This coming Sunday, January 21, 2007, is the third Sunday after the Epiphany with the following three readings assigned: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 (Reading of the Law); I Corinthians 12:12-31a (Different members in the Body) and Luke 4:16-30 (Jesus preaching at Nazareth). The text chosen to examine is Luke 4:28 which reveals “Then all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.”

Just returned last night from a weekend of seminars, Bible classes and preaching in the Los Angeles area of southern California. In fact, while there, I was told that the temperature hit a record low of 30 degrees. During one of the Law and Gospel seminars, I asked the question as to what person would the audience consider as being the worst preacher in the world. They could choose from someone living today, in the past or even from the Bible.

I heard the names of Noah, Paul and contemporary preachers. After telling them that the way God thinks is to first think commonsensically and then reverse it, the name I suggested was none other than Jesus Himself. Who else was rejected by the leading religious figures of his day, who had most of his followers leave him in his hour of despair, who had one betray him, another deny him, his own mother and relatives embarrased by him and the list goes on and on. One of the items I pointed to was from the Gospel reading for today in which after preaching at his own hometown “parish”, Jesus has to escape from being thrown off of a cliff.

Making the point that even his own relatives, friends and neighbors rejected him, I would then turn to those hearing this sermon and accuse them also of being no different. For do we not live after the time of His death, resurrection and ascension and yet we also continue to sin day in and day out? Yes, we may have faith but it is a faith that is weak indeed!

Yet not all regarded Jesus with disdain. His own Father spoke these words more than once in that He was most pleased with This His Son. How so in light of the fact that Jesus was such an apparent dismal failure in getting people to follow Him consistently? The fact is that what makes for a successful preacher from God’s point of view–which is really the only view that counts–is that one preaches the Word of God in its purity and adminsters the sacraments as God so intended. The results do not compute in the equation for success.

How different is that from the typical attitude of most of us who measure God’s pleasure by how well things are going in our life? Thinking that we deserve better than we get from God, at times we cry out, “What did I do to deserve this?” The cry is really directed to Satan who makes deals and works on the basis of justice. For the true God is one of mercy and grace Who withholds from us the justice we deserve and provides us with the gracious gift of salvation we do not deserve.

Yes, the world wants to see signs and wonders from us to back up with evidence that which we teach. But we have no other evidence that the Scriptural Word of the death and burial for three days and the resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God. That is sufficient material for the Holy Spirit to work on the hearts of the unbelievers so that the ungodly are declared godly. In fact, is it not a fact that of those voices raised against the Christ in that town of Nazareth, one of them was probably his own brother James who in time became the Christian pastor of the holy Christian congregation of Jerusalem!