Today
David C. Myers
January 31, 2010
Luke 4:14 - 30
Text: 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?" . . .
They got up, drove Him out of 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." . . . Luke 4:22, 29
In his poem, "Death of the Hired Man" (1904), Robert Frost said, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." I'm here to tell you that despite what Robert Frost said, it's not always easy to go home.
Jesus, shortly after He was baptized and had spent time in the wilderness being tempted, returns to the region know as Galilee to go back to His hometown to preach. He receives rave reviews - until He starts a-meddlin'.
It's tough to preach in your hometown. I recall Student Recognition Sundays while I was in college. Three years running, I would return to Orono, Maine from my studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College during Christmas vacation and deliver the sermon for Student Recognition Sunday. The first two years I actually thought people were interested in hearing what I, one of their own and commonly known to be studying to be a minister, would have to say.
But the only comments my parents and I heard were, "Is this not Carl and Becky's boy - how they must be proud." "First in his family to go to college, and seems to be learning something, too!"
The third year was different. That year I was eager to put my "expert" social analytical skills to work. After all, as a college junior I had just completed courses in Sociology and Social psychology. For my sermon I purposely decided to expose the hypocrisy of my own local church, telling the good people that they were only using the church as "a rung on the social ladder to success" and not really doing the mission of the church. You see I was trying - oh, was I trying - to be a prophet in my own hometown.
One woman liked it, but she was always a bit of a rebel in that church. Everyone else sort of winced uncomfortably when they shook my hand at the end of the service. I don't blame them.
I was heard all right. I now take notice of the fact that I was only asked to preach three years in an otherwise 4-year college career. I now have a great deal of sympathy for my parents and the members of the Orono United Methodist Church, particularly in the aftermath of my preaching venture of 1969.
I had a chance to redeem myself in the summer of 1991 (some 22 years later), when the Myers' clan gathered for a family reunion in Orono, Maine. I took a slightly different tact with my message, but the most significant comment my children remember hearing that day was, "Oh, I can remember when little Davey was in Sunday school."
I hate it when people call me Davey!
My only consolation was that it wasn't much different for Jesus.
"Is not this Joseph's son?!"
In your hometown your identity is never quite your own; it always comes through your parents, or remembrances of your childhood. When I returned to Orono in 1991 I had been forgiven; but I was remembered through my parents. "I used to change your diapers," was one of the comments one of my mother's friends said to me. Do you know what that does to the ego of a then 43-year old preacher?
Jesus had left Nazareth as a boy, perhaps even as a budding carpenter; but he returned home baptized by John. He was no longer a carpenter's son, but a preacher, a teacher, a healer. His reputation grew, and word of His ministry preceded Him back to Nazareth, His hometown. And when He returned, Luke tells us, "He was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit."
He would need it.
Oh, everything started out all right at first. He went to the synagogue and was asked to read the appointed text from the prophet Isaiah. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has sent me to announce good news to the poor, release to the prisoners, sight to the blind . . ."
Words of hope. Words of promise. Familiar words to the people of the synagogue.
Things were not easy in Nazareth. It was a small community without an abundance of wealth. There is more than anecdotal evidence that Nazareth was one of the forgotten places of Israel. So Jesus' words of hope and promise sounded good to all who heard Him. And then Jesus said, "Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Douglas Meeks formerly of Eden Seminary, then Wesley Seminary and later at Vanderbilt Divinity School rightly states, I believe, that this was Jesus' only sermon - the rest of His teachings were just further elaborations on this passage. Furthermore, Meeks says, the only thing new in this teaching from Jesus on the Isaiah text is just one word - "today". "Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." The Kingdom is present today. Not tomorrow. Not someday. The word to the Nazareth congregation and to the entire church is "today".
And Luke's Gospel tells us, "All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph and Mary's Son?"
However, it's one thing to read Scripture, it's quite another to understand it. Two points on what it means to have the Scripture fulfilled in your hearing, . . . "today".
1.) The first is the concept that no one country, one people or one religion is the chosen people of God, rather everyone is the chosen of God!
Jesus helped the people understand the meaning of the words of the prophet Isaiah with the stories of Elijah and Elisha. And familiar stories they were to the Jews. You see, Jesus didn't tell them anything they didn't already know. That's not the task of a prophet. Prophet's don't tell us anything new, rather they remind us of what we already know. The Jews in Nazareth at the synagogue were being confronted by Jesus with what they already knew, stories they probably taught to Him in His religious training. Familiar stories. But when totally understood, they were very disturbing stories, for they changed the boundaries of faith. What Jesus did was to bring them face to face with their own Scriptures and consciences. He reminded them of their great prophets.
Elijah, the greatest of all the prophets, did not help the widows in Israel, but rather a widow in Zarepath near Sidon - in other words, a Gentile. And Elisha did not cure the lepers that lived in Israel but he healed Namaan, the commander of the Syrian army. And if there was ever a concept of the enemy, the Syrians were it. This illustration is more than being nice to a Gentile, using the Syrians was an illustration of the enemy receiving God's favor. Being a chosen people took on new significance - no longer were just the Israelites the chosen; now everybody was chosen by God, even the enemy.
