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Call and response: Jeremiah 1:4–10; 1 Corinthians 13:1–13; Luke 4:21–30

In his book Open Secrets, Richard Lischer describes his response to the challenges of his first congregational call. “My congregants were expected to welcome an inexperienced 28-year-old stranger into a community as tightly sealed as a jar of canned pickles. The church had decreed that henceforth I would be spiritual guide, public teacher, and beloved sage with a stroke of a wand. God—or the bishop—had just made me an expert in troubled marriages, alcoholism, teen sex, and farm subsidies.”