Full sermon can be heard HERE (beg. ~10:30).
Epiphany 4C
January 30, 2022
Luke 4:21-30
INTRODUCTION
As we proceed through Epiphany, we continue to see the ways that God is revealed. Last week, it was through the Word. Today, we will see how God is revealed in sometimes very unexpected places. For example, through a young boy – Jeremiah is no more than a teenager when God calls him to the difficult life of prophecy. Yet God is revealed through Jeremiah’s inexperienced lips, because God himself puts the words there. 1 Corinthians will offer us the famous love hymn you’ve heard at countless weddings – but the patient and kind love we’ve heard so much about isn’t really about romantic love, so much as godly love that we share with our neighbor. Paul implores the Corinthian community to quit their shenanigans and love each other better.
The Gospel reading is a continuation of last week’s reading, so let’s remember where we left off: Jesus is in Nazareth, his hometown. He has just read from Isaiah about how the Spirit has anointed him to bring good news to the poor, and he’s announced that this scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing. Today we will hear the crowd’s response. At first, they are impressed. But then Jesus goes on, telling them that his mission that has impressed them so is not just for them – and he’s not just some hometown star they can tout. In fact, his mission includes outsiders, foreigners, “others.” And this? This does not impress them. In fact, they will try to throw him off a cliff! Turns out that sometimes the Gospel can be hard to accept!
As you listen, consider the unexpected ways God has shown up for you – and how you received those unexpected appearances. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I’ll be honest: I have preached a few sermons in my career that left people grumbling, even a couple that caused someone to make an appointment with me to discuss their concern. But I have never preached a sermon that caused people to run me out of town and threaten to throw me off a cliff. Am I maybe doing this wrong?
But really, joking aside, it seems like the crowd reacts pretty extremely, here. After all, helping outsiders has always been a part of their faith, so why would Jesus’ sermon infuriate them so?
The answer lies in those two stories that Jesus refers to, one about Naaman the Syrian, and one about Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. Now, some of you likely know exactly what stories he is referring to, but my guess is that most don’t. So, I want to spend some time looking at one of those stories, in particular, the story about Elijah, because it can shed some light on this story about Jesus in his hometown.
First, some backstory on Elijah. He was one of the great prophets, and he shows up during the rule of King Ahab – who was one of the very worst kings, worse than any before him. Like, he condoned child sacrifice. Who does that?? Furthermore, Israel is, as a whole, very unfaithful during this time, practicing idolatry, and King Ahab is certainly not helping that situation.
Enter Elijah. He goes to the king and says, “Dude, not cool! I’m going to put a curse on the earth: no rain for three years!” That’ll show him! God then tells Elijah how he can survive, where he can find food, and drink water from the stream. Over time, though (and I know this will shock you), the stream dries up, because no rain. Hmm, I wonder why that is?
So, God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath in Sidon, where God has ordained a widow there to take care of Elijah. (This is the part of the story Jesus mentions today.) Elijah finds the widow, and asks for water, and also some bread. This sassy, exhausted widow says, “As surely as the Lord your God lives” (notice how she does not claim this God for herself – she is a foreigner, not a woman of Israel!) she says, “I don’t have any food. In fact, I only have a handful of flour and a bit of oil, which I’m planning to make into some bread so my son and I can eat one final meal, and then die of hunger.” Yeesh, that’s dark. Elijah says, “Don’t worry, I got this. Go ahead and make that bread, but give it to me. [The gall, right??] And I promise that if you do that, then your oil and your flour will never run out!” Somehow the widow believes this stranger, and trusts this God, and sure enough, she and her son don’t go hungry, and they survive the famine.
So, to the question becomes: why would Jesus grab this delightful little story as he speaks to the people in the synagogue? After all, he was doing pretty well until then – the people were amazed, and they spoke well of him. Just what he needs at the start of his career, right? Who wouldn’t want to be in everyone’s good graces, especially in his own home town, and at the beginning of his ministry!
