Luke 4: 21-30;
I Cor. 13
The
great theologian John Prine sings, “I just got kicked off Noah’s Ark. There was two of
everything but just one of me.” I imagine
Jesus must have felt a lot like that. It was not just who he was but what he
said that seemed to leave him on the outside looking in. A couple of weeks ago
we talked about John’s gospel introducing Jesus to the community through a
wedding. Mary uses the powers of motherhood to have Jesus reveal his authority.
Luke uses a different setting. The son of Joseph was asked to read the Torah at
the local Synagogue.
Imagine
how proud the parents must have felt. Imagine how impressed the Rabbi must have
been when Jesus selected a favorite passage from Isaiah.
The spirit of
the Lord is upon me,
because God has
anointed me
to bring good
news to the poor,
to proclaim
release to the captives,
recovery of
sight to the blind,
to let the
oppressed go free,
and proclaim
the year of the Lord’s favor.
I
imagine his grammar school teacher beamed when he did not mispronounce a word.
Folks marveled when Jesus slowly and carefully enunciated each phrase. The
community rose as one acknowledging what a great job they had done raising this
child of a carpenter. Some suggested
Jesus should head to Jerusalem
to enroll in rabbinical school. Certainly he was destined for greatness.
Then
Jesus, for the first of many times to follow, gets himself kicked off the ark.
He added one sentence to his reading of the text. “Today this scripture has
been fulfilled in your hearing.” The
Rabbi ran forward to inspect the scroll. He couldn’t remember those words
anywhere in the ancient text. His teacher put her head down thinking to
herself, “He always seemed a little too full of himself.” His next door
neighbor spoke loudly enough for all to hear, “Who does he think he is? I’ve
known him since he was a boy. This is no messiah. He isn’t even a very good
carpenter.” Then Jesus spoke a second time, “No prophet is accepted in his
hometown.”
I
don’t care if you are living in the time of Jesus or in the year 2013 it is one
thing to acknowledge a problem and something altogether different to decide to
do something about it. Let me make this
point by bringing up a current hot button issue. Everyone, excuse the pun, is
up in arms about gun control. Recent tragedies have created conversations
ranging from banning bullets to arming school teachers. I am sure each of you
has an opinion. I’m equally sure if I used this pulpit to express my opinions
many of you would be less than pleased with my words. And that is exactly what
happened to Jesus.
Quoting
Isaiah, Jesus proclaimed in the year of Jubilee all the poor would be elevated,
all the prisons emptied, and all the oppressed liberated. Now any good Jew was well aware of the Year of
Jubilee. It was an event that
theoretically happened every fifty years resulting in the forgiveness of debts
and the release of slaves. Of course that part was never observed. The year was
celebrated and a lot of parties were attended. But slavery and debt remained
pretty much intact.
Jesus,
this son of a carpenter, stood up in the middle of church and had the audacity
to declare he was going to prove there really was a Santa Claus. He was going
to bring about a new age for all people that would no doubt wreck the existing
status quo. The congregation, most of whom were hopelessly in debt and
certainly enslaved by Pax Romana were incensed
by his words. They leapt to their feet, and had every intention of throwing Jesus
off a cliff.
Jesus
had the boldness to take an old narrative and replace it with a new song. His
neighbors loved to sit in the synagogue and tell stories of God creating the
earth, of God’s liberating acts in Egypt,
of God guiding the hand of David when facing a giant, of God bring fire on Mount Carmel, and of God one day sending a messiah. But
they were unable to imagine God stepping into their narrative and transforming
their world. I think the folks in Nazareth
were a bit put off by the suggestion that the God whom they had come to know
and love had become a God whose scope and concern was not limited to a select
few. Jesus’ insistence that God’s intentions were bigger than just a few
Israelites caught them a bit off guard.
I
don’t believe we suffer from this delusion. I can not imagine you folks wanting
to limit the scope of God’s mercy and grace to just a handful of folks. That
said, I still think there are things God has planned for humanity that might be
a shock to our system. Imagine the response if one day a person identifying himself as Jesus stepped
up from the congregation, read the scripture and then followed with a few off
the cuff comments. Would we jump to our
feet and follow him? Would we shake our heads and just pass it off as another
unusual day at Rockfish? I would like to
think we wouldn’t carry him up to Humpback and push him off the edge. Hopefully
we would have the courage to ask, “OK, that sounds really interesting, but how
are you going to pull it off?”
I
think the answer is as simple and as complex now as it was when Jesus really
did walk this earth. What is it that
Jesus has that should draw us to him? Is he smart? I would venture to suggest his
IQ was off the charts. Does he understand the mysteries of the universe? I
suspect that goes without saying. Does he have the power to move mountains? He
certainly has the power to move the hearts and minds of anyone he meets. He fed
the poor, healed the sick, cured the lame, and told stories we still tell to
our children. All of that is amazing but
it was not enough, if one element was missing.
The
Apostle Paul wrote, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do
not have love, I am nothing more than a noisy gong. If I have prophetic powers,
all knowledge and the faith to move mountains but not have love, I am as
nothing.” Paul wasn’t describing himself. He was speaking about the one who
brings good news to poor, not as a sociological experiment but because of love.
Paul was speaking of the one who would release the captives, not as an exercise
in prison reform but because of love. Paul was speaking of the one who gave
sight to our hearts and freedom to our oppressed souls. Paul was speaking of the one who personified
the words, “Love bears all things; hopes all things; believes all things;
endures all things.”
Long
before the words of Emma Lazarus were engraved on the Statue of Liberty, Jesus loved
“the tired, huddled masses.” Sometimes the cost for such behavior caused Jesus
to be taken to the crest of a hill. Initially he walked away from the crowds. The
last time he didn’t. This was his everlasting gift of love.
This
is the gift that brings us to the table. For when we take the bread, we confess
the love of God. When we sip of the cup, we confess the love of God. When we
share the gift together, we remember the love of God.
And
then we become….. the body of Christ,
we
become…… the words of Christ,
we
become …….the love of Christ,
for
everyone,
even
if sometimes it takes us to the edge of our cliff.
Amen.
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