No comfortable Jesus here...Epiphany 3C Luke 4

In the early 20th century Finley Peter Dunn, a newspaper man from Chicago said it was a papers job to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

In this era when Time says you can supposedly choose to hear the news that we want to hear and ignore the rest it gets increasingly important that somebody tell us things that we don't want to hear. The trouble is that we can get so comfortable in our limited conversations.

Even churches can fall into the trap of telling people what they want to hear. Instead of the challenging Word of truth they get the comfortable word of complacency. Jesus first preaching gig worked out really badly in no small part because he spoke a word that many people didn't want him to say. He was in his home congregation and he read words of promise straight out of Isaiah that pleased everyone, at first.

God sent me to free those who have been treated unfairly Isaiah 58:6
and to announce the time when the Lord will show his kindness.” Isaiah 61:2 Holy Bible: New Century Version

But then his words got more particular and everyone got excited. He told them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Luke 4:21

The people who knew Jesus, and his family, demanded to know who he thought he was. The charge was blasphemy, the same one that would end his ministry on a cross. But this time he escaped just like he would again.