We know well the beginning of Luke 4, but the next part perhaps we would rather avoid. The chapter starts with Jesus on his vision quest in the wilderness; he fasts for 40 days and is tempted by satan. With his spiritual initiation complete, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth. On the Sabbath he goes to the synagogue and is invited to read from the prophet Isaiah, (Isaiah 61 and 58, as paraphrased and edited by the writer of Luke.)

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because she has anointed me
to bring good news to those who live in poverty.
She has sent me to proclaim release to those in captivity,
and recovery of sight to those who are blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (the jubilee)

After reading from Isaiah, Jesus says, (and no one blinks an eye, much less disputes him,) “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” We often end right there. But the story goes on.

The people look around the synagogue at each other, proud of how they raised this boy so well, in their own community.  And then – well, let’s hear it from the book.

Luke 4:21-30

Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”

He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’“ And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him 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. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Whoa, how quickly things can change. Jesus goes from favorite hometown boy who is all wise, to being the agitator that they are ready to run off the cliff. It’s his interpretive comments that get him in trouble. Jesus doesn’t just say, “You are not living up to the call of the prophet Isaiah.” He is confrontational. Jesus gives examples of the ways that in the past God worked in the lives of outsiders, of people who were not Jewish. Jesus tells them prophets are not recognized in their own towns – and then they prove him right. They will not stand for this kind of talk! What had been a congregation becomes a furious mob.

This story of a crowd that shifts from fanning to furious makes me think about Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde and her now famous sermon at the National Cathedral the day after the inauguration. The service, held in a “house of prayer for all people,” (as the cathedral is known) was going along beautifully. There were selections of scripture from a number of different religions, prayers by clergy from a variety of faith traditions. There was organ and orchestra and brass band. Solos and choir and gospel music. There was something to touch every heart and spirit in the country.

Then the Bishop got up, dressed in her shiniest ecclesial robes. She was ready to sermonize for the gathered select and elite crowd. At the very end of her remarks she got personal. In her soft voice, she spoke directly to the newly inaugurated president. He perked up at her address, as she reminded him that just the day before he claimed God saved him from death. Now the Bishop asked the president to take that claim seriously. She asked him to be compassionate and merciful even as he had received mercy. It didn’t take long until you could feel, even across the livestream, the mood shift.

Just like the people of Jesus’ hometown, the president and his crowd were not having it. We didn’t hear the president’s anger (and boredom) until reporters asked him about his response a bit later. But we could see his facial expressions. I worried, just a little, that the president would stick his foot out and trip the Bishop as she walked past him at the end of the service.

In Nazareth, the congregation – turned mob – is so angry that they chase, or lead, Jesus to the edge of town, hoping he falls off the cliffside. But the writer of Luke isn’t ready to let Jesus die yet; this is only the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Instead, somehow Jesus finds his way into, and through, the crowd – and begins the trek to Capernaum.

(You remember that Jesus had just said to the people – “You will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’“ Well, he can’t do these things in his hometown so he goes back to Capernaum and reads scripture in the synagogue there on the Sabbath. The gathered crowd is astounded and Jesus begins healing people in Capernaum.)

Unlike Jesus, the bishop did not melt into the crowd. She chose instead to protect herself with extreme visibility. Bishop Budde’s media tour has included Rachel Maddow, National Public Radio, The View, the Washington Post and the radio show 1A. Without apology, the Bishop explains herself over and over about why she preached as she did. In this way, she continues her preaching and prophesying.

It might seem presumptuous to call Bishop Budde a prophet. But on January 21, 2025, she acted the role of a prophet by speaking truthfully and bluntly to a powerful ruler, as the biblical prophets do. Jesus followed in his own Jewish tradition of the biblical prophets, speaking truthfully and deliberately to those in power. As Christians we usually call Jesus “savior,” or “liberator” or “Son of God;” our Muslim friends recognize Jesus as a prophet.

