(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
Poor Tyre and Sidon; poor Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum! They needed to repent, but did not. They refused to listen to the Lord God.
Alas, but the reading is not about ancient cities and less ancient cities that met horrendous disasters. The immediate audience would be Luke’s Christian community which seems to have had some people who were causing trouble in the community. Luke wanted to call them back to the Gospel. Luke, through the Gospel, was speaking for the Church. The Church was speaking the words of Christ, and Christ was speaking in the name of the Father who sent Christ.
Alas for them, but the Scriptures are also meant for us. The Scriptures call us back to listening to the voice of the Lord. They are not calling us memorize Bible verses or to carry Bibles wherever we go, but they are calling us to listen to listen to God’s word. They are not calling us to speak, but to listen.
Christ said that whenever we listen to the words of the Church, we listen to him; and whenever we listen to him, we listen to the Father who sent him. No one speaks the word of Jesus on his or her own authority, but only Christ’s authority.
Woe to those big, powerful cities of ancient times like Tyre and Sidon, like Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum; woe to those earlier Christians who listened to their own words instead of those of the Church, Christ, and God. Woe to us when we invent things to listen to and when we listen to our own words and lay aside the words of truth.
I have no great earth-shaking public travesty to denounce, but I hear the Scriptures challenging us to listen to the Lord and follow his words. How, then, is this passage relevant to each of us? This is for each of us to answer.