Third Sunday after Epiphany - C4

Years C
Luke 4:14-21

To be praised by everyone is either faint praise or an accumulation of political capital.

If praised by everyone it would be very easy to begin to think one can push to the next level. It was now time to move away from the exploratory committee stage and into full campaign mode. So a platform was presented and Jesus walked onto it, wrapping the mantle of prophet about himself. What we have been waiting for has arrived.

As we will hear next week, this doesn't go so well. Today candidates still go back to their hometown, or symbolic hometown, to announce their candidacy for the mantle of power.

What would you say if all eyes were upon you? Would it be that the past is fulfilled? that the future may now begin? Usually we are pretty humble about those sorts of pronouncements, but it may be time to dust off our pride of relationship with God and know the importance of this moment. It is a turning point for you and all of us.

A question before us is which way are we going to turn. Isaiah lays out a pretty good way for us to go, even as it is a pretty difficult way to travel - given the inertia and investment many have in their current state as better than it might otherwise have been.

Try saying this three times in a row several times today:
Today scripture is fulfilled in my life.
Today scripture is fulfilled in my life.
Today scripture is fulfilled in my life.

Response?
Response after you state it again?
Response after you affirm it yet again?

= = = = = = =

scriptures arc
more broadly
than we hark

hard work and perseverance
pay off for a lucky few
they are part of a pair

hard work and perseverance
fail all too many who
are the pair's other part

a fortunate few go their own way
unaware their freedom is built
on the back of captive workers

good news for the suffering
Gautama's noble truths
illumine this blind spot

a culmination of generations
lucky and many
find release

Isaiah Buddha Jesus
you I we us all
fill the arc