Both prophets, Jesus and Bishop Budde, notice and name the people that are outside their listeners field of awareness or care. Jesus says that God’s prophet Elijah showed up with a widow in Zaraphath. And the prophet Elisha healed Naaman the Syrian. These people were not at the center of power, were not even Jewish. And yet they received mercy and healing. Jesus’ message is that God doesn’t draw boundaries around where God’s love and healing can flow. Bishop Budde says that the people who live in fear – families of trans children and immigrants – need mercy, deserve compassion and respect. They too are children of God.

We may think of prophets as ranting and raving. But that is just the method. Their real task is to expand our understandings of God’s love. Prophets call out those who believe they have the power to define the limits of God’s grace and mercy. And these would-be boundary drawers cannot abide being corrected. It makes them angry, spitting mad. Even so, prophets persist and challenge our commonly held assumptions. Prophets draw the circles of God’s love ever wider.

So what about us ordinary people who are not prophets, who do not have audiences with the powerful? What about those of us who are nervous about speaking in public? Or those of us who are not sure what to say to our friends and neighbors, much less people in power? What are we to do? We can’t all be prophets, that’s a special calling, right?

And yet, when millions of people are living with fear of deportation and family separation, when vital healthcare is being denied to our beloved trans family and friends, when power is being consolidated, jobs are being lost, justice disregarded, more prophetic voices are needed.

I grant you, “voice” may be metaphorical here. What “speaking up” looks like is not the same for each of us. But we can, we must, speak up, we must respond. How I respond to the powers or threats may not be the same way you respond or the same as the person sitting next to you. Jesus melted into the crowd to find safety. Bishop Budde went even more public. Who’s to say which is right? Each response was faithful, and worked, in their own context.

The same can be said for all of us. The way you live out your faith with compassion and care may look different from how another person does that. One of us may knot comforters on Wednesday mornings in the basement. Another may step into that difficult space of talking to the neighbors with whom you disagree. And yet another may comfort those who recently lost loved ones. We need all of this prophetic work.

The job of prophets is to remind us that God can show up anywhere, in the most unlikely places. Jesus says the prophet will not be recognized in their own hometown. And Luke’s gospel gives an example of how difficult that can be. Is this really what we are all called to?

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This year our congregational theme is Cultivating Community and Deepening Joy. I don’t think, when the church council and pastorate found our way to this theme last September, we knew just how timely this would be. In this time of intentional chaos and confusion, power grabs and greed, when disconnection and despair seem to be the goal, cultivating community and deepening joy is prophetic. Cultivating community and deepening joy is the healing that is needed right now, within this gathered body and beyond these walls.

Which is not to say that there is not room for our fear, anxiety, frustration, anger and depression. But when the disconnection of fear and anxiety is our reality, we need the God of connection, the God of community, all the more. We need Holy Community to hold us, to surround us, to help us feel known. We need to find and live now the joy that we envision for some distant future.

Beloved friends, this will not be easy. In our current context, it may even be risky. We know Jesus was misunderstood, ridiculed, hounded – and worse. The good news is that we have this community to return to, this spiritual home to ground ourselves in. We are here for each other. And we are here for the larger community, outside these walls. We have been practicing for such a time as this for years, maybe even 500 years.

We gather here each week to keep learning how to live out the love that Jesus teaches and models for us. As bleak and scary as this time feels, this is also a time when we can see the Reign of God break in – if we have eyes to see. We will see the Reign of God break in if we keep building up and investing in the Joyful Community that is possible.

This Joyful Community does not ignore injustice. It is not a community that denies the harsh realities we are facing. It is a Community that recognizes the prophetic work before us. We are a Community that keeps learning from our ancestors and remembering how God shows up – through the prophets, in our midst, in the world. And when the prophetic task seems impossible, we can lean into cultivating community and deepening joy. That is a prophetic task in itself.

May God’s Spirit be poured out upon us
anointing us
to bring good news to those who live in fear.
May God help us proclaim release to those who are captive.
May Holy Love give sight to those who are blind and
freedom to those who are oppressed.”

May God’s Spirit be poured out on us, giving us strength and courage in these days.