January 31st - Reflection

Reflection
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
Luke 4:21-30 (NRSV)
The prophet Jesus not accepted

Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Reflection
It seems as if,at first, the people were excited to have someone as Jesus in their midst. But then, doubt began to creep in. Isn't this just a carpenter's son? And then Jesus boldly reminds them of a few instances where God came to heal and care for outsiders. God cares for all people. So, I wonder, if the people, seeing that Jesus had no intention of remaining a hometown boy, and meeting the needs of the people right there in the community, that the people all became angry with Jesus? They became so angry that they were willing to hurl Jesus off the cliff and stone him to death.

We want things to be for us. Especially we tend to want to know and have the secret for ourselves so that we have a little control of the power that the secret holds. I think the people in this passage wanted to have Jesus for themselves. Surely having the Messiah in the community would bring about influence and power. But God has a different intention.

God wants us, instead of holding on to the secret for ourselves, to spread the secret freely for others to share also. God is not a finite God, God is infinite. Jesus can't be put into just my heart and kept there. Jesus invites us out. He invites us out to tell all in the Kingdom of what he has done. Jesus invites us out to show the love and compassion that He shows on and in his earthly walk.

We don't need to wonder if Jesus will be in our heart, he assures us that will be true. Jesus is infinite. So in our selfish sin to keep him to ourselves, we need to give up this desire and repent and move out, not in. Move out with Jesus in his Kingdom. Proclaim the secret of his love to all the world, today, tomorrow and forever. Thanks be to God!

Prayer
Lord, forgive me when I try to hold you in my heart. Forgive my selfish desire to close you in. Permit me to go out into your Kingdom this day and live and tell of and show the love you came to teach all of us about. Show me how to give my life away, to give life out and not to hold life in. --- Amen