Jesus Christ reveals the love of God and teaches us what love means,  St. Augustine says in a beautiful commentary on today’s reading from the first letter of John:

“You are told ‘Love God’. If you say to me ‘Show me whom I should love’, what can I say except what John says? No one has ever seen God. But you must not think yourself wholly unsuited to seeing God: God is love, says John, and whoever dwells in love dwells in God. So love whoever is nearest to you and look inside you to see where that love is coming from: thus, as far as you are capable, you will see God.

So start to love your neighbor. Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless pauper into your house. Clothe the naked, and do not despise the servants of your kin.

”What will you get from doing all this? Your light will break forth like the dawn. Your light is your God, your dawn, because he will come to you to end the night of this world — he who, himself, neither rises nor sets but is eternal.

“By loving your neighbor, by having care for your neighbor, you are travelling on a journey. Where are we journeying, except to the Lord God, whom we must love with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind? We have not yet reached the Lord, but our neighbor is with us now. So support your neighbor, who is travelling with you, so that you may reach him with whom you long to dwell.”

Today’s gospel is an interesting commentary on loving your neighbor. Jesus returns to his neighbors at Nazareth. In Luke’s gospel, they’re the first Jesus approaches with the good news of the Kingdom of God. Our reading today ends with their initial response to him:  “And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

Yet, they turned against him.

Still, Jesus came first to his neighbors.