Last Sunday we heard the start of Jesus programmatic sermon at Nazareth. today we hear the response of the congregation. Initially they were positive as they heard the "gracious words that came from his mouth" (Lk 4: 22) yet this all turns sour. For a start they cannot reconcile these words and the fact that Jesus is one of them, in fact, the son of Joseph (so they thought). Secondly, he has the temerity to tell them that the scripture being fulfilled in their presence does away with their exclusively relationship with God as the door of salvation is opened to the Gentiles. In the end their snobbery, elitism and pride prevent the congregation from taking on board Jesus' message. Not only that they try to kill him by throwing him off the "brow of the hill on which their town was built." (Lk 4: 29) In doing this they prefigure the ultimate execution of Jesus on the Cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. All of this speaks not just of the drama of Jesus sermon in Nazareth and his rejection by the people but also of the rejection of Christ and Christianity by the Jews as a whole which had taken place by the time of Luke's writing of his Gospel. Can we even see a parallel in our own time where people acknowledge Jesus to speak wisdom and for Christianity to have created things of beauty. However, in the next moment they reject them, for similar reasons to those of the Nazareth congregation enraged by Jesus. The Church's support for the unborn, immigrants, the unemployed and elderly people who are abandoned and vulnerable all speak of a prophetic stance that challenges those who regard themselves as the arbiters of public morality and seek to exclude Christianity from public discourse altogether.
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