People not much different from ourselves lived in generations past quite comfortably with slavery. We find that odd. And people not much different from ourselves lived in generations past quite comfortably with injustice to blacks. We find that odd too. And I suppose generations to come will find it odd that we could rest so comfortably in a nuclear age with doom and disaster at our fingertips. And certainly we will be thought odd who are so at ease with a divided faith, with a dismembered body, to all appearances, so grossly contrary to Christ's wish and will. We do not lie awake at night grieving over it. For surely the nursery rhyme is about the Church, the cosmic egg, the future of the world, the perfect and incredible egg. Once its integrity was broken, all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put it together again.

Nor do we hear this. Pastors did not scold their people or their society in the days of slavery. It would have been thought inappropriate. Priests did not scold their people nor upbraid them and their society for their treatment of blacks. Indeed, they may have had slaves, have segregated blacks. No one today seems unduly shocked and scandalized at the mockery made of Christ's Church by a horde of dissident disciples who agree to disagree. We put men and women to death for betraying their country. We would not think in such terms for schism. Granted that there has been an ugly strain of anti-Semitism among certain peoples at certain times, was there any continued outcry against the sin from the pulpit? One does not sense that.

It is in the light of such notions that we must see Christ today and listen to Him as He responds to a request for some word and comment in the synagogue gathering. He takes the scroll, unrolls it, finds His place, reads the passage, rolls up the manuscript, gives it to the attendant, and sits down. All eyes are on Him. It is a great moment.

When Christ talks, preaches, instructs, He is at once compelling, fearless, outrageous. He is spell-binding for His grasp of truth, ardent in His expression of it. And heedless of what may follow. "No man has ever spoken as this man." Everywhere He went, He made friends. And enemies.

He came not only with a new Gospel, but with a new dispensation, a new covenant. He declared the end of the Old Law, the birth of the New. Israel and the Kingdom of God was no longer between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. Israel was now the whole world. "The Kingdom of God has come. And you are witnesses to it."

Nothing like this had ever been heard before. It was both devastating and delightful. It at once aroused enthusiastic response and lethal hatred. Fire on the earth that enlightens and burns, warms and consumes.

The whole Gospel message is of a kind. But we are used to it. The words are familiar to us. And our preaching gentle. We do not choose to upset, to enrage. People rarely walk out in fury at what we say, at what we teach.

Still, take care. The Gospel is dynamite still. It is power. The sacraments are divine. A little bread, a little wine, is room enough for divinity. Christ did more than talk. And if His talk ennobled, inspired, His deeds brought divine life into human life. And our Christian life is not mere hearing words, reading them, but doing the Christ thing: putting Him to death, witness His rising, receive His Spirit. And all of that brings into the human scene a divine element that is at work, despite human frailty and stupidity. Like some hidden power in the earth, in the sea, in the air, that once and again suddenly reveals itself in strength. So Christ simmers below the surface of all that is.

To be in touch with that Christ means to participate in the creation of the new world, means to build the Kingdom of God with Him.

Not on our designs, His. Not according to our dreams and plans. Not as you think and take for granted. It is far more than that, far more in every way. "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as entered the heart of man what God prepares."

That is what He began when He unrolled the scroll. How they loved it. How they hated it. How much love have you got? How much hate? If you are human, probably significant amounts of both. Look in your heart and see.

So, response to Christ in our day is not much different from the response He met long ago. People leave and do not come back anymore. They go elsewhere, if they go anywhere. And if this be on the quiet side, a brief dip into history reveals outrageous hatred of the Church expressed in violence and destruction, persecution, oppression of all kinds.

Powerful is the Word of God and it will triumph. And it has a way of making us somewhat uncomfortable at times.  Amen.