Here is my offering for Sunday, January 28, 2006. It is based on the readings from 1 Corinthians 13 and Luke 4:21-30. My paraphrase of these scriptures is as follows:
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Though I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have prophetic powers and understand every mystery and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I give away all I possess, and though I surrender my body to be burned,but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind. Love envies not, love is not arrogant or proud. It does not act unseemly; it is not self-seeking, not easily provoked, and does not dwell on evil. It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, has faith in all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. As for prophecies, they will vanish away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to nought. For we know in part and prophesy in part, but when the complete comes, then that which is partial will pass away.
When I was I child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I put away childish ways. For now we see in a mirror obscured, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know even as I am fully known.
And now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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And [Jesus] began speaking to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it read.”
And all spoke well of him and admired the gracious words that came from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”
And he said to them, “No doubt you will tell me this proverb, Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in your hometown.”
And Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet finds approval in his own country. Moreover I tell you of a truth: many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was shut three years and six months, so that a great famine was upon all the land. Yet unto none of them was Elijah sent, only to Zarephath of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was made clean, save Naaman the Syrian.
Then all who were in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with fury. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and led him to the precipice of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could cast him down headlong. But he, passing through their midst, went on his way.
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Sermon
The people of Nazareth thought they knew Jesus.
After all, he was one of them.
He had grown up in their village.
His father was Joseph the town carpenter – a good, honorable craftsman.
But recently the townsfolk had been hearing some strange things about their native son — and they were curious.
Word had spread that Jesus was a gifted teacher as well as a healer of body and soul.
And so, on this particular Sabbath day the Synagogue was filled to capacity since it was also known that Jesus would be there.
And as the time for the service to begin crept closer, everyone in the congregation waited with baited breath to see what would happen next.
Of course, no one was surprised when the leader of the synagogue took out a sacred scroll of holy Scripture,
handed it to Jesus and invited him to read a passage.
It was customary to offer a visiting Rabbi such an opportunity.
And no one was surprised when Jesus stood to his feet,
unrolled the scroll and began reading from Isaiah,
chapter 61, verses 1 and 2, saying:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Nor was anyone surprised when Jesus rolled up the scroll,
gave it back to the worship leader and sat down.
It was, after all, standard procedure for a Rabbi to teach sitting down.
No the surprise was yet to come.
By now the Synagogue was quiet - so very quiet -
and all the people fixed their eyes on Jesus,
waiting for him to speak.
And so he did,
and at first everyone was quite impressed with what he said.
As verse 22 says: “And all spoke well of him and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.”
But then, the surprise,
for within a few short minutes,
a drastic change has occurred in the congregation’s mood and everyone there is ready to throw Jesus off a cliff outside of town.
What happened here?
How did the fair-haired hometown boy move so quickly from being a welcome celebrity to unwanted prophet?
How is that the murmurs of “That’s our boy.” turned into shouts of outrage?
Part of the problem probably lies in the fact that Jesus is in his hometown.
Now it is well-known that prophets,
even great ones, are not honored in their hometowns.
Jesus himself makes this point when he states elsewhere,
“Prophets are honored everywhere except in their own country and house.”
We should expect Jesus’ rejection in his own backyard.
People there had seen him grow up,
and because they had always known him,
they really did not respect him.
And so they cannot accept what he says.
But it is also true that what Jesus says is hard to swallow.
For the people then and for us now.
Nazareth and Pottstown are one and the same when it comes to the prophetic message of Jesus the Christ.
As long as Jesus message is positive and pleasing, fine.
And in Nazareth the words Jesus read were words of hope,
quoted directly from scripture –
proclaiming release for the captive and liberty for the oppressed -
and when we remember these folks lived in an occupied land,
oppressed by Roman soldiers,
we can easily see how pleasing they are.
And the recovering of sight for the blind. . . who could be against that?
Indeed, the people had heard of his miracles elsewhere and couldn’t wait to see some of his healing works themselves.
They were delighted to hear that God had anointed Jesus to preach good news to the poor.
After all, most of these folks were common peasants themselves,
easily poor enough to be ready to hear some good news.
And while our middle class culture could hardly be called poor,
most of us still feel the need for release from some of the things that keep us in captivity,
we are all interested in being liberated from what oppresses us,
and we could all use some good news.
So the people then were more than happy to hear that Jesus had been anointed by God to preach good news.
And most people are happy in our time to think of Jesus in the same light.
