c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

INDIANAPOLIS _ My hometown has a hundred “memory lanes” for me. I turn a corner, a memory clicks, and I see a moment, a person, an encounter.

The longer I live elsewhere, the more faded my childhood memories become, and the more I see recent events, like a New Year’s Eve concert on Monument Circle, old friends reborn as grown-ups, family gatherings and forays into the new suburbs north of Indianapolis.

These encounters don’t stir nostalgia as much as recognition. Even though this dynamic city has doubled in size since I went to school here and its downtown has sprung vigorously to life, I can still find my way around and sometimes even feel at home.

I am aware of having changed. I am no longer the 17-year-old boy who left a happy childhood and took a train east to college. I am no longer the young newspaper reporter who sailed into town in his green MGC convertible, or the young pastor who brought his bride to Indiana after seminary, or the young father who walked his babies down to the Dairy Queen for the one treat we could afford.

Eighteen years ago I left Indiana for good and continued the pilgrimage that has made me who I am today. Good times and hard times, discoveries both joyful and painful, succeeding and failing, developing new skills, nurturing a marriage and raising three sons, changing careers, dreaming and worrying _ through all of that I have become a new creation.

Because I write, I know my voice. Even though I don’t come here to preach or to proclaim, but to visit family, I know that if I did speak, it would sound different from yesterday’s voice.

I think of Jesus returning to his home region of Galilee after a sojourn in other parts. There is so much we don’t know about his time away. Had he gone to the Jordan to become a disciple of John the Baptist and there discovered that it was he, not John, who had been anointed as Messiah? How searing and transforming was his time in the wilderness with Satan? In returning to Galilee now, was he fleeing those who had arrested John?

One thing is clear: Jesus returned with a new voice. He had a new message about the time of Israel’s waiting being fulfilled, about God’s kingdom breaking into their settled lives, and about its being time for people to change their minds and to believe in “the good news.”

That new voice startled the people of Nazareth. They were prepared to respect this young rabbi, granting him the right to speak in their synagogue, but when he spoke, he offended. When Jesus called disciples, they were pleased to follow him, but when he spoke, he offended. When Jesus took his word to other regions, they were eager for miracles, but when he spoke, he offended. Even his eventual accusers were prepared to grant him release, but when he spoke, he offended.

Only a few could hear the voice of Jesus and rejoice. Those tended to be the downtrodden and excluded, who had nothing to lose, not the powerful and prosperous, who thought they had much to lose.

Even today, hearing that voice isn’t a simple matter. We arrange the sayings and parables as pastel icons along memory lane, but then they break free and stun us with their power and perplexity. We fit Jesus nicely into our liturgies and theologies, but then he speaks his own voice and we are startled. We find safe corners where we can sing cheerful hymns and enjoy a pleasant sacrament or two, but then the laments and exultations of our hearts burst forth and our needs propel us far beyond reciting a familiar ritual.

For we are changing, the voice is changing, the world around us is changing, nothing stands still, especially not the love and grace of God. We can build our churches of sturdy stone, but the holy ground we walk is the pavement under our restless feet. And the one who walks with us cannot be frozen on memory lane. He must be free to offend.

DEA END EHRICH