Luke 4: 21–30
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Lord, may we hear your voice in the words spoken in your name. Amen.
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This morning we are back in the synagogue in Nazareth where Jesus, who
has just begun his ministry in Galilee, is preaching his first sermon
in his old hometown. And – Good Lord, the place is
jammed — as neighbors and friends of the family crowd in
to hear the hometown boy that some folks say is well on his way to
becoming a great rabbi.
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Initially everything goes well. The young man is well spoken, and
everyone is pleased, especially that he is speaking on a text they all
love – a text from Isaiah that promises that one day Messiah will
come, bringing good news to the poor, fresh sight to the blind and
release to all kinds of captives. Everyone loved that scripture
because its promises – and the changes those promises
intended – were comfortably far off in the future. But
three minutes into the sermon, the crowd’s admiration turns to
shock when Jesus says, “Today, this text has come true
in your hearing.” For that word Today wasn’t
what they were expecting to hear. Not at all.
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Looks of confusion and consternation appear on their faces. People
start nudging one another. Have they heard right? Is he
saying that he, the son of Joseph the carpenter, the kid who had
grown up in their midst, is actually Messiah? And what about
his emphasis on that word Today? Does that mean he
means to release prisoners now? Or does he mean that
they should? Is he announcing some scheme to increase
the wages of the poor? Or does he want them to do
that? No one is sure, but no one likes the sound of it either.
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You can imagine their consternation if you think how it would sound
to us if some preacher began to preach that we should cancel all student
loan debt, release all prisoners in our local jails and substantially
raise the minimum wage . . . and then
added we should do it today. I think our reactions would
be less than calm, less than serene. Flannery O’Connor once
wrote to a friend, “All human nature vigorously resists
grace — because grace changes us – and the change is
painful.” On that day in Nazareth the crowd in the
synagogue was hearing graceful words from Jesus’ lips – but
they felt threatened rather than charmed by his words, because his
words implied a sea change in their way of life.
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And then things went from bad to worse. Seeing the looks of
self–satisfaction on their faces turn suddenly to anger and
disbelief as they considered the possibility of prisoners actually
released, and debts actually forgiven, Jesus turns from reassuring
pastor to accusing prophet. And this change in the tone of
things requires a few words of explanation.
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Almost everyone wants to think of Jesus as our Prince of Peace, the one
who calms our angry storms. And Jesus did bring peace to a great
many people. He did, sometimes, calm the storm. But he also
came to launch God’s promised revolution as he brought the
Kingdom of God to this earth. And that revolution, he knew, would
require a profound change in the way people thought of things. So
with his next words in this keynote sermon, Jesus challenges the
congregation’s acceptance of the status quo, “the way
we’ve always done things.” And he does it in a very pointed
way.
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“I realize,” he says to them, “you have heard I did
some healings in Capernaum recently. And now, most likely, you
want to see the same kind of thing done here. You want to see
some evidence that I really am who I say I am. ‘Show us
some proof,’ you say. ‘Do here in our midst what
we hear you did in Capernaum.’”
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So he knows what they are thinking. But he hasn’t come to
perform some token miracle just to satisfy their curiosity. He has
come to bring the Kingdom of God to the world God made and loves, the
wider Gentile realm as well as the Jewish one. So he tries now to
expand their thinking, to help them see the Father’s mercy for the
whole world.
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He mentions their great prophet Elijah. “Remember him?”
Jesus says. “Well, think about this. When famine threatened,
Elijah wasn’t sent for help to any widow in Israel. No.
God the Father sent Elijah to a widow who lived in Zarephath in Sidon,
so she could feed him. And she was the one the prophet blessed
with a miracle.”
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“And then, of course,” Jesus adds, “there was
Elisha. There were many people in Israel in Elisha’s day who
were suffering from leprosy. But Elisha chose to heal Naaman the
Syrian – a general in the enemy’s army. What do you
make of that?”
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What the people of Nazareth made of that was that Jesus seemed to be
picking a fight with them, insulting their faith by praising Gentiles
all over the place. In fact, they were so angered by what they
took as his insults to Judaism – they responded by trying to
throw him over a cliff. And you and I, when we first read this
passage, may have made that same mistake. We may have wondered why
Jesus seemed determined to offend the hometown folk in Nazareth.
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But hindsight, as they say, is 20–20. And with benefit of
hindsight, as we recall Jesus’ ministry, we see his love for all
sorts and conditions of people — Jews, Gentiles, men, women and
children, respectable types of people and not–so–respectable
people. Was he trying to scandalize everyone? No, he was
trying to remind people of God’s love for the entire world –
not just for strictly observant Jews, but for Greeks, Romans, Cretans,
Syrophoenician and Samaritan people too. For learned rulers and
unlettered fishermen too. For smart, well–educated Pharisees
who could debate points of the Law with him and demon–possessed
people who made no sense at all. He simply welcomed every one of
them. And after his death and resurrection, his followers welcomed
them too. And that, in fact, is how the Church, the Body of
Christ, grew.
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Well, it’s easy to look back at that synagogue in Nazareth and
see all the ways they misunderstood, all the ways they got it
wrong. But we too, in our day, even with the benefit of
Jesus’ loving example, are threatened by divisions. In our
land today the divisions are racial. The divisions are
socio–economic. The divisions are political. And,
sad to say, the divisions are still religious.
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But there’s good news too. And the good news today is the
same good news that healed divisions two thousand years ago. The
good news is that we serve a God whose name is Love. And He has
never left us. His love still touches our hearts to reach across
our deep divisions and begin to heal
them. . . one life at a time.
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Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, in his book Love is the Way tells
a story of one life that loving Christians changed for good. Bishop
Curry was at a church convention in the Southwest, he says, receiving
people briefly who wanted to speak to him individually, when he noticed
one man in the line who looked different from the others. He was a
bearded man in casual clothes who towered over the others. Curry
figured he had to be 6’5”. And where everyone else in
the line was smiling and chattering, this man appeared solitary and
serious. Curry says he felt his “danger antennae” begin
to twitch.
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But when the man reached him, he immediately extended his large, open
hand. “I’m so glad that you’re my bishop and that
you’re my brother,” he said. And then he told Curry his story.
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He had grown up, he said, with a father and grandfather who called
themselves Christians but were leaders in the Ku Klux Klan. But he
left home for college and afterwards moved to a small town in Arkansas,
where he wandered into a small Episcopal church.
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As time went on, he said, he got to know the people in this little
church. He got to know them well enough to share his family
story, which was still a source of great pain to him. “They
loved me anyway,” he told Bishop Curry. “They taught
me about a God who loves unconditionally. Basically,” he
said, “They healed me.”
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That’s just one story. But it tells me what one small–town
church filled with love – a church just like All Angels — can do.
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Lord, grant us the grace to make such a difference.
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Amen.
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