I was shopping some time ago,
and noticed that the tune being played over the speakers in the mall ceiling sounded familiar.
As I listened more closely I recognized it as a song by, of all groups,
the Doobie Brothers,
and I began to sing right along with them,
“Jesus is just alright with me. . .Jesus is just alright, Oh Yeah!”
Yes, Jesus is just alright with everybody if he comes to preach release and liberty and good news.
But go beyond that and you’ve got trouble.
Lots of people, along with those in Nazareth, wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of Jesus’ mouth,
but if those words take on flesh and we actually have to do something about what Jesus is talking about,
then Jesus’ words don’t seem so gracious anymore.
The good townspeople of Nazareth don’t care for what Jesus is saying.
In fact, they hate the implications of what they hear so much they are ready to kill the preacher.
The people of Nazareth would rather Jesus stick to working miracles and healings and such.
In fact they seem to insist that Jesus do in his own home town the miraculous things he is said to have done over in Capernaum.
And this quickly becomes another part of the problem for Jesus.
For after having heard Jesus’ claim to be anointed by God to speak as a prophet the people immediately begin to demand that he use his special relationship with God to do things for them.
“How come you went all the way over there to Capernaum to do your miracles?
What’s the matter. . .aren’t we good enough for you?
We could use some excitement around here too, you know.
Let’s bring those crowds into our town. . . they’ll be good for business.
We understand you had quite a circus going out there,
with all those healings and miracles. . .
well, let’s see your stuff, Jesus. . .”
So one problem with people who are attracted to Jesus’ claim to be anointed by God is that they tend to become demanding of him,
for their own purposes.
A self-centered narrowness emerged quickly at Nazareth,
and it is not hard to find among church going folk in our own day.
So yes, prophets are popular as long as they claim to bring special privilege to their listeners.
But prophets quickly become unpopular when they speak of special responsibilities,
and this is what ultimately brings things to a head for Jesus at Nazareth.
Now verses 25 through 27 can be confusing to modern readers unless we understand what the references to Syria and Sidon meant to the Jews who lived at Nazareth.
You see, those places were considered pagan areas,
beyond the boundaries of Israel.
The people there were thought to be gentile nobodies,
of no importance to the God whose special concern was Israel.
God was supposed to care about his chosen people, the Jews, first.
All others were considered unworthy of the divine love.
No wonder then that things exploded when Jesus reminded them that the good news about God’s love was as much for the gentiles and the pagans as it was for them.
In response to their demands,
Jesus tells the people in the synagogue that there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah,
when there was a great famine,
but God only sent Elijah out of Israel to a widow living in pagan Sidon.
And as if this example was not enough, Jesus continues.
He tells the crowd,
“There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha,
but God chose to heal Namaaan, the Syrian, another foreigner,
and even worse, an enemy, of his leprosy.”
And by reminding them of these two pieces of scripture history,
Jesus is telling them that God’s love is not limited to those who think they are more important than others.
Indeed, the proud and demanding can actually shut themselves off from God’s love.
And so here we have the hometown boy who claims to be anointed a prophet by God.
But this prophet is not coming home to proclaim special privilege for his neighbors in Nazareth,
but rather to call them to recognize God’s love for people everywhere,
even the pagan peoples whom they despise,
even their enemies, like the Syrians of old,
or even in their own time, the hated Romans.
At it is here that the objections begin.
I mean Jesus can’t seriously be suggesting that we are to treat those different from ourselves and even our enemies the way God treats them, can he?
He can’t really want us to love them as God loves us.
I mean it is hard enough to affirm love within the family.
It is even harder to widen the circle and affirm love in our communities and nation.
But then there comes this disturbing prophet who calls for love beyond Nazareth.
There is this voice that mentions the unmentionable places and people,
the Sidons and Syrias of our own prejudices,
and love becomes a problem -
which is to say that Jesus becomes a problem - an unwanted prophet.
Jesus tells us that God loves these outsiders,
these strangers,
these needy ones.
He tells us that the good news is for them too,
and that God’s help and healing extends to those beyond the bounds of our caring.
That was the message which so disturbed the people of Jesus’ hometown.
The people of Nazareth who first greeted Jesus with “Amen!”
finally yelled, “Kill him!” because he painfully reminded them of what they knew,
namely that God is free, alive, gracious,
and way beyond any bounds we may try to set for him.
