The Gospel for Monday of the third week in Lent is taken from Luke 4:24:30. Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth, amen. I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only a widow in Zarephath, in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.

When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away. When the people of Nazareth realized that Jesus had a gift, he spoke with authority and they recognized him as the young boy that grew up in their midst. And he was even by many considered to be illegitimate. So they didn’t have any way of accepting the uniqueness that he displayed.

And their response was anger because he simply said, you aren’t listening to me. It’s interesting how anger can be a response to a criticism when we’re afraid of what it’s demanding of us. Jesus demands we change. And when we are seeing in Scripture ourselves being examples of what we shouldn’t be, we need to receive it generously, open hearted, desiring to change Foreign Closing Prayer Father, our daily lives are often filled with situations where we are criticizing ourselves or being criticized by others. And let us always have an open heart to that, making sure that we listen to see if there’s any truth in that criticism and not be like the people of Nazareth who became angry and attacked the one who brought the criticism to light. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.