Dear friends in Christ, today the gospel text started from where it ended last Sunday. And this is what it says; “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” St. Luke indicates that all the people spoke highly of Jesus when they heard Him deliver His message

Then, they became rather incredulous. They said to each other ‘wait! No, this cannot be true. Is He not the son of Joseph?’ St. Luke cautiously refrained from adding all other derogatory remarks. However, from the answer Jesus gave, it is plausible to deduce that many nasty remarks were made. The people in the synagogue were looking for a rather important person coming from a renowned family. And since that was not the case, they took offense at Jesus. Jesus simply told them since they did not count themselves worthy of being set free from their bondage to sin, the Lord God would turn His attention to the gentiles as He did in times past when their ancestors proved to be unworthy of the blessings of God

At this, they were enraged. They could hold their peace no longer and intended to silence the voice that reproached them and reminded them of the shame they would rather not mention. They took Him to the brow of the hill to hurl Him down the cliff, but as St. Luke said, “…Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away.”

We may learn some lessons here.

Friends, this passage tells all about our human existence. Whether at the spiritual level of political level, we all the time are looking out for important developments and life changing processes and events to emanate from those who have carved a niche for themselves. Yet this is not what God does. Everybody created in the image of God has something very special to turn the world around to make it a secure place to live in.

Therefore when we go looking for life changing events from familiar places only, we shut ourselves off from the beauty of life and the mercy of God.

The other point has to do with the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah that was read to us earlier. In that text, the Lord God told the prophet to be courageous and not be crushed by those who would contest his message.

For it is He the Lord who has made him a ‘fortified wall’ against all his adversaries. Therefore he should speak fearlessly to issues because God is with him to deliver him. This is exactly what Jesus did. He told the unbelieving crowd what should be said. That was the way He got them to here Him.

This is what we are asked to do in our day to save our world from sinking to its knees.

There is a lot of rot and indecency growing all around us; there is a new unacceptable culture that is forced down our throats. This cannot go on if our world must be a decent place to live in and enjoy life. When we look around we hear of wars being waged. We hear of terrorists causing panic and as would be expected, we have an aversion towards these acts. We blame certain institutional failures for all the bad things that happen.

Yet these are not the worse of all that happen in our world. The worse is when we look on helplessly and let the lawmakers - those we have elected to speak for us - to now become so insensitive and impervious to our cry.

Few examples abound; in Ghana, our government – without consulting the electorate, went in to bring two Yemeni former detainees from Guantanamo Bay. When people began to speak out, government official and Moslems in Ghana said it is because those 2 were Moslems, that is the reason they were not welcome. This is a mess!

In the US, lawmakers who should protect life have falling low to the point where they believe and teach that only human life which has been born into the world has to be protected. Life in the embryonic form has no protection whatsoever. We make efforts at protesting against it. No one will listen to us until those of us who care about this, make a big impact – let many of you who are passionate about this enter into politics. Let your Christian faith play a big role in politics. Unfortunately, when we elect you because of your fervor to speak for life, you go out there and persuaded into towing the line of those who sanction the death of the unborn – is it a syndicate, a cult or a mafia from which one cannot break loose?

And for us priests, the Lord has placed us at the service of His flock. How do we fare? We are so afraid to speak out because we fail to do what the Lord requires of us.

Let us not forget that the Lord who has sent everyone of us to speak out against the ills of our world is watching.

Jeremiah spoke, was not heeded and disaster befell Jerusalem. Jesus spoke and was not listened to and Jerusalem was destroyed. Let us speak out, perhaps in our day. our nations will listen to us and be saved.

God did not put us here for nothing, He has made us to speak to the issues that affect our lives, issues that destroy our world, and to bring about peace to God's Kingdom here on Earth.