Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany Luke 4:21-30

Preaching Commentary

Leaving Home

I moved away from my hometown for graduate school when I was just shy of 30. I never went back. When I struck out from home, I lived in cities larger and more diverse than anything I had ever experienced in my hometown of 50,000 people who, for the most part, looked like me, talked like me, and thought like me. In the two decades since then, I have met hundreds if not thousands of people, encountered numerous worldviews and perspectives that challenged my own for the better.

I have traveled back to my hometown, but it now feels provincial to me. I can’t pretend to know every block and neighborhood around its village green, but it strikes me as somewhat narrow and restrictive, as…