1/30/22
The Fourth Sunday after the Ephiphany
Jeremiah 1:4-10
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30
From the Gospel: When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. In the Name of the one, holy, and undivided Trinity. Amen.
When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They 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. I am glad that there are no cliffs here near the center of Litchfield.
Why are the people hearing Jesus so angry? What did Jesus say that made them want to kill hymn?
The passage seems to be two different stories put next to each other with no connecting narrative. First we pick up where we left off last week. In the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and began to say, “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. That seems fine and would make a good close to the story of his first sermon in Nazareth. The Gospel continues with a very abrupt change of topic: They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” The hometown kid has come home and they want to see if he is still the guy they knew when he was growing up. Or can he deliver on the hype he is getting from his miracles and preaching in other places? Jesus respond with an adage about prophets not being honored in their home towns. “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.” Then Jesus goes on to tell them that if they are thinking only about Nazareth and their lives there, they are not understanding the scope of Jesus’ mission. Jesus tells them that his message is not just for the Jews but for the gentiles as well. His message is for all nations. 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 at Zarephath in 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. In other words, sometimes the blessings of God do not land on the home of the prophet, either the town or even the country. Sometimes they are given to foreigners and even enemies. In the time of the famine, the prophet Elijah did not help any Jewish widows but instead one over the border in Sidon. And Eisha did not heal any Jewish lepers, but one who was actually a general in a rival kingdom. This can sound like treason, or at least a lack of patriotism. It made people so angry that they tried to kill Jesus.
We encountered the same phenomenon in the country in the days after 09/11. If one pointed out that there are many peace loving Muslims, one could be regarded as un-patriotic. We all tend to want to protect our own first, ahead of all others. We protect our families, our friends, our class, our country. This is a good thing. Until in undermines our concern and love for all humanity, for all nations. And it is not just Jesus who points out that God’s blessings are for everyone. God’s love is for everyone, with no exceptions. In our first reading this morning, when God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. . . See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”. Jeremiah’s calling is to speak to all people.
And we remember God’s call of Abraham in Genesis: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. . . and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That is to say that the vocation the people of God is to be a blessing for everyone else. Any idea that because God is on our side God is not on someone else’s side is wrong. Are there behaviors that are so damaging that they must be stopped? Of course. Is it permissible to use force? Perhaps. Is it permissible to use lethal force? This has been debated through the centuries. But be clear that God loves our enemies as much as God love us. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln made the point that both sides in the Civil War asked God for divine aid: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.”
The core of Jesus teaching is that God’s rule will be established on earth. That divine rule is expressed in the two commandments to love God and love each other. The nature of that love is described beautifully in St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in the passage we heard earlier this morning.
As we look at the various situations around the world, Jesus is asking us to put aside our nationalistic feelings and see them through the lens of the Good News of God’s love. I’d like to end by inviting you to join me in singing “This is my song.”