When much of your religious upbringing is spent establishing that you are a chosen people, having your favored son remind you that your most revered prophet showed demonstrably that God does not show partiality - that can cause, . . . well, a crisis in faith! Quite literally all that you have believed is like the proverbial rug, "swept out from under your feet!" And so the Nazareans, both hearing, and knowing what was said, reacted in anger and tried to throw Jesus off a cliff.
No longer were they dealing with Joe and Mary's boy, the carpenter's son; now they were dealing with Jesus, the Son of God. And God was holding them accountable for all aspects of their faith, not just the convenient ones. Jesus was pushing the boundaries of their faith.
God still does. And let's own up to it, our social and cultural upbringing has imparted its subtle and effective message that we Americans are a superior people. "La crème de la crème."
It's difficult when we hear that our God does not show partiality, that God does not favor one people over another. However, today we need to affirm and grow in our understanding of God's work for God's chosen people. For us this would include all the people who attend and visit us and the wide varieties of worship and beliefs - expressions of faith from Korea, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean countries, from Eastern Europe, in Asia. For today is proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord; not just to us, but also to all people.
It is good for us to remember that God shows no partiality.
2.) The second point about what it means to have the Scripture fulfilled in your hearing - today - is how we live out our faith. And what it means, as Jesus goes on to spell it out, is that God's activity in the human arena is not just a memory. Nor is religion and faith just worshipping God, studying and learning about God, singing great hymns and doing a lot of praying - as good as all that might be. Only as the Scripture is fulfilled in our midst - today, are we doing God's will.
To put it another way, one of the most fundamental of Judiastic beliefs is that without Messianic signs, there is no Messiah. Until we see that good news is preached to the poor, the sick are healed, the prisoners released, and the blind can see, there is no reality or presence of the Messiah.
Today God will give rest to the weary and the heavy-laden.
Today those who are persecuted for their faith across our globe shall know of God's realm.
Today the peacemakers will be called children of God.
Today the naked are clothed, the hungry are fed, and the lonely are visited.
And today the oppressed are given release and set free.
But let us be sure what it means to be oppressed.
While I was in seminary I attended a Consultation on White Racism. We clergy-in-training (mostly liberal) white males were feebly struggling to understand, and at the same time resist, the dynamics of white racism. I now take pity on those leaders. There is nothing quite as difficult as white liberal clergy seminarians coming to grips with something they deny they are.
But these leaders were up to the task. At one point the leaders called five of us husky, athletic types into the center of the room. Then they called on one of the black leaders to come forward. We were told to physically hold the black man down. No matter what else we were asked to do, we were instructed to hold him down. At the same time the black leader was instructed to struggle for his freedom.
Well, we were able to hold him down - but with great difficulty. And while we did this, one of us was asked by the consultant to come and talk with him. As he started to leave, the black man started to break free. The revelation was how restricted we were while holding him down. As long as we held him down restricting his freedom, we had no freedom.
It became quite clear to me - as long as there is oppressor and oppressed neither can be free. Not only would the oppressed be held down, but so also would the oppressor. The oppressor would be restricted by the energy it takes to hold the oppressed down.
The lesson, I believe, applies to the world as well. As long as we perpetuate political and economic institutions, societies, cultures, and countries that maintain there will be haves and have-nots, all stand in need of liberation - the oppressor as well as the oppressed. Until the chains of injustice are broken no one is free - not the rich, not the poor, not the oppressed, not the oppressor.
Today!, said Jesus, "this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." "Today" the signs of the Messiah are present in your midst.
When the Scriptures are not just a memory, but a reality of how we live - there are ramifications. What is it like to suddenly be set free? What is it like to suddenly no longer be an oppressor? What it is like to realize God's favor is no longer for just the chosen few, but for all people, even your enemies?
Today! our task is not only to clothe, feed, house, and heal, but today our task is also to change the structures of power that exist in the world so that our acts of charity are less needed.
Well, . . . what will we do with this message? Will we be like the Nazareans? Their admiration for Jesus was not long-lived, they wanted to throw Him off a cliff.
It is so easy to discount the familiar. They knew this preacher. "Isn't that Joseph's and Mary's boy? "We know his family. He grew up here. He's one of us. How can God do something special in someone we know?"
In the next two or three years there would be many reasons to discount Jesus, to ignore Him. "He ate and drank with sinners." He was from the country, and "What good can come out of Nazareth?" He didn't uphold the religious customs of the day, after all He healed on the Sabbath, and He didn't require His disciples to perform the ritual washing before eating.
Come to think of it, most of the Biblical record is one of reasons people gave so they could cast His message aside. Yet, only two groups willingly confronted Him - the people of His home synagogue in Nazareth, and those who put Him on the cross.
As Michael W. Mooty said, "My sense is that in the world in which we live, Jesus is not so much opposed as He is dismissed. I do not now know a single person who would claim to be against Jesus. We would not stone Him, crucify Him, push Him off a cliff. We are more dangerous, . . . we would ignore Him."
"Isn't that Joseph and Mary's boy, the one who always was such an angel in Sunday School?"
The people of Nazareth, Jesus' friends and neighbors, were the first to discount Jesus, but not the last. His family did it. The religious establishment of His day did it. His Church still does. We know Him well enough to disregard Him. We have listened to Him long enough to know when not to listen.
And yet, once again we have heard Jesus words, "Today the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing!"
Is today going to be the day we proclaim that message to others - not just with words, but also with our deeds?