4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Epiphany 4), Year C

When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove [Jesus] out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
~Luke 4:28-29
 
“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
~John Locke
 
“There is no such thing as an innocent reading, we must ask what reading we are guilty of.”
~Louis Althusser
 
It was such a lovely beginning! The local boy made good, returning home, reading the scriptures among the hometown folk. Sitting down, as was the custom, to then begin the discussion, according to custom. But it does not go where the good people expect. The story is told “slant”—a new interpretation of an old text, and an explanation of what blocks the miracles that Jesus performs everywhere, but in his hometown—and in the blink of an eye they want Jesus to go over a cliff, vertical.
 
What just happened?
 
Jesus challenges their feel-good insider story with a reminder that God’s love extended outside their accepted relational bonds—to a widow outside of Israel when many were in need on the inside, to a foreign general, an enemy of the people, to a people like us who do not own this story but are grateful recipients of it. What do we make of this kind of love? And what do we make of it when it is jeopardized?
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-10 † Psalm 71:1-6 † 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 † Luke 4:21-30

About the Art: Coley, Nathan, 1967-. There Will Be No Miracles Here, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58328 [retrieved January 28, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:There_Will_Be_No_MIracles_Here,_Edinburgh.jpg.

---

If you can't join us, you can still watch the service in real-time. Join us in person or watch it here live Sunday morning, 10:00am. You can view it upon completion by clicking on the video graphic to the left.

​We continue to keep our financial commitments to our mission partners and staff. If you are not yet able to join us, thank you for remembering to send in your financial pledges and offerings or donating here.