As Plain as the Nose on Your Face

A Reflection on this Friday’s Gospel (Luke 12:54-59) – 25 October 2024

     Have you ever heard anyone tell you that the solution to what you are seeing as a complex problem is, “as plain as the nose on your face?” It was not unusual to hear that from my dad when he was trying to show me that I was stubbornly looking at a problem from the wrong perspective. It was infuriating, but as in most things, he was often right!

     Many refuse the most obvious answer because they refuse to “see” with a new point of view. It is like looking through a telescope from the wrong side. What should be magnified and clearly seen is instead small and obscure. When we gain a “right” perspective, what was hidden becomes crystal clear. In the case of the person holding the telescope, they grasp the capability to correctly discern in their hands. Yet, because they stubbornly refuse to see things differently, in this case to turn the telescope around, they cannot discern the true answer.

     Jesus is saying the same thing to the crowds.

“You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Luke 12:56 NABRE)

     The Greek word for “interpret” is, dŏkimazō (δοκιμάζω), which means to test and examine; to discern. God has given us the ability to perceive His will, we just need to get out of our way and stop looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

     The people of Israel, God’s chosen people, have everything they need to understand who Jesus is and to follow God’s will. They have over nine hundred years of the assembled Scriptures, God’s truth about who He is and how we ought to live in relationship to Him and our neighbor. They are witness to Jesus’ countless signs and wonders which demonstrate that Jesus operates miraculously outside of nature in ways that can only be attributed to divine power. Jesus is God.

“… the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, [and,] the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. (Luke 7:22b NABRE)

     Finally, the people of Israel are witness to Jesus’ teaching. In fact, Jesus’ teaching is so clear that it is beyond anything that even their most learned religious leaders can refute. So, they stop asking, seeking, discerning. (Matthew 22:46). Jesus became for them an irritant whom they just want to dispose of. (John 5:18)

     They know how to interpret the signs of the time; “it is as plain as the nose on their face,” but they refuse to see aright. They allow their own prejudices, lack of humility, and need to be like gods who determine what is good and evil to blind them to the truth. (Genesis 3:5) They refuse to turn the telescope around and see clearly.

     Like the crowds in the Gospel, we too, often refuse to uncover God’s will. We let our prejudices, preconceived notions, pride, and the need to be like gods to cloud our ability to perceive. We let sin get in the way.

     Proper discernment means allowing God to reveal to us how he is working through our lives and the lives of others, to affect the flow of human events. Discernment requires that we open ourselves in humility to listen and act to align our lives with God’s will. It is the recognition that we need to see with a new perspective. Consider a Church teaching that you struggle with. Have you properly discerned? In proper discernment, God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

     Today’s Gospel is a call for us to use our God-given sense of the logic of faith, the “sensus fidelium.” In this, guided by the magisterium of the Church, you and I discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ. (CCC 67) Jesus is reminding us to pursue God’s will through Sacred Scripture, Church teaching, the lives of the Saints, God working through others, and most importantly, prayer. It is a call to turn the telescope around and see things aright, to discern. The truth is as plain as the nose on our face.

… let Christ reign in your hearts, let Him help you to discern and grow in dominion over yourselves, to strengthen you in the virtues, to fill you above all with His charity, to guide you along the path which leads to the “condition of the perfect one”.
(St John Paul II Homily 20 August 1989)

Endnotes:

Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). 2nd Ed. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000. Print.

St John Paul II. Homilies of Pope John Paul II (English). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2014. Print.