Words of Welcome

  Luke 4:16-30 It is said that you can never go home again once you leave. There is a lot of truth to this adage, especially if you leave small towns and cities like the ones I grew up in and head to the big city. Most of my hometown friends who headed off to college didn’t return. While we enjoyed growing up in our hometown, college seemed to change us. Now, I don’t know if Jesus went off to college, but it appears something similar happened to him after he reached adulthood.  According to Luke’s Gospel, Jesus began his ministry at the age of thirty ( Luke 3:21-23 ). We don’t know what happened to Jesus between the age of twelve when the family returned to Nazareth after a visit to Jerusalem and the age of thirty when he began his ministry in Galilee except that he “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine favor” ( Luke 2:52 ). People have tried to fill in the blanks with trips to India and England, or time spent with a Jewish monastic group called the Essenes. It’...

Note:  We celebrated the life of one of our church members in worship this morning.  I've decided to share the bulk of the sermon, but I've removed the section where I recount the life of our beloved church member.    Jeremiah 1:4-10 There are few callings in life as risky and dangerous as that of a prophet.  Remember how  Jesus told the folks in Nazareth that prophets aren’t always welcome in their hometowns (Lk 4:24).  Moses found out the hard way that even if God sends you to deliver people from slavery, they may resist your efforts.  So, Jeremiah may have had good reasons to question his calling to be a prophet to the nations.  It didn’t even matter that God had made the choice in the womb, which is why Jeremiah told God –  “I don’t know how to speak because I’m only a child.”  No one is going to listen to me.  I’m too young and inexperienced. What does God say in response to Jeremiah’s questions – he simpl...