Ignoring the values of Jesus

Jesus’s first sermon in Luke is to his hometown crowd - none of them have heard him preach before. Jesus comes right out and states his priorities. They align completely with his mother’s priorities, which she no doubt taught him, perhaps in song, as he grew up:

And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.” - Luke 1:46, 52-53

So they (and we) should not be surprised when Jesus summarizes his priorities in his sermon this way:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free. - Luke 4:18

The irony is that no one really gets offended by this sort of talk. it’s just ‘pie in the sky’ religion for all they can tell. But then Jesus goes on to lay out his vision practically, using examples of how God loves and cares for a poor immigrant woman and a foreigner who did not share their religion (Luke 4:25-27). That’s when it dawned on them: he’s serious about these crazy ideas of God loving everyone and including everyone and working for justice for everyone. So their response?

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. - Luke 4:28-30

Maybe they understood Jesus better than we do. Maybe we should be offended. Maybe we’re just ignoring the real life implications of Jesus’s radical message of justice and inclusion.

Pray for yourself and our world that we’d be more like Jesus today.