Frederick Buechner says in his essay Wishful Thinking, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet." When our gladness, those things about which we are passionate, those values that we hold dear come together with the world’s hunger, we begin to find our mission and our message.

Jeremiah had a mission and a message, given to him by God when Jeremiah was a young man. It was to go where God would send him and to say what God would tell him and to do so without fear. He will pluck up and pull down corrupt systems, he will destroy and overthrow unfaithful ideas, and he will build up and plant a renewed people. He will do whatever is necessary to bring people back to right relationships with God.

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has a mission and a message. It is "to be a faithful, growing church that demonstrates true community, deep Christian spirituality, and a passion for justice." That’s the mission. The message is that we will "be and share the good news of Jesus Christ, witnessing, loving, and serving from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth (Adopted by the General Board of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ, July 2000)."

This congregation has a mission and a message. It is to celebrate our diversity as we share the good news of Jesus Christ, support our members, and I would say also non-members who attend this church regularly, and to serve our community. All of those missions and messages are good, and are given life because they grow out of the mission and message Jesus proclaimed that day in Nazareth when he read from the prophet Isaiah. The reading was the gospel lesson last Sunday.

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me because God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

Sitting down Jesus at first simply says, "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." In those nine words, Jesus is telling us that he has come home to announce that the time has come for him to begin his public ministry, and that it will be about helping people live as free sons and daughters of God.

He says, as was true with Jeremiah, my mission is to go where God sends me. My message is that God has a claim on your life too. And as that claim is made, no matter who we are, we will be freed to know the good news of God’s Messiah. We will know redemption, that sense of being rescued by God, we will know recovery, that sense of being restored by God. And we will know release, that sense of being set free by God from all that keeps us from being in full relationship with God and with each other. Jesus has come to announce a time of jubilee.

Jubilee was a year long period celebrated every fifty years when slaves were freed, debts forgiven, lands taken were returned to their owners, fields were left untilled, and agricultural labors were suspended. "An eternal acceptable time of the year has arrived", Jesus says.

The people were so impressed and so proud. "Look at him. Isn’t that Joseph’s son?" If you have had the experience of going to a place where people knew you as a child, you understand. "Look at him, making his way in the world. Remember when they arrived in Nazareth, and Mary and Joseph used to talk about how he was God’s own special son, that he would be with us for a while, then he would be off to do God’s will? Well, he is here with us now."

"Did you hear what he did in those other towns, in Capernum and in other places? I heard he healed the sick, forgave people of some pretty awful sins, and called people to turn away from their lives of selfishness so they could serve others." "Really? Well I heard that with a gentle word, a kind touch, a loving look he could help people see that in him their lives can be made new." "We have known him all his life. What will he do for us?"

The people of the synagogue believed they could lay exclusive claim to all of the gifts of Jesus. But he understood his ministry to come from God and to belong to the people of the synagogue, the Jewish community to be sure. But he knew that he did not belong to them exclusively, but inclusively, his mission and message are too broad and too embracing to be confined to one group of people. So Jesus begins to explain what he is really all about and in so doing defied the community’s expectations. Jesus anticipates their thinking and turns it upside down.

"You are thinking, doctor cure yourself, take care of your own flaws, take care of yourself before you come to us, but here I am anyway."

"You are saying to ourselves, do for us what you have done in Capernum and in those other places, but I cannot prophesy here. No prophet can work in his or her hometown. Why not? There is too much history, too many comparisons to the way the prophet used to be. Can you go back to the place you were raised with out somebody dragging out an embarrassing story about you, never mind that the story happened decades ago? It is just hard to go home again sometimes because when people see you as an adult, they do not really see you, but instead they see the child your were. They will not let you out of the box they have put you in.

From a purely human point of view, the people of Nazareth had Jesus in remember where you came from, your first loyalty is to us box. He knows they are thinking, "entertain us, pay attention to us, you owe us."

Jesus then reminds them of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. During a three and a half year drought, when Israel suffered, Elijah was sent to a widow in Sidon, not to Israel. God sent him to help a foreigner. Then Elijah’s successor Elisha could see lepers all around Israel, but God sent him to heal Naaman, not a leper from Israel, but from Syria. What point is Jesus trying to make? Simply this, the gifts of God’s prophets, this prophet especially are not limited to the people of Israel, but they are given to whomever God chooses. So it will be with me", Jesus says.

His mission is to the whole world. It ‘s not just for me, it’s not just for you, it’s not even just for this congregation. It is really is for everyone who hears and believes.

But the people really expected to hear something else. They wanted their Jesus to stay in that box they tried to put him in, but he would not, and they didn’t like it. Now the words said with pride and joy are spit out in rage. "Isn’t this Joseph’s son? Who does he think he is?"

