Preaching text: Luke 4:21-30
In West Virginia synod where I grew up and also served my first call, there is a program to help out pastors who want to take time off for illness or vacation. It trains interested lay people in how to lead worship and preach, since there are not very many retired clergy to fill those roles as there are here in LSS. I was one of those people prior to entering seminary to become a pastor myself and I would often supply at congregations in my home town of Charleston. That included my own home congregation at St. Paul.
Now I don’t think it’s any secret to anyone that I’m a fairly opinionated person. I feel very passionately about many different things. My home congregation was a very troubled place for many years, with frequent infighting among members, hostility towards the bishop and their own pastors. I was tired of it. I loved my home church; it was also one of the things I was very passionate about. Like we often do, I wanted it to last forever. So when I was given an opportunity to preach there, I wanted to show them a different way. The way of the Gospel. The way of loving one another as Jesus taught us.
I got up in that pulpit and I preached what I thought was a great sermon. I called the congregation to repentance, to embrace love and tolerance instead of hate and discord. Of course, I was a novice preacher at that point, so whatever I intended may not have been what came across. But in the end, I don’t think it mattered. At the end of the service, I was swarmed with praise from the membership. But it wasn’t about what I preached. It was all about how wonderful it was that their little boy was all grown up now.
I could have read the phone book and probably gotten the same response.
I always remember that moment when I read this text from Luke’s Gospel. Jesus, just like I did, had come home. His home synagogue. His home village. He gets up in the pulpit (or whatever equivalent 1st century synagogues have) and reads Isaiah 61 and then preaches a one line sermon: “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Now, as I pointed out last week, that passage from Isaiah can be very troubling, even threatening. Prisoners set free? The poor given justice? A reversal of the social order. But that seems to have gone over the heads of the congregation that day. All that seemed to matter to them was that their little boy was all grown up and reading scripture and preaching in his home town. I remember when he was yay-high and look at him now. Sniff. We’re all so proud!
Jesus could have read the phone book and probably gotten the same response.
Jesus, however, is never one to leave well enough alone. He provokes the synagogue crowd and gives them a picture of exactly what he means in this scripture reading. The benefits of God’s grace will no longer be simply for the descendants of Israel alone, but also to people like the Widow of Zarephath or Naaman the Syrian. Grace will spread. God’s love will be for “those people” too.
Now technically, God’s love was already there for those people. That’s why those two miracles from the Old Testament happened. And the Old Covenant is very clear. Abraham is being blessed so that he and his can be a blessing for the whole world. That’s what being the Chosen people was all about. It’s not some sort of elitist privilege. It was a means and a mechanism by which God could bless everyone.
But that’s not often what we want to hear. We want to believe that God loves us and us alone. Our people. Our kind of people. The sin of the synagogue in Nazareth is hardly unique to them. It’s our sin, our belief that God should and does belong only to us, his special ones. His Church. His new chosen nation. His new chosen people. He’s ours and ours alone.
When Jesus challenges this, the people of the synagogue go from effusive to hostile in the blink of an eye. They aren’t even willing to wait for Golgotha; they try to kill him that very day. Jesus evades them and continues his ministry, but this is hardly the last time Jesus offends by reminding everyone that God’s love is a love that embraces the outsider.
And what about us? If anything, modern society has broadened the list of “those people.” Whether by sexual orientation or race or religion or economic status or political allegiance or whatever, our list of outsiders is long indeed. Are they welcome here in God’s house? Do we see ourselves, those grafted onto the chosen people of the Old Covenant, as being here to bless them? To be a blessing for them? Are we even comfortable with those questions? I’m not.
The promise of Christ was always a universal promise. He was indeed here to bring good news and justice and liberty. Freedom from sin and death and it was to be for ALL people. It was for you and for me and for all of those outside these walls who are looking for meaning, purpose, and acceptance of who and what they are. Human society has never been good about that. The church, for its part, is meant to buck that trend. Because here, no matter who or what you are, you are loved. You are precious. You are worth dying for. Because that’s what Jesus did for you.
The kingdom of God has not yet come in its fullness. But we are to model it for the world. Each one of us questions at times our worthiness. There are times when we wonder if we are “those people” or would be if others knew the whole story. It doesn’t matter. God loves you. God accepts you. God died and rose again for you. As the door has been opened for you, will you in turn open it for others? That’s what Jesus asks each of us. That’s what this whole episode in Nazareth was about.
Because the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. And it calls us to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Amen and amen.
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