Luke 4:21-30

Epiphany 4 - Year C

Luke 4:21-30

Yes, Jesus picked this particular fight with his hometown.

All was going swimmingly. Jesus reads Isaiah and claims it. Those in the synagogue were affirming. They marveled and remembered back to before Jesus saw John at the Jordan as well as stories of more recent exploits.

It would be interesting to get the back story of Jesus that led to his striking out at these close-to-adoring people. Does Jesus need some revisionist history instead of those who saw him scab his knee and run to Mary for a kiss on his boo-boo? Perhaps he is just tired from recent exploits and wanted to cut off requests for more. Whichever, whatever, Jesus is responsible for this event.

Can't you see the townspeople with their hooray, Jesus' response, and then the town folks angry response. How sad for all concerned. Hope, faith and love seem particularly absent in Jesus' attempt to leave his infancy behind.

While there is a tendency to equate this to Jesus' later entry into Jerusalem and the crowd changing from Hosanna to Hang-em, it is better to wrestle with this incident. What went wrong? Where do you see that same wrongness in these days?