The Lord Is My Chef Sunday Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C, 26 January 2025
Nehemiah 8:2-4, 5-6, 8-10 ><}}}*> 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 ><}}}*> Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Doctors tell us that prolonged periods of sitting can lead to many health issues like increased risks of heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers, obesity as well as depression. They have been sounding the alarm for several decades with the rise of “couch potatoes” and now had worsened as we get tied to our seats due to continuous use of computers and other gadgets.

Along with this worsening scenario of our prolonged sitting is the growing “competition” among us these days – consciously or unconsciously – for our places of seat in jeepneys and buses or airplanes, in classrooms and offices, on dining tables, in meeting rooms and in churches. People are so concerned where to be seated not realizing that what really matters in life is where we stand than where we sit!

The verb “to stand” evokes firmness and stability not only in the physical sense but also emotionally and spiritually speaking. Very close to it is the word “stance” that indicates our “stand”, of where we “stand” with our beliefs and convictions regarding issues. Before the coming of social media where we often make our stand while seated, there were placards calling us to “make a stand”.

In this age when most people prefer to sit than to stand as well as kneel to pray, our Sunday readings today are very timely as they teem with the words and images of standing for God.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written… (Luke 4:16-17).

We now dive into the Sunday Ordinary Time with Luke giving us a glimpse of how Jesus spent a typical sabbath day proclaiming the word of God by first “standing to read.”

It was not the first time Jesus stood to read as He always stood teaching and preaching to the people. Jesus was a man who literally stood for the Father, stood for what is true and good, stood for what is just and fair. Most of all, He stood for all of us that He died on the Cross.

This Sunday as He launched His public ministry in His hometown Nazareth in Galilee, Jesus made it clear that He is the “word who became flesh” as He stood to read the scripture, claiming what He proclaimed from the Prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).

Imagine present there. More than being spellbind, there must have been that feeling of fulfillment, of the true reality unfolding as Jesus clearly stood by the word of God because He is the word who became flesh.

Our Filipino word paninindigan evokes it so well like in Pinanindigan ni Jesus ang kanyang ipinahayag (Jesus stood by what He proclaimed). From its root tindig which is “to stand” in English, paninindigan is conviction. Jesus spoke with such conviction and authority that those in the synagogue were amazed with Him. Interestingly, our Filipino synonym for paninindigan is pangatawanan which is from the root katawan or “body” in English. Pangatawanan ang salita is to stand by one’s word, like Pinangatawanan ni Jesus ang Kanyang sinabi (Jesus stood by what He said).

See how our readings this Sunday are so interesting, so beautiful especially for us in the Philippines because the words of “standing” and “body” are related, capturing in our own language discipleship in Christ, our standing for Jesus and His gospel.

At the end of this scene in the synagogue, Luke told us how Jesus declared as He sat that His words were “fulfilled in your hearing” which amazed the people because Christ “walked the talk” even before this took place.

Anyone wishing to have any kind of fulfillment in life has to first make a stand for whatever he believes in. To walk the talk, one has to stand first. Nothing gets fulfilled by sitting. We have to make a stand for everything and everyone we care and love most.

Like Jesus, we can only bring glad tidings to the poor by standing by their side, standing with them to uplift them. In the same manner, liberty for captives and recovery of sight to the blind can only happen standing, by actually being present with them and never remotely from a distant office or setting where we are comfortably seated. The oppressed can only go free as we proclaim a jubilee like this 2025 when we stand for justice and truth instead of simply affixing our “like” to some posts “standing” for whatever causes.

In the first reading we find the priest Ezra standing as he proclaimed the words of God from a book recovered after their exile from Jerusalem.

Ezra convinced the people so well in his proclamation of the scriptures that people cried and bowed their heads before finally prostrating themselves to God because they felt and experienced the Scriptures as so true.

The words “standing” and “stood” were repeated thrice to underscore not only the physical posture taken by Ezra and Nehemiah but most of all to indicate their emotional and spiritual bearings.

Going back to our gospel scene, see how before narrating to us Jesus in the synagogue, the Church had rightly chosen to include for this third Sunday the prologue of Luke where he laid down the reason for writing his gospel account – so that we “may realize the certainty of the teachings” about the Christ. In writing his prologue, Luke naturally sat but in mentioning that word “certainty”, he tells us a lot of standing he had to make in completing his two-volume work, the gospel and the Acts.

Here we find that like all the evangelists and saints for that matter, they spent much time standing than sitting, second only perhaps to kneeling or praying.

There is a beautiful prayer attributed to St. Teresa of Avila called “Christ has no body” which goes this way, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

Can we make a stand for Jesus, stand with Jesus, and stand like Jesus to be His body as St. Paul explained to us in the second reading?

“Brothers and sisters: As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ… Now the body is not a single part, but many” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 14).

As we embark into this long journey of Ordinary Time with Luke as our guide every Sunday, may we do the work of Jesus by standing along with our fellow believers and disciples.

Together let us make that collective stand for truth and justice, for decency and reason in this time when people are so fragmented, held captive by so many thoughts and beliefs propagated from the arrogant chairs of entitlement by some lazy minds influencing the world remotely. Together we stand and experience life as it is in Jesus Christ, even at His Cross. Amen. Have a blessed week ahead as we close January 2025!