Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, 02/03/2019

Sermon on Luke 4:21-30, by Hubert Beck

He began to say to them,, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.

ON GOD’S LOVE OF THE WIDOW OF ZAREPHATH AND NAAMAN, THE LEPER!

An Initial Probe

How would you respond to a news channel report like the following? “The United Nations Security Council just passed a resolution commending President Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea, for their impressive efforts at restoring peaceful relations between the United States and the European Union, Great Britain, Canada, and other former allies in light of the broad general accusation that American combative stances have brought the world to the brink of a new world war.”

You can’t imagine it? Of course not! And if such a report were to be heard, you would surely fall into a rage over such charges as that report was making, would you not?

Assuming that you know very well what would happen IF such a report were to be made, you can better understand the raging storm that broke loose over Jesus’ words that we are considering this morning.

How so, you ask? Jesus was telling his listening audience that God’s care over the whole world had long extended far past the care that was so precious to Israel. He made his case by referring to events that had taken place long before their time when a widow of Zarephath and a man named Naaman, both gentiles scorned by the Jews, had been favored over his care for Israel!

Well, you say, that surely shouldn’t have been so great that they were ready to do away with Jesus for his having made those remarks – and it most certainly was not anything equal to the make-believe radio report with which this sermon opened!

If you don’t think so, then explain why “when they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.” That was a threat to kill him – and on top of that, he was a home-town boy that they had greatly admired only a short time before, as Luke tells us, writing, “And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.”

That was a drastically swift change from fame to loathing within less than an hour – from admiration to a ragingly murderous rejection over what seems to have been hardly more than a mere suggestion that God’s loving care had a universal will driving it to actions that were totally repugnant and repulsive to human comprehension, especially if it involved a challenge to an absolute conviction that some were equally if not more favored by God than others – that gentiles were loved by God AS MUCH AS he loved the Jews!

It is almost beyond imagination that the mood of Jesus’ fellow citizens could alter as quickly as all that!

But the text says that it did!

A Secondary Probe

Assuming now that you would have a far more subdued response to Jesus’ reminder of God’s actions in the past – i.e., that you would more likely respond to Jesus’ commendation of gentile people “Well, what he said is true, but so what? A couple miracles worked in behalf of or on the part of gentile people does not mean anything in universal terms, so let sleeping dogs lie,” – one is still left with the question of just what kinds of actions on the part of God really trips YOUR wire of anger?

I.e, inasmuch as you surely believe that”God is love” (it is astonishing how many people turn that phrase on its ear in a way that causes it to say “Love is God,” which re-shapes the phrase into a statement of pure idolatry) what upsets you most when God doesn’t act in the “loving way” that we expect him to do? Surely you know the many questions such as “if God is so loving why does he permit so much suffering?” or “if God is so loving why does he let so much evil have its way on earth?” or, even more personally, but, unfortunately, even more inward-turning questions like “if God is so loving why doesn’t he take this troublesome ailment away from ME?” or “if God is so loving why doesn’t he answer MY prayers the way that he said he would?”

Such questions do not turn your feelings into murderous ways, of course – but they most certainly burn with a greater and greater fury if or when they get closer and closer to home – to personal needs, wants, desires. Why does God “favor” my friend who doesn’t have any of the problems I have? Why does God seem to bless ways that contradict every bone of my sense of rightness in my body? Why does God heal Naaman but not my wife?

It surely doesn’t take much effort to discover the citizens of Nazareth roaming around very loosely in our own insides! They take on many and various shapes and forms, of course – and we rarely think of them as being even remotely close to taking Jesus to the brow of the nearest huge cliff and throwing him over it.

No! No! We are much too refined to even think like that, much less to act like that even if it were possible. But any serious exploration of our our “deep innards,” the “basement thoughts,” the dark, dank subterranean thoughts and wishes – and even wills! – speedily, unexpectedly, and sadly expose the citizens of Nazareth alive and well inside our own lives!

The Coming of “His Hour”

“But passing through their midst, he went away!”

What happened? Did he stare them down, forcing them to give way to him? Did the Father intervene in some miraculous way to open a path for him to pass through the midst of their murderous intent? Did enough people come to their senses before they could carry out their evil goal, making a way for him to leave? We are not told.

We ARE told in other similar circumstances, however, that “his hour had not yet come.” This was only the beginning of the end for Jesus – only the very early days of what would unfold as his public ministry. Much remained to be done and said before the time would come when no path out of his troubled way would be made for him and he was led on the way to Calvary and his death.

From Nazareth to Jerusalem

That which the townspeople of Nazareth started to do was delayed by as much as three years before the religious authorities in Jerusalem would complete that which the people of Nazareth intended for him!

In those courts he largely remained silent as the charges of murderous wrath became the reality of the cross. That which he had done in the three or so years between this moment and that one would have to speak for themselves as the questions were hurled at him: “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God!” (Matthew 26:63) “Are you the King of the Jews?” (John 18:33) That which he had done spoke for itself – and it was enough to obtain for him the judgment: “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!”

Another Passing Through

So the objective of the crowd described in our text were finally carried to their intended end!

The one who had read the scroll in Nazareth had been revealed for who he most certainly was when he passed through the giant rock supposedly holding his corpse securely in his tomb close by the place of his crucifixion, leaving behind an empty tomb.

There was no longer any denying that he was the one of whom it was written and of whom he had read in that synagogue in Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Anyone still living who had been involved in hurrying him up the cliff outside of Nazareth on the day of which our text speaks now had the assurance that their first evaluation of him, namely, that they“ spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth,” had, indeed, been properly evaluating him!

AND US!!?!?!?

Now, as they say, “the ball is in our court” to do with what we will! Most, if not all of us, have been baptized into the suffering, death and resurrection of this Jesus of Nazareth. Nobody can take the blessing of that washing away from us, although, of course, any of us can toss it away, throw it over the cliff of Nazareth, and live as though it had never happened!

But if that blessed washing means anything to us – if the eating and drinking that takes place at this altar as the sacred offering of Christ’s body and blood nourishing our baptized souls means anything to us – we will make ourselves – no, not ourselves, but Christ himself – available to people far and near – our neighbors and people whom we have never met and never will save through the many arms of outreach offered by our church body – people who are longing for a vision of God’s presence through the way his people carry that vision in their own bodies and tongues. There are widows of Zarephath and lepers named Naaman wherever we look! Some of them are not pleasant to see or hear, but they are people who, themselves, serve God’s children while, at the same time, may be the children of God whose needs we are called to fill. Some are ones we love to look at but whose lives and hearts are empty and waiting for the coming of the Lord.

If that blessed washing means anything to us – if the eating and drinking that takes place at this altar as the sacred offering of Christ’s body and blood nourishing our baptized souls means anything to us – we will return to our everyday lives as servants of the living God, the people through whom he will show himself to be present in this world through the way we feed the hungry, care for the needy, bear hope to desperate people, and in general give a vision of what it means to be citizens of heaven – a far more important citizenship than being citizens of a town like Nazareth – to all whose feet are set on the path to the heavenly Jerusalem.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ordained but Retired Lutheran Minister of the Gospel Hubert Beck
Austin, Texas, USA
E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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