When I was in my 20s, I spent eight months working at a non-profit on Central American issues in Washington, DC. I went one time to a meeting on Capitol Hill in one of the office rooms. As the meeting went on, a slender woman smartly dressed with dark hair came and sat down next to me. The woman asked me some questions about the event as she tried to get a good view. I was a bit annoyed because I thought this woman arrived rather late. I gave her a rather curt reply to her questions. She stayed a little longer and then got up from her seat and left.
When the meeting ended, a young woman who worked at another non-profit came up to me rather excited. “Did you know who you were sitting next to?” I nodded that I didn’t know. “That was Bianca Jagger!”
I sat next to the former wife of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger. The Nicaraguan-born former actress was also involved in human rights issues taking place in her native Nicaragua and the rest of Central America, so it would make sense that she would show up to this event. But I didn’t know any of this. I just thought she was a pushy well-to-do woman when she was so much more.
Jesus has the opportunity to speak to a hometown audience in Nazareth. You might think that Jesus would be welcomed in his hometown and that there would be pride at the things they heard about him. But instead of praise and pride, Jesus got rejection. They townsfolk thought they knew Jesus. They knew he was a carpenter, just like his Dad. They knew he was Mary’s boy. They knew his brothers and sisters. They thought they knew him.
And yet they didn’t. They didn’t see that Jesus was much more than the hometown kid from Nazareth. They didn’t realize that he might be something more.
God and the things are of God are not always so visible. Sometimes God blends into the scenery, hard to find. It means that we must keep our eyes- and our hearts- open to what God has to say.
We learn that because the people didn’t believe, Jesus couldn’t perform any miracles there. The people missed out, not because God was punishing them, but because they couldn’t see where God was active.
I pray that I will always be on the lookout for God, waiting to see where and how God will show up. May that be your prayer as well.
And if I ever see Bianca Jagger again, I promise to be a lot nicer.
The Clockwork Pastor 
You recently wrote a blog piece titled, “Hillary Clinton Can’t Blame Michigan’s Governor For Flint’s Water” on The Federalist. You wrote, “the day after the City Council vote, Detroit Water said it would end its contract with Flint in one year. This meant the city had to figure out what to do for water in that intervening year. ”
I think that you are incorrect. From http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/01/michigan_truth_squad_who_appro.html:
“Here’s the problem with that: City officials did not drive the decision to take water from the Flint River. There was never such a vote by the city council, which really didn’t have the power to make such a decision anyway, because the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager.
The council’s vote in March 2013 was to switch water supply from Detroit to a new pipeline through the Karegnondi Water Authority – but the pipeline wasn’t scheduled to be completed for at least three years. (And even that decision was given final approval not by the council, but by then-state Treasurer Andy Dillon, according to Snyder emails released Wednesday.)
Snyder said that Detroit, after being informed of the Flint council vote, sent a “letter of termination” of water service. Detroit sent a letter giving Flint one year on its existing contract, but that didn’t mean Flint couldn’t get water from Detroit after that date. In fact, there was a flurry of negotiations between Detroit and Flint to sign a new contract that would carry Flint through until it could connect to the under-construction pipeline. That new contract was going to cost Flint more money.