SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 26, 2025

Identities are interesting claims to make. Have you ever thought about all the ways we are named and identified in today’s ever-changing landscape? We have family names, personal names, social security numbers, student ID numbers, phone numbers, emails, avatars, and the list goes on and on. I remember moving from SC to Washington, DC in the late 1990’s and the personal conversations I learned from the South switched from, “Where are you from?” to the DC proper, “What do you do?” I guess in DC it was more important to know what you did for a living than to know your family lineage.

Maybe it’s true the often quoted saying, “The more things change; the more things stay the same.” In Sunday’s lectionary text from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus finds himself at the beginning of his ministry having to answer some of those same questions: “What is your purpose here? Aren’t you Joseph’s child? Who and whose are you? “

Cress is attending a funeral in New York this weekend and has asked me to preach on Sunday. We are now directly in the season of Epiphany and there is much to discern in Luke 4 as Jesus returns home to Nazareth to begin his ministry and reintroduce himself. How will we receive and respond to his message? Maybe as confused and stunned as his hometown was in the first century?

Hope to see you Sunday,
Steven