A MESSAGE FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
(a link to a worship service including this message on the YouTube channel is found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srRoLCUDeeE&t=19s)
Prayer of the Day:
Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
Luke 4:21-30
21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” 24And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
We have before us today part two of the lesson that began last week. Last week we had Jesus’ sermon to the people of his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. Today we have their response or really two responses. Jesus’ approach to this moment, to this day, has been from his baptism.
He was baptized and, as he came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord descended upon him, and he was declared the beloved Son of God. He then preached in the synagogues in Galilee and his reputation built until he came into his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, where he had grown up.
He had taken a scroll from Isaiah and read the words of the declaration of the coming Jubilee, when the oppressed would find relief, the blind would see, the captive would go free, the poor would hear good news. And then, as the first verse of our passage says today, he sat down in the posture of teaching in the synagogue and said, “Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jubilee fulfilled! It was wonderful. It would have been joyous, and the people's response was, well, good. All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph's son?” A good reaction. Most preachers would love this reaction. All spoke well. All were amazed. That's good.
This question seems to be one where this reaction kind of hinges. “Is this not Joseph's son?” It is one of those passages where it is hard to know the tone of voice. Even in reading it I have to give it a tone of voice and I am not sure which one to give. There was, of course, the mystery of Jesus’ conception and birth. We have not been given any indication that Mary and Joseph were held in any kind of derision. But you know there is some suspicion. Or, when they asked that question, was the tone one of familiarity? We know him. He grew up here. Or it could just be curiosity. He is really good. He grew up here? When was the last time Nazareth produced a Rabbi who taught like this?
It does seem that Jesus perceived something in the question because, amid their really good reaction, it was Jesus that provoked them, kind of poked at them. We need to remember that they knew Jesus and, well, Jesus knew them as well. Jesus was aware of them. Jesus had grown up around them and it could very well be that he knew something that was not immediately apparent to us.
He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb: ‘Doctor, cure yourself’. And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” It is a poke, right? The first proverb is a bit of a mysterious. What was it intended to mean? Other than maybe it was a local saying that kind of anchored it that way. But to do in his hometown the things he had done in Capernaum, well, that sounds like a bit of jealousy. Remember he had been in those synagogues in Galilee, and we are not told of miracles but clearly it was a part of what Jesus did and they were his hometown. He grew up there. Shouldn't he be doing those things among them? Where he grew up?
Jesus went on to say, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over the land, yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. A Gentile. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha and none of them were cleansed except for Naaman the Syrian. A Gentile.
Now, there is a difficult tradition about this part of the passage that says the Jew/Gentile
distinction here is a part of the teaching that leads to a rather anti-Semitic trope about all this. That is not what Jesus was doing here. It was not that the Gentiles were better than the Jews or that the Jews were better than the Gentiles or that anybody was being replaced by anybody. And so much of this was in their own tradition, in their own scriptures. It was this wideness of the mercy of God.
So, I think what was partly going on here was a kind of sense of entitlement that Nazareth has. They were Jesus’ hometown. We should somehow be favored. But it was not going to happen, mostly because no one was going to be favored in that way. If anyone was favored, it was the
Poor, the oppressed, the captive, the outcast. Jesus was declaring his mission here, that it was going to cast an extremely wide net.
When they first heard this, all in the synagogue were amazed. Not now. When they heard the rest, all in the synagogue were filled with rage, so much rage that they took him to the edge of town, to a cliff, and sought to throw him over the cliff. They wanted to kill him, this hometown boy in his hometown synagogue.
Perhaps Jesus had discerned them pretty accurately. The message Jesus brought was not going to be exclusive. If they expected some special treatment because they were Jesus’ hometown, they were going to be disappointed. Anybody who thought that they would receive special treatment from Jesus would be disappointed. Jesus would go to all. It was one of the things that got him in trouble in his earthly ministry. Anybody who invited him over for supper, he would say Yes. Tax collector? Yes. A Pharisee? Yes. He would not turn down an opportunity to spend time with someone, to encounter someone, to change someone.
This got him in trouble. He was associated with the wrong people. And the only people who were upset about that were people that thought they should be favored. That was not how Jesus was going to work. Everyone was favored in the eyes of Jesus. Everyone. When Jesus died on the cross, he did not die for the select few. He died for everyone. This was good news.
By the way, we might think sometimes that we should get favorable treatment. Where is our entitlement? And we need to recognize it is not going to be there. Jesus loves us, yes. Jesus adores us, yes. But the love of God, the love of Jesus, the compassion and mercy of God is not a pie. If someone gets a big chunk, it does not mean everybody else gets less. God's love, God's mercy, God's compassion, God's favor, is limitless. There is plenty for everyone and more besides.
This should be celebrated. And it certainly should not cause anyone to throw the preacher off a cliff!
God has come to us in Jesus with unlimited favor and we as God's people are called to bring that favour out there. Limitless favour.
Amen.
Be safe. Be well. God bless you all.
Pastor Greg
