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| View from "The Precipice" at Nazareth |
Today’s
Gospel story (Luke 4:21-20) sounds to me like nothing so much as overheard gossip at a family
reunion.. perhaps especially a family reunion here in the deep south, where
family pedigree matters so much!
“Isn’t
this Joseph’s son?” the great aunts and uncles cluck. “I mean, the son of the
carpenter? Who’d ever have thought he’d turn out like this!”
This
lesson is a continuation of last Sunday’s lesson, so we know the context. Jesus
has returned home to Nazareth from being baptized by John in the Jordan River
and spending 40 days in the wilderness in a meet up with both the devil and
God.
In
Nazareth, he goes to the synagogue in keeping with custom, stands up to read
from the prophet Isaiah—a passage we today categorize as one of “the servant
passages”—then proceeds to claim for himself the identity of The Servant as
laid out in Isaiah.
Today this scripture has
been fulfilled in your hearing,” he says. And the hometown community beams with
pride. Everyone is amazed that the carpenter’s son speaks so well.
But…
how quickly the clucks of surprised approval from the small-town “family” turn
into murderous rage! What in the world does Jesus say in those few intervening
verses that his own people go from adoring family to angry mob?