I think they are enraged because they have been exposed, they have revealed their unreadiness to change, or to accept the fact that God loves someone in addition to them. They do not want to believe that jubilee is not only for them, but for everyone. Their attitude is God save me and let the others fend for themselves.

The truth is they feel betrayed. For them, "Jesus’ treachery toward his contemporaries came from handing over their most cherished things, including hope for a messianic age, to the sometimes hostile peoples roundabout. He’d healed folks elsewhere, but not at home (Christian Century, p. 13, January 17, 2001)." The people really wanted to do what only God can do. We can be like that from time to time. We want to limit who God through Jesus Christ would bless. We want to say we are more deserving of God’s blessings than they are, we deserve to prosper, we deserve to grow, we have all the right stuff, they don’t. God why are you bothering with them, when we are the ones who are entitled to all that you have. We’ve been around longer, you know us better, you like us more, don’t you?

How angry did they get at Jesus? They were as angry as we are sometimes when we do not get our way. The friendly crowd became an irrational mob. They seize Jesus, and take him to the highest part of their hillside town with every intention of throwing him off the cliff.

That’s the problem with irrationality; it makes us blind to what is happening around us. A blind rage is just that, it causes us to lose sight of what makes sense. There is not other way to explain driving recklessly in order to get to an off-ramp ten seconds faster than the car you nearly sideswiped. Only a blind rage can explain people behaving so badly on airplanes that they not only endanger their lives, but others too. It is blind irrational rage that causes words to be spoken that cannot be taken back, or a hand to be raised in a way that leaves a sting that lingers long after the pain is gone.

For the synagogue members in Nazareth, their rage caused them to get so busy preparing to kill Jesus that they did not notice when he passed right by. They were so caught up in their rage that they lost perspective and lost Jesus.

The good news is that it does not have to be that ways for us. We can learn from our synagogue brothers and sisters.

We can learn from him and give life to our mission and message. We really can celebrate, share, support, and serve as we continue to create here a welcoming place, a praying place, an affirming place, a worshiping place, and a joy-filled place. We can hear the call of Christ to ministries of fairness, peace, and hope. We are after all a congregation committed to ministries of reconciliation and justice. We can embrace the inclusive gospel of Jesus, who said in John 3. 17 "Indeed, God did not sent the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." The best way for us to do that is by living lives that show the difference it makes to us that we have a personal relationship with Jesus, and why that relationship has led us to this place.

Such ministry as Jesus did and as we are called to do is not without risk. Remember "the beginning of Jesus’ ministry also marks the beginning of hostility to him. He teaches and later heals. The crowds finds him pleasant and welcome his skills. When the teaching turns threatening, however, suggesting that they themselves need repentance or suggesting the inclusion of the excluded and marginalized, the response becomes anything but one of welcome (Texts for Preaching, Year C, p. 131)."

We know what happened to Jesus. Another friendly crowd became an angry mob, again calling for his death. I believe that 2000 years ago, God’ deep gladness met the world’s deep hunger and sent to the world a son named Jesus. I believe that in spite of the hostility he faced, Jesus saw the need and the hunger of humanity was glad to be God’s messiah, and I believe that certainly he speaks even now to our world’s deep hunger. We know his gladness, his joy, his love for the world met with a world so hungry that it could only respond in rage and anger. It led him to a cross and a tomb. But that is not the end of the story. God then did a new and amazing thing.

Frederick Niedner goes on to say, "of all the prophets ever slain in Israel, America or anywhere else, God raised this one, this healer of gentiles and friend of sinners, so that we might know that God has forgiven everything, and continues to do so even today." Recalling the words of I Corinthians 13, Niedner goes on to say, "despite everything, God is patient and kind toward us, not irritable or resentful. God laughs not at our weaknesses, but rejoices over the truth that we are all God’s children. For each and for all of us, God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. That love never ends. There we find the world’s deepest need, and our deepest gladness (Christian Century, p. 13, January 17, 2001)."

Our mission is to help people know what we know, the soul saving, life transforming, risk is worth it, grateful every day unending love of Jesus Christ. Our message is that the spirit of the Lord is so much upon us now, today, that everyday is a day of Jubilee; of freedom in Christ Jesus. Our call is to believe our in our mission enough and to believe in our message enough that we will be free enough to respond to that spirit in us by sharing freely the Good news of the one who lived for us, died for us, was raised for us and who meets us still at our point of deep need. As we go about our proclaiming our mission and our message, God through Jesus Christ will be there with us. God has promised, and the promises of God can be trusted, absolutely. Thanks be to God. Amen.