Luke 4:20-21

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

They sat there, all his friends and family and neighbors. They sat there staring at him and wondered to themselves, “Who is this?”  They thought they knew him, but now they were beginning to have some second thoughts, some not very kind thoughts as well. Was this the same Jesus they knew so well, or at least thought they did?

They watched him grow up into a young man, admired him as he worked in his father’s carpenter shop, even wondered why he had not married as had his cousins. They heard that he had left home and gathered some people around him and started to teach and preach a message they had not heard before. They wondered how he had learned so much, from where he picked up this knowledge. They even heard that he had been working some miracles.

Now he had returned home and went to the synagogue in which he had been raised. He was asked to read and he did. Then he sat down and waited. The people waited as well. They stared at him. It is easy to wonder what they were thinking as we wonder what he was thinking. The silence must have been deafening. It was shorter than it seemed. Who would be the first to speak?

As Jesus would shortly remind them, it probably would not matter what he said. They were not about to truly listen. They already had their minds made up about it. Rather, it would be more correct to say that they had already closed their minds to whatever he would say or do. If this were a contest, it was a no-win situation for Jesus. And he knew it. One almost has to wonder why he came home and put himself into such a position in the first place. He probably had to. He had to give his family and friends an opportunity to listen to his message. What they did afterwards, of course, would be their choice and their responsibility.

So it is with us. We hear the same words, the same message Jesus’s family and friends heard. We do with it what we choose, just as they did. No one forces us to respond in one way or another just as no one forced them. No one will condemn us no matter what we do or do not do, no matter what decisions we make about what we hear from Jesus as we read his words in scripture.

Like those who gathered in that synagogue that Sabbath morning, each of us has to make a personal decision what Jesus’ message will mean to us in our daily lives. Whether or not some of those gathered there changed their minds about Jesus is not our concern. Our concern, always, is what we do – today, tomorrow, and the tomorrows to come.

I pray: Lord, help me to listen to your words, to learn what you are teaching and to live today as you teach me. Amen.