Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Jan. 31, 2016
Jesus ejected from the synagogue. Ancient French painting, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.
God had big plans for Jeremiah, but Jeremiah wasn’t so sure. Even before Jeremiah was conceived, God tells the young man, God intended that Jeremiah would hold Israel to account and warn the nation to choose between repentance and destruction. Jeremiah tries to reject this call. “I don’t know how to speak! I’m only a boy!” But God is determined, and assures the youth that God will give him the words and the authority to deliver God’s message.
Today’s Psalm seems consistent with Jeremiah’s fear of being God’s prophet. In these verses we call for God’s protection and help. We ask God to offer us a place of refuge and safety. We seek God’s protection from the wicked, the evildoer, and the oppressor. We call on God, who has known us since before our birth, and sustains us throughout our lives. God is our strength and our hope; we shall always praise God.
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
During the past two Sundays we have heard Paul gently reminding the people of the church in Corinth to get along. God gives us all different gifts that contribute to the whole. The people of the church are like the parts of a body, each important, and all necessary. Today he brings it all together in this beloved passage, reminding us that love is the glue that holds the community together. Faith, hope and love abide, but love is the most important of all,
Gospel: Luke 4:21-30
Last Sunday we heard Jesus impressing his neighbors in the synagogue at Nazareth, declaring that he had come to fulfill Isaiah’s call to bring good news to the poor. Today, in Luke’s account, Jesus pushes them a little too far. First, he predicts that they will reject him because they knew him as a child. Then, suggesting that his good news might be for all the poor and not just our friends, he recalls two Bible stories in which God’s grace was given to Gentiles. At this they rise up, drive him out of town and threaten to throw him off a cliff. “No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town,” indeed! But Jesus slips away, and goes back to Capernaum in Galilee to continue his work.