The worshipers at Nazareth knew that God had blessed an undeserving outsider through Elijah’s ministry,
and they knew that God had cured a Syrian terrorist through Elisha,
but it was a lot more than they wanted to know,
and they certainly did not come to church on that January morning to be reminded that God refused before to play by the rules and might well refuse to play by our rules again.
So what to do?
I’ll tell you what they wanted to do:
Get rid of the young rabbi and prophet, that’s what!
And though Jesus got away from the angry worshipers that first time in Nazareth, he did not escape for good.
When he’d finally let in too many outsiders,
eaten with too many sinners and blurred the boundaries once too often,
the crowds that had once shouted “Hosanna” eventually called out for Jesus’ blood.
With cross and nails they finally shut him up,
but not before he cried out,
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Like Elijah, like Elisha and like Jeremiah,
the prophet Jesus was a troubler of Israel’s ignorance
but it was not the kind of ignorance to be relieved by a trip to the local library or by earning this or that degree.
Jesus troubled the people of his hometown because he told them something they already knew,
though they would have preferred to forget it.
And this has always been true of real prophets.
Martin Luther King, Jr. did not come preaching something new,
he came shouting something we already knew,
“You have said in your own Declaration of Independence,
`We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,
and are endowed with certain inalienable rights.’
And I insist, that you either live by what you already know -
or else be unfaithful to your own Constitution.”
And we killed him, because King told us what we already knew.
Will Willimon tells a story about one person’s reaction to a sermon of his.
He writes:
I had just preached as best I could on Matthew’s story of the Laborers in the Vineyard, you know, the parable about how some workers came early, some came mid-day, some came late,
and at the end of the day, they all were paid the same wage.
Congregation files out.
She lingered behind.
“Where do you get these stories?” she asked.
“From growing up in South Carolina, I guess,” I replied.
“Well, I was troubled by your sermon today,” she said.
“What troubled you?” I asked, in my usual non-defensive defensiveness.
“I just don’t think that’s fair.
I believe that people ought to be paid fairly for the work they do and I….”
“Wait!” I said. “That story is not original with me.
That’s from Matthew.”
“Matthew?” she asked.
“Yea, Matthew. Like in the Bible?”
“Oh, sure, the Bible.”
“You’ve never heard that story before?
What is your religious background?” I asked,
just praying to God she wouldn’t say, “Methodist.”
She had not gone to church much, a bit as a kid, that’s all.
“You know,” I said, “I almost envy you.
I have just preached a perfectly outrageous story and hundred of people have filed out and told me it was a nice sermon.
In a way, you are the only one that got it,
the only one to understand.
Just for your information,
the man who told that story was killed for telling it.
Just after he told that story we got organized and killed him.
You, of all people, got it.”
As another preacher has said:
Of all the prophets ever slain in Israel, America or anywhere else,
God raised this one, this healer of gentiles and friend of sinners,
so we might know that God has forgiven everything, and continues to do so even today.
Despite everything, God is patient and kind toward us, not irritable or resentful.
God laughs not at our weaknesses, but rejoices over the truth that we are all God’s children.
For each and for all of us, God bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
His love never ends.
God’s love never ends.
Not for us,
not for anyone, period.
And we are called to show that same love to everyone, everywhere, and anytime . . . regardless of who they are or what they have done.
And if this news doesn’t upset you at least a little bit,
then you probably haven’t been listening.
Lewis Pitts is a lawyer and a Christian.
Since graduating law school he has been involved in poverty law, radical law, and he goes all over the place to defend people without money or friends.
He has defended communists against the Klan,
Native Americans against the sheriff,
blacks against blacks or whites.
In an old car,
living from hand to mouth,
death threats an almost everyday occurrence.
What makes him do it?
When he was asked what had turned him into a radical lawyer with no money and very few friends,
this was what he said,
“God is love and we ought to love others.”
“That’s it?,” someone protested, “but that’s not really saying enough.”
“It’s enough to get you shot.” Lewis said, and then he added,
“Look, I’m from Bethune, SC,
and when you’re a Methodist from Bethune you don’t learn much theology except what you can pick up in Sunday school.
All I learned was God is love and we ought to love others.”
And so he does.
He loves as God loves.
He loves as Jesus loves.
And that, my friends, is enough to get you shot.
It’s enough to get you crucified.
Just ask that young preacher and prophet from Nazareth.
Ask him and see what he says.
Go ahead, ask him.
I dare you.
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