WWJD? (What would Jesus do?) I’m sure we’ve all had times in our journey when we sought the answer to that question. It’s a question that any Christian would ask when a difficult issue requires a response from us. Today’s reading from Luke gives us a glimpse into how difficult it might be to predict the answer.

Things were going quite well for Jesus. He was on a roll, preaching and teaching in a way that inspired His friends and neighbors. They really didn’t expect this from the carpenter’s son! Jesus proclaimed that He was going to accomplish the goals set many years ago for the Messiah. Even that claim didn’t cause much of a stir, but then Jesus had to go and get friendly with the riff-raff!

Jesus had a way of making His audience uncomfortable. Jesus seemed to know what buttons to push. He indicated that if they didn’t want to listen to His prophetic message, He would take the story to someone who would listen, and that someone would be the Gentiles. That did it – how could Jesus unfavorably compare His hometown neighbors to that scum? They had heard enough and rose up to silence Him forever. Miraculously Jesus passed through the angry mob and was not injured at all. God’s presence with Jesus was never stronger.

Jesus had moved from the accepted worldly truth to God’s truth, and His hometown crowd could not move with Him. Our challenge in seeking the truth from our Lord is to not be surprised when the response is received. The answer to the question might be quite different from what our conventional wisdom would anticipate!