JULY 24, 2026 FATHER MICHAEL COUTTS
The ministry of Jesus grew gradually. From a lowly shepherd in an unknown village called Nazareth, he turned to be a famous preacher, known all over Galilee. People praised him. People admired him. People followed him. And, because of that, they would say: “He preaches with authority, unlike our scribes and Pharisees. He does works of wonder.” And naturally, because of all that, there was opposition.
There was opposition from three different places. One was from his own village, the people of Nazareth itself. And this is best explained by the scapegoat theory.
Now the scapegoats were the theory when, back to Moses, when two goats were brought before the altar, one goat was placed in the middle of the congregation, all the people, and they would come and lay hands on the goat, placing all their sins on the goat. And then the goat was allowed to go into the wilderness, taking all their sins with them. And when it went out it could either live, or it could be devoured by animals. The other goat was sacrificed as a propitiation for the sins of the people.
But Rene Girard, a late-modern French philosopher explains it in a different way. He says basically when a person comes from a small village, and he is famous, everybody wants a piece of the action. They will all claim to know him, to be related to him, to grow up with him, and they want a piece of that fame.
But in Jesus’ case, he wasn’t there for fame. He wasn’t there for adulation. He came to preach the kingdom of God. And when they saw that they were not getting this adulation, they tried to destroy him. And we are told that they took him to the top of the cliff in Nazareth, and tried to throw him off. And he escaped from the middle of them.
But this scapegoat theory is prevalent even in our day today. Sometimes within a family itself, when we find that somebody in the family does so well, we are so proud, we accept them. But we find that glory and that fame doesn’t come down to us, we try to pull him or pull her down.
The second group of people that were anxious to fight against Jesus, to oppose Jesus, were the scribes and the Pharisees. Now the scribes and the Pharisees were really good people. They observed the law very meticulously, but they began to put the law above everything. The law was an end in itself.
And Jesus said to them, you know, in Matthew, chapter five, he says: “I didn’t come to abolish the law, but I came to keep them. Right down to every dot on the I and every T that is crossed. But I don’t make the law the end of everything.”
A person is always above the law in this sense. That he is more precious, she is more precious, because they are made in the image and likeness of God. And the scribes and the Pharisees just could not understand that. And so they fought against Jesus.
And finally, the people that were opposing Jesus himself, very strangely, were his own disciples. If you read Mark’s Gospel, there are 16 chapters, the first eight chapters we find that Jesus has got problems with his very disciples.
Chapter after chapter after chapter Jesus says to them: “You have eyes, but you don’t see, you have ears, but you don’t hear. You just filter them out according to your own likes and your own dislikes. And you have hearts that are shrivelled up.”
I remember my novice master telling me: “Have an open heart. We don’t want to have a heart that it looks like a shrivelled prune. If you have a heart like that, you better leave, and go somewhere else, and unload watermelons on the dock.” Very strange, very harsh, but very true.
So why did we have these people who listened to the word of God acting in such a way? We find their example in the Gospel today. There are the seed and the sower. The seed is the word of God. It is the word that says salvation is for everybody. It is the message that says the kingdom come, the will of God be done. And that meant love one another, forgive one’s enemies, keep one’s eyes and heart open to the needy in our society.
So, this is the word of God, but finally we find that the word of God was Jesus himself. He was not only the messenger, but the message himself. And he was rejected. And he gives that example of a seed that is sown in a field. And there are three different ways of reacting to it. Rejection, indifference, and acceptance.
In the Gospel we find that the seed falls on rocky ground, and people are so happy to receive it, but they don’t have stamina. We have that so very often. You preach a novena, you go and give a mission, and say: “Oh my gosh, it is so good!” But by a week later, you’ve forgotten even what the message was all about.
And Jesus speaks about it as the devil that comes, and robs the seed from the heart of people. And if you find Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is constantly doing exorcisms, casting out demons, so that they will not be there to prevent the message of Jesus going out to the people.
The second is one with indifference. People love the message of God, they accept it, but they are so caught up with all their own worries and problems. Their cell phones, their local media, the local gossip. “We’ve got responsibilities.”
You find that people who are the busiest are usually the people that you can ask to do things. The people who do not have anything that is stable and constant will always have excuses not to accept the word of God.
And finally, those that are on good soil. People who are willing to accept the word of God. And the word of God is such that it will come into our hearts according to the talent and skill God has given us.
God has given us some of 10 talents, others five, and others just one. And we shouldn’t condemn people who do not accept the word of God the way you and I accept the word of God, because we only accept it to the ability that God has given us.
And when we accept it, we can let the blossom, the fruit blossom, and the word of God becomes true: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” God bless you all.
