Throw'm off the cliff - Luke 4

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Message from Luke 4: 21-30 (Fourth Sunday after Epiphany)

What a welcome from a home town.  These people see that Jesus has evolved and grown.  Yet, there is distaste and distrust - like they cannot possibly look beyond themselves and their ideas of what is right and wrong and what is meant by the scriptures.  That is the real tragedy here.  

Why did they feel compelled to throw Jesus off a cliff?

False sense of safety?  arrogance? lack of understanding? closing eyes at the potential?

All of these.

This is the problem we face today in our society where people have turned on each other simply because we disagree.  Why is our viewpoint so crucial that we cannot make space for others?

If I mention my politics then automatically, some people will shut their ears as if there is no more reason to keep listening.  Viewpoints are windows to people and are for us to learn rather than shun. If I think I have all the answers, then I most assuredly do not. 

Open your heart to what the scripture means today not just what you think you heard. Scripture is not just old text from a couple thousand years ago. 

That is why we say God is still speaking because the scriptures are more than verses printed on a page but God speaking to us in our world and in our time.  If we close our hearts and minds to that, then we risk leaving God as a stale text to be forgotten.  

You can almost hear the queen scream "off with their heads" and being unreasonable.  Yet that is what we do when we close our hearts and minds from the truth and flexibility of God.

Do not be part of the crowd that marches God off a cliff over a disagreement.  We can be angry with God because God has big shoulders but we ought to understand first why we are angry and what maybe we might do about that instead directing our anger at someone else.  

Thanks Be to God.