Did you know that in Luke 4, from which our Gospel reading is taken today, people in Jesus’ hometown try to lynch him by pushing him over a cliff? We won’t read this part this week, but it follows our passage, which has Jesus preaching in the Synagogue in Nazareth. He quite deliberately uses scripture to identify himself as the Messiah. The immediate response is quite good, but then people start grumbling that Jesus is just a local boy and nothing special. Jesus reacts by telling them that prophets are never accepted in their own towns. The result is that the people become enraged and try to kill him. Spoiler alert – he escapes! Nevertheless, this episode leaves us with a few questions to ask ourselves. For instance, are we ready to listen to the challenges Jesus poses? And do we listen to the prophets of our own age? Or would we rather ignore them, or worse, push them over a cliff?
– Revd Richard