But no, he had to go and keep talking. “I suppose you think you’re going to get special treatment because you knew me when I was kid,” he says. “I suppose you think I should focus my attention here, take care of my own, and heal the pains of my home? Well sorry, Charlie, that’s not how the work of a prophet goes. If prophets are accepted in their hometown, they’re not really doing their job.” And that’s when he cites these two stories from Hebrew scripture, stories about when faithful people could not be found in Israel, so God sent prophets to outsiders, even to enemies. Naaman was a Syrian general – he was the bad guy, but he trusted God, and God healed him of leprosy. And the widow of Zarephath was also outside of Israel, yet she trusted God’s word, and helped this strange prophet, and was saved.
Well. This did not go over well. In fact, the people were filled with rage! So much rage that they took Jesus out to a cliff, where they planned to hurl him off!
Even with the backstory, the response may seem disproportionate. Unless…
Unless they also heard in Jesus’ words a critique. You see, going back to the Elijah story, the situation in Israel at that time, and part of the reason Elijah had brought about a three-year drought, was that there was almost no one in Israel who was worshiping God aright, abiding by God’s law. In fact, idolatry was rampant – worship of other gods, other powers, forsaking the ways of the God of Israel’s, and viewing those other gods as more worthy and powerful than the one true God. So, by bringing up that story, the people are hearing Jesus’ implicit critique: that they, too, are not living according to Torah, God’s law, not living righteously and faithfully. And that is a pretty severe jab. No wonder a prophet is not welcome in his hometown, and no wonder they want to kill him: he has just called them out on the most grievous of sins.
So, let me pause here and ask you: where are you seeing yourself in this story? Are you Elijah, speaking truth to power and calling people to faithfulness? Are you the widow of Zarephath, trusting God against all odds? Or are you, are we, by chance, the townspeople, who have certain expectations about how Jesus ought to be acting and what he ought to be doing for them, and who are, instead, being confronted with the ways they have turned their expectations of Jesus into an idol?
Yes, it’s true, we do sometimes let our own expectations of God become an idol. We look for Jesus where we expect to find him – in those comforting moments, loving moments, and supporting us in whatever choices we make – and we fail to see him calling us to greater trust, deeper faith. We ignore the moments when Jesus confronts us with our sin, preferring instead the picture we have formed of a Jesus who allows us to live pretty much like we want to, who agrees with all our viewpoints, who would vote for the same people we do and judge the same people we do. Yes, it is very convenient when Jesus is on our side in all things, isn’t it? In a way, we have domesticated Jesus, viewed him as someone who fits neatly in the box we have made for him. And this box has become our idol.
And yet this story from Luke, and the two stories Jesus refers to, show us that while God always, always loves us, that does not mean that God is always pleased with how we live our lives. This text invites us to look beyond that box we have created, to see how God is calling us out of our narrow view. When we begin to see this reality, it may fill us with rage, to be confronted with our faithlessness, but this is also an opportunity for us to turn from our idolatrous ways and find life.
And the people God uses to invite us to look beyond may be as unexpected as an enemy general, or a poor widow from a nation we dislike or are afraid of. Or a teenage boy, who is not very eloquent, but is nonetheless a prophet. Maybe the message comes to us from a politician on the opposing side, or a preacher who says something that doesn’t sit right in your gut, or from that co-worker or neighbor who really drives you up a wall. Yes, the Spirit can and has worked through all of these means to bring us closer to faithfulness, to break apart the boxes in which we keep God, to broaden our vision of what God can do in, with and for us. After all, what could be more unexpected than a cross to bring about eternal life, than the death of God’s Son to bring about life for all? And yet that is what God does, and has always done: uses death, and rage, and fears, to turn our attention toward the life that comes after death, and call us to live in that light and life.
Let us pray… God, we have often strayed from your ways, and expected you to be and act a certain way. Open our eyes to the unexpected people and ways you use to bring us back to the path. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment