Luke 4:21-30
Then he began to say to them, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 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?" 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."
And he said, "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 all the land; yet, Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow in Zarephath of Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."
When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 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. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Last week, some of you will remember, we got part one of a two-part sermon – I’m calling this “Jesus, Two Jimmies, and the Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups.” That might make sense in a minute.
I’d like to pretend that I knew LAST Sunday, what I was going to say THIS Sunday, but that would be a lie. (Some of you know me better than that.) I just knew that the first line of this morning’s Gospel, was the last line of last week’s Gospel – “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” – and that I wanted to connect the two messages in a way that I haven’t before and didn’t have time for all in one week.
So the short of the long is, I hope we all felt last week, some of what I tried to imagine everyone in that synagogue in Nazareth felt when they heard all of Jesus’ good news. It was good news on top of good news, remember – hope for the poor, release for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favor – and we were able, I hope, to imagine all the ways that that good news might apply, even to us, so many generations after the prophet Isaiah, and then Jesus, first proclaimed it.
Like the people in Jesus’ hometown, I hope we felt some relief, some blessing, some measure of the favor and blessing he promised was being poured out for our sake. I hope we, just like all of them, find ourselves amazed by the gracious words that come from the mouth of Jesus – for the likes of you and me, still. Who would have thought? What a gift? What a surprise, maybe, too. It sure surprised the people in Jesus’ hometown who couldn’t believe Joseph’s son, the carpenter’s kid, had been so anointed.
And I hope you were able to sit with that good, good news some – not just last Sunday, in worship, but throughout the week, too, perhaps. But I warned you things were going to change. That the tables were going to turn for Jesus. That all of that awe and admiration and good news were going to turn into something else this week. And you heard what happened.
Something changed really quickly after Jesus explained that all of this good news wasn’t just for Jesus’ friends or family or the rest of the faithful in that synagogue that day, which is what Jesus is getting at when he talks about the widow in Zarephath in Sidon. It’s what he’s saying when he tells them about Naaman, the Syrian, too.
What Jesus points out, is that even though there were plenty of widows to help during a very difficult time of famine for Israel back in the day – widow after widow after widow who were just like them – God sent Elijah to tend to and care for some strange, foreign, outsider, in Sidon. And even though there were many Jewish lepers who could have used some help and healing in Israel during the days of Elisha, that prophet was sent to help Naaman, the pagan commander of the enemy’s army. Which was a hard thing to hear for the faithful folks in Jesus’ hometown – who were wondering when Jesus was going to do some of the magic and blessing he’d been pouring out for the people all around Galilee.
“Why are you helping them, not us?” “What are you healing those people, but not these who know you best?” “There are plenty of people right here at home who who could use some of what you’re up to, why are you giving it away to people and places you’ve never met before?” We ask and I’ve heard the same kinds of questions about what we’re up to in God’s Church at, even right here at Cross of Grace, before.
When people ask me why we spend time and money building homes in Haiti. I think about the widows there – and the one in Zarephath in Sidon. When I hear people suggest the United States should stop sending our money and resources and aid to foreign countries, or letting the migrants and refugees in – “America First,” you know – I think about the prophet Elisha and Naaman, the Syrian. Frankly, I think these are some of the few remaining things, these days, that makes us look like the “Christian” nation so many want the United States to be.
And when I say this out loud, I’m a little afraid there are people who want to do me like Jesus – drive me out of here, lead me to the highest hill, and hurl me off the cliff, I mean. (Luckily, in central Indiana, hills and cliffs are hard to find.) And I think that reaction – and the rage of those who turned on Jesus in Nazareth back in the day – was something like what I want to show you next. Last week, I gave you Jimmy Fallon’s “Good News” bit. Today, I give you Jimmy Kimmel’s annual post-Halloween prank.
(How’s that for lightening the mood?)
The nutshell version of this moment with Jesus for me, is that Jesus knows his hometown crowd is going to want more than just to hear about all of his good news and miracles. They’d like to see and experience some of his best work, too, which is why he kind of teases them with that old proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself.”
That’s why he says what he knows they’re all thinking, “Jesus, do something for us – your family and friends – like we heard you’ve been doing out there in the world. Release some captives, here. Heal some of us who are sick. Give some of that Lord’s favor to those of us who know you best. If you’re doing it for them, surely you can do it for us, too.”
So, Jesus’ hometown people lose their ever-loving, God-blessed minds – just like a bunch of kids who lost their Reece’s Peanut Butter cups – when they find out the truth of how God’s grace really works. “You mean this good news and favor and recovery and release stuff isn’t just for us – the chosen ones?!” “You mean others are allowed to have it, too?!?!” “You mean we don’t get first dibs and then leave the left-overs for the less-than?!?!?” “You mean this grace is for them, as much as it is for me?” “How can this be?!?!” “And where’s the nearest cliff?!?!”
But if you have 5 minutes this week, find that video on our website and watch it again. Partly because those two brothers at the end get funnier and funnier the more you watch them. But also because – as cruel as this prank is – there are a couple of moments of Gospel grace hidden in there, in case you missed it.
One is the look of sweet relief on the face of that little girl with the purple pumpkin when her mom tells her it was all just a joke, that no one actually ate all of her candy. And the other is that little boy who runs off to prove his mom wrong, comes back with a miniature box of Nerds, and lets her know that she didn’t eat all of his precious candy.
Because that’s what I think about when I see our anger and our rage and our selfishness and our greed over God’s grace and our own resources get the best of us. I remember that the grace of God is a lot like Halloween candy: something that was never ours to begin with; something for which no work was required; something given freely, in abundance, for nothing we’ve done to earn it; that there’s more than enough of it to go around; that we can have our fill and still find plenty to share; that we don’t have to be stingy or selfish or territorial about any of it.
And I’m always convicted and inspired to I hear about Jesus’ near death experience that day in Nazareth, because I hear in all of it a call to the Church – our church at Cross of Grace and the larger Church as a whole. Let’s not be left standing on the cliff like the people of Nazareth, only to find that Jesus has passed through the midst of us – untouched. Let us never find that Jesus has continued on his way without us, sharing grace, doing justice, and offering God’s blessings to a world so desperate for it, because we were too busy or too angry, too self-absorbed or too selfish and scared to join him in that work.
Amen
