You really need the context of the gospel for this one--Jesus starts out in this reading saying “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” without reference to WHAT the scripture is that is being fulfilled.  When you realize that it is the proclamation in Isaiah, then the rest of it makes sense:  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  

Well, when you hear this proclamation from Isaiah followed by “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” you might think one of two things.  The first thing might be:  “Get out of here.  Who do you think you are, saying stuff like that and acting like it means you?”  And the second thing might be:  “Okay, bring it on!  We could use a little release, recovery, freedom from oppression, and all that.  Let’s see you do it!”

And then Jesus doesn’t do it.  Instead, he points out to them what they all knew from their previous study of scripture:  that prophets do their thing in ways that we don’t understand--one man being healed doesn’t mean that everyone who needs healing will be healed, one widow being sustained by miraculous self-replenishing food doesn’t mean that all widows get self-replenishing food.  

That is, Jesus opened up the big can of worms in religion, which is:  God and/or God’s messengers don’t instantly solve all your problems for you.  Even though God works in the world, it doesn’t mean that you or the people you love won’t get sick, won’t run out of food, won’t die.  

Well, the people in the synagogue that day didn’t want to hear this.  They were “filled with rage” and tried to throw him off of a cliff.  Maybe they thought he was committing heresy and they didn’t like it.  Maybe they wanted him to prove himself by doing some healings or other miracles, and were angry that he didn’t.  You want to know what I think?  I think they were acting like children throwing a fit.  Here was someone who wasn’t doing what they wanted, so they tried to throw him off a cliff.

They needed to hear the message of the Apostle Paul.  Paul said:  “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.”  It’s not always easy to put an end to childish ways.  The child within us wants things to be fixed, to be made all better, if not with our mother’s kiss than with something else equally instantaneous.  

When Jesus showed up in that synagogue, how many people there do you think could have used a good miracle or two in their lives?  Well, how many people here could use one?  If not for ourselves, then for someone we love--a healing or two would not come amiss, some supernatural help in one area or another of our lives would be just fine.  And yet, we know that getting miracles is not what coming to church is about.  God is not some kind of cosmic mechanic, Jesus is not a vending machine that you can put in a quarter and get what you want.  

Even Jeremiah, the great Old Testament prophet we read from this morning, didn’t want to be an adult.  He tried to wiggle out of the task that God set for him by saying “I am only a boy,” hoping that God will find someone else for God to use as a mouthpiece.  Jeremiah reacts to hearing his call directly from God with fear, and he is hoping that God will let him off the hook.  But God is having none of it.  “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.”  In other words:  “Grow up.  Act like an adult.  I know you can do this, because I called you to do it.  Stop being scared.”

So what do we do if we are trying to be adults?  Paul the Apostle tells us to have love.  Love doesn’t insist on its own way (like the Jesus-as-vending machine paradigm)--instead love bears all things.  Paul lists different things that a person might do--giving away possessions, speaking in tongues, prophesying or being faithful--and then he says that without love, none of that is worth anything.  Love, says Paul, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love isn’t about getting someone to do things for you the way you want them to--love is more generous than that.  It’s not easy, this being an adult in faith, but it is what we are called to.

The other thing is that even when we know that we are called to be adults, when we are called to move beyond childish ways, we still can’t always do it.  We can’t always do what we want to do, or what we think we should do--sometimes we find ourselves incapable of doing our best.  That’s life, and life throws circumstances at us that sometimes knock us for a loop and make us lose our equilibrium and forget how to be as adult as we know how to be.  But even when we find ourselves in that situation, God is still with us.  After all, that rowdy crowd did not succeed in throwing Jesus off the cliff--the gospel isn’t clear about exactly how it happened, but somehow Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.  After the people in the crowd calmed down, they may have had another chance to do things better.    And we do, too.  

One thing is, it’s easy to think of contemporary examples of adults acting like children.  Just think of anything you know about any public figure, and pretty soon, you’ll be thinking to yourself:  ”wow, that congress is acting like a bunch of babies!” or “that (actor, singer, celebrity) really needs to grow up and get a life!” or something along those lines.  

Think of things that make you scared, or make you panic, or make you kind of freeze up.  Those are the moments when we are not at our best, and those are the moments when we are most likely to be regressing to our childish ways.  So how do we “have love” in those situations?  how do we embody all those things about love that Paul talked about--either in the midst of the situation as it’s happening or later, when we realize that we have slipped back into childishness and we want to change that.

I think it has to do with habit.  If we can develop the habit, as we go about our daily lives, of living in love--that means living knowing that God loves us (more than we can possibly imagine, more than the people closest to us do)--it could change us.  It means allowing that love to fill us up so much that it overflows--which means that we have to trust in God’s love, knowing that it won’t go away.  When God’s love overflows us, it flows out to others.  Maybe inviting that free-flowing love, making a habit of it, is one way to help ourselves to live in love even in those situations where we are thrown off-balance or panicked.  And maybe, if we live that way, we can be the adults that we are called to be, and help others be adults, too.  Being adults in faith was what Jesus wanted us to be.  Being adults in faith will help to bring about the kind of world that Jesus was trying to build.