This week’s gospel invites us to consider Jesus’s purpose through the lens of Isaiah. In his visit to the synagogue, he reads the prophets words about being called to proclaim release to captives, sight to the blind, the year of the Lord’s favor, and to let the oppressed go free.

Then Jesus says that in their hearing, this scripture has been fulfilled. A challenge which is as much for them as it is for us.

The people then get angry at Jesus, not for attempting to speak for God, because most people don’t have a problem with that when they like what they hear, but because he says we are to set prisoners free and they don’t want to. Instead, they make excuses about why they shouldn’t listen.

We are called to proclaim these things. But we’re also called to do them, too. So now we’re all on the hook.