Jeremiah 1:4-10 and 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Marc Chagall: Jeremiah (1980)
How to Tell the Difference
You'll never know when you'll be called
To do a job that might appall
You otherwise, some other day,
Without some prod into the fray.
How do you know, though, if it's real,
A call? - or just some clanging spiel
You'd love to make? Perhaps, just take
A look to see whence comes the ache.
Is it your need that you be heard?
Or is it love calls forth some word
Of truth you still find hard to say,
Though God would have you find the way?
Scott L. Barton
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to
speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you,
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the
Lord said to me,
“Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over
kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
[also]
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do
not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic
powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all
faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give
away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do
not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or
boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the
truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an
end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete
comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a
child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult,
I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we
will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as
I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and
the greatest of these is love.
+ + +
Luke 4:21-30
James Jacques Joseph Tissot:
Brow of the Hill Near Nazareth (between 1886 and 1894)
Brooklyn Museum, NY
Cliff Note
They tried to throw him off a cliff!
That seems a bit extreme to me,
Although, in other places far away
I read it happens by decree;
Not long ago in Timbuktu,
Extremists had the upper hand -
They took a thief outside the gates,
And at the law's quite clear command,
Some poor guy's now an amputee!
We seem to want to purge the one
Who's different from our midst, as if
Somehow, God's work will then be done!
It's not just there, but even here,
Where fear and anger still drives some
To take the law into their hands,
And think the world is safe from scum.
But Jesus, passing through the crowd,
Reminds us simply: Be not proud.
Scott L. Barton
(2013, revised)
Then [Jesus] began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the
gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”
He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure
yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we
have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet
is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows
in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and
six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was
sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also
many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was
cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue
were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to
the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him
off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
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