The gospel assigned for each day (in the lectionary, or book of readings) starts with one particular text and reads through it for several weeks. The church for the past few months has been reading from St. Matthew and today we start St. Luke. We pick up the story with Jesus announcing his mission plan in his home town of Nazareth by quoting from the prophet Isaiah. He does not begin with teaching, baptizing and making disciples but with caring for the poor, the blind, the oppressed, the captives. It is caring for hurting people that has the first priority. At first the Nazarenes are impressed. All spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They quickly turned on him when Jesus spelled out the implications — that his mission was not limited to caring for those in his own circle of family, clan, nation but meant for everyone. Like the Nazarenes we too can try to limit our circle of care to those who are “one of our own” without realizing that everyone is a child of God and is deserving of care.
