints.

But it is more creative and challenging to be the leaven of positive thought and action.

To stop and find the silver lining, the divine essence or the ray of hope, love and thanks raises up a situation! It takes only a small amount of leaven to get good action going.

In our first reading from the Prophet Nehemiah, we hear the leaven of the words of Ezra as he reads the Torah in the streets of Jerusalem. The people have just returned from 50 years of exile in Babylon and for the first time are hearing the word of God read in public.

It brought people to tears. Jesus in this gospel reads from the Prophet Isaiah in his hometown synagogue, and reveals Himself as the fulfillment of that passage.

St. Paul tells us in the second reading that we are Christ’s body today and are to be the leaven of love and worship of the Creator. The human family and the Christian believers baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one and are to be the leaven to help each other rise.

In these readings, God makes a promise to always to love us, and His promise is forever. The events in these three readings are proof of God’s willingness to forgive and start anew. Love of God and neighbor is the leaven of a right life; helping us never to fall victim to any negativity like jealousy.

The Holy Spirit, the divine leaven of love and peace, binds and holds together this total Christ in each of us, but each has its distinct role and does not work against the other.

There is to be a oneness between the Risen Christ and His baptized followers, expressing itself in various ministries all united in the leaven of love and peace in the Trinity. Thus, the daily challenge is to rise up and in word and action seek first the Kingdom of God.

Our Psalm response is “Your words, Lord, are spirit and life.” Jesus wants the people in his hometown to see that he is the one that they have been waiting for, but they refuse to see that his words are spirit and life.

He also desires that we take to heart the challenge of offering glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives and freedom for the oppressed.

What an astonishing, positive claim is made by Jesus, challenging us to bring the same positive ideals into reality in our own time. What a great challenge for this final week of January 2022.