2nd Sunday after Epiphany                    

Luke 4:14-30

Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding region. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me

        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

        to set free those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then, [Jesus] 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 this not 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 his 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 with a skin disease 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 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. But, he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

May God bless us with understanding for these readings of our sacred text.

Prophets

There is a lot going on with our gospel readings, today. There is a reference to the prophet Isaiah, there are people changing their minds and attitudes so fast it’ll give you whiplash, and we have Jesus saying things that seem to contradict reports of what he said in the other gospels. It’s the kind of text that you have to be very careful with.

In verse 21, Jesus says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” When the people in the temple heard this, they were amazed at his teachings and how well-spoken he was, but then, the mood started to shift. All of these people were very familiar with Jesus. This was where Jesus grew up; this was where Jesus played with his friends as a young child. They were too familiar with him. Wasn’t Jesus just a carpenter’s son? Where did this authority come from? Why was he allowed to teach in the temple? Who was he to claim that God had anointed him to bring good news to the poor, to give sight to the blind, to proclaim release to the captives, and let the oppressed go free? Jesus was just some local kid. He wasn’t any different from any of them; he wasn’t special. The people in this time and place lived in a pretty rigid almost caste-like system, and as far as these people in the temple knew, Jesus wasn’t born into a royal or priestly family. He was the carpenter’s son, the son of Joseph and Mary.

Now, Jesus could sense this shift in the way they were looking him, and before they can say anything, he claims to know what they’re going to say. “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” It’s a little confusing in this context, because Jesus isn’t sick or injured, but we are reading this almost 2000 years after it was written, from the viewpoint of a completely different language and culture. What they’re saying here is similar to the way that we would use the saying, “Charity begins in the home.” This saying doesn’t mean that a person should donate money to their own family. It means that children need to learn generosity, compassion, and mercy as they grow, that it needs to be taught to them by their parents, so they can become charitable adults. So, maybe this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself,” would be better translated as “Doctor, do some curing.” They wanted to see Jesus heal someone, because they had heard the stories. They had heard about the miracles that Jesus had done in other places; they wanted to see it done in front of them, in Nazareth. Almost like he’s reading their minds, Jesus says, “And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” They wanted proof; they wanted to see with their own eyes that he could perform miracles. They weren’t satisfied with the rumors and stories that had made their way back to Nazareth.

Jesus gets a little confrontational, now. He says, “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.” Jesus is asking them, why if Elijah and Elisha didn’t perform miracles for the people in their hometowns, then why should he? Their miracles were performed for outsiders, people that weren’t part of those communities. So, why should Jesus do any different?

This, of course, was not what they wanted to hear. They got mad and chased Jesus out of town! They were so mad that they wanted to kill him!

One of the things that we’re supposed to look for when we’re reading scripture is “Where is the grace in this text?” As I was reading this, I had to admit that I had a hard time finding it. Where is the grace in this text? What is God doing to resolve the problems presented here? The only grace I could find for what was happening here was that Jesus escaped. He was in a hostile and dangerous situation, “but he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”

It reminded me of what Jesus later says to the disciples in chapter 9, as he’s sending them out to proclaim the Good News. He tells them that if they ever find themselves in a place where they’re not welcomed, to shake the dust off their feet as they leave, as testimony against them. It’s always interesting to compare the way the same stories are presented in different gospels, because in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus is giving these same instructions, he specifically says, “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel” And then, he says, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”

It’s basically the exact opposite of what he says in Luke. As he is chastising the people at the temple, he talks about how Elijah went to the widow at Zarephath, an outsider, to bless her. He talked about the time that Elisha healed Naaman, the Syrian leper, an outsider, when there were so many people in the community who could have used his help. The reason the author of Luke is using these stories about outsiders receiving God’s grace is to help the listeners understand that the Good News, the message of God’s kingdom, is for everyone, including the Gentiles who were not originally included in the historic covenants between the people of Israel and God.

But, the people in the temple who heard this didn’t like it very much. They thought they were special, singled out. They wanted to hold on to their exclusive relationship with God. It’s kind of like how a lot of Americans feel about immigrants and refugees. There’s this pervasive idea of “America First.” Some people think that the United States is God’s special country, that we’re more important than the other people in the world.

I keep seeing this quote on Facebook that I wanted to share with you all. It’s from the author Brian Zahnd. “Confusing the Kingdom of God with the empires of Rome, Byzantium, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, England, Germany, the United States, or any other nation state, has been the perpetual mistake of Christians for 17 centuries. When will we learn that the Kingdom of God looks like Jesus, not a superpower?”

God is not an “America First” God, any more than God is “Zimbabwe first”, or “Mexico first”, or “Korea first.” God is “people first.” God doesn’t care what country someone comes from or what ethnicity they are. God loves everyone, and expects us to do the same.

Jesus wasn’t telling the people in the