Second Sunday after the Epiphany (Year 3, NL)

Stanley Hauerwas’s The Peaceable Kingdom at 40

What are we willing to sacrifice for racial justice?

Jesus refuses at every turn to do something important, the things his neighbors thought he should do when he grew up.

If Jesus is with the other guy, how can he be with us?

The word of God is living and active; it meets us where we are.

This time of year, our inner landscapes can seem as bleak as the outer ones.

In his response to John, Jesus speaks of hope in the present tense.

What’s up with Luke’s assertive Jesus?

As a homiletics professor, I would be inclined to give Jesus a passing grade, and not just because he is Jesus.

There’s a lot of urgency in that single word today.

How would Norman Rockwell have painted Jesus' homecoming to Nazareth?

The writer of Luke may be challenging his readers to accept even those whom the oppressed might reject, but Paul reminds us to act with love in all things.

In this week’s Gospel reading, many people praise Jesus’ teaching—until he claims that he is the fulfillment of the scripture he reads. It is difficult for American Christians to grasp how shocking Jesus’ announcement is to a first-century synagogue.

There is much that we hope for, we who have cast our lot with Jesus of Nazareth. We hope for mercy, forgiveness, new life, eternal life. We hope for the promise of a new heart that—against  all odds!—beats in sync with our Maker, as promised by the prophet Ezekiel. We hope for the relief from pain, for relational wholeness, for freedom from the burden of crippling doubts and unmanageable burdens. We hope for heaven, whatever that might mean.

Chris Keith sets out to answer two questions. What lay at the heart of the conflict between Jesus and some of the religious authorities of his day? And how, if at all, did Jesus read Israel’s scriptures?

Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and still wet from his baptism, comes back to his home synagogue, publicly claims that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy, and is praised by everyone. Then, within five verses, everyone in the synagogue is filled with rage. They drive him out of town so that they might hurl him off a cliff.

What happened?

Our firstborn son came into the world seven years ago with red hair, blue eyes and keen perception. We discovered this early on.

We’d be out for a walk and Jonah would start pointing and saying, “Woof, woof, woof!” (i.e., “Mama, Dada, over there, a doggie!”). We wouldn’t see a dog anywhere, but he never lost his resolve. “Woof, woof, woof!” And sure enough, six, maybe seven blocks up, off in the distance we would see it: a big black poodle, or a cream-colored golden retriever. He was right every time. We were the ones without eyes to see.