Brief synopsis of the readings: Speaking for God in our first reading the prophet Jeremiah proclaims “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” And later: “I, for my part, today will make you into a fortified city, a pillar of iron, and a wall of bronze to confront all this land.” Luke’s Gospel continues directly after last week’s. Jesus announces the prophecy from Isaiah but then his audience grew angry. They noted that he was Joseph’s son and Jesus responded by telling them that “no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.” Jesus then reminded them that when Elisha was sent to a widow at Zarephath there were many other widows he did not visit. Also, there were many lepers at his time but he was only sent to cure one leper. They hustled him out of town with the intent of throwing him off a cliff but Jesus escaped the crowd.

When I was a seminarian in my early 20s I had the misfortune of spending two summers working at a day camp counselor. Trust me when I say that providing outside activities for children who wanted nothing more than to wake up late, eat junk food, and watch TV was something less than rewarding. There was an upside to this experience: all the counselors, mostly in my age group and situation, bonded. One day everyone in the camp heard another counselor, who had reached the end of her rope, scream at one of the campers: “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” While I recognized her frustration I also knew that she asked him a fairly deep question.

Last week I spoke about Luke’s account of Jesus’ recognition of his role in the salvation of the world. That reading made it sound as if Jesus was immediately recognized as the one Isaiah spoke of and that he would be universally accepted.

Not exactly. Here we see not acceptance but indignation. “This is Joseph’s son, surely?” In other words, who does he think he is? I chuckle at this because when someone is ordained a priest the absolute last place he will be assigned is his home parish and it’s not without some wisdom. No priest wants to stand in the pulpit to preach and see the neighbor who remembers the firecracker prank that went awry. Nor does he want to see a former girlfriend (or boyfriend) who remembers a humiliating break up.

But I suspect Jesus’ rejection by his townspeople goes deeper. We may claim otherwise but to some extent we all look at a person and judge their truth by how they look. How can he speak about world hunger when he is clearly obese? How can she advocate social justice when we all see her carrying a Michael Kors handbag?

Given this we can understand, at least a little, how those gathered assumed that Jesus had nothing of value to say to them.

But here’s the problem: God has little patience for the prejudices and smugness we exhibit toward each other. Unlike us, God looks beyond our petty judgements. The fact that they knew that Jesus was the son of Joseph did little more than allow them to discard his message.

Let’s face it: Jeremiah and Jesus (and the rest of the prophets) often spoke messages that make us uncomfortable. They call us to benevolence and forgiveness to people we wish to exclude. They ignore our petty justifications to keep our prejudices intact. They don’t make it easy for us.

This got me wondering about our prejudice and why we create hierarchies (always, of course, placing ourselves on the top). Sometimes we conflate education with intelligence or place of birth with worthiness (God loved me so much that he made me Irish).

But I’m amazed at how much, against all evidence, we continue to correlate intelligence/worthiness/God’s love to skin color.

Our skin color is passed down from our parents and is measured by the level of melanin in our skin and we divide skin color to different races. The more melanin we have, the darker our skin. We’ve assigned colors: Europeans are white, Africans are black, North Americans are red, South Americans are brown, and Asians are yellow. There are subtleties, but you get the point.

Until the 1500s most of our ancestors never met a person of another race. But sea travel in the 1500s changed all that. And it didn’t take long for European travelers to decided that of the races, white was on top and our ancestors didn’t much care about where everyone else fit. They were all inferior.

Gradually, in fits and spurts, we’ve come to understand that there is no inverse correlation between melanin and intelligence and I’d like nothing more than to say that we’ve conquered this prejudice. We haven’t.

I don’t wish to make today’s Gospel exclusively about race but I think it has something to teach us.

Our relationship with God, found in Scripture, tells us again and again that we should not pre-judge but instead strive to see ourselves and each other through God’s eyes. It’s not easy and belief is not for wimps, but it gives us the opportunity to see with new eyes and celebrate what we see.

Imagine what would have happened if someone, perhaps someone of influence, heard Jesus and said: “I know he’s Joe’s son and I remember him as a dopey kid, but he may be on to something. I think when he talks about how God loves the people we hate we should listen to him.”

And now let us imagine ourselves doing the same thing. We’re at a staff meeting when someone who irritates us makes a good point that will benefit the company. Our teenage child reveals a truth we hoped he wouldn’t see and we acknowledge it.

The path to God’s Kingdom may well end up where we expect but I think we are called to follow the path God laid out for us even if that path goes in directions we didn’t choose and through people we would not have chosen.

And to the question: “Who do you think you are?” the answer is this: A child of God and a disciple of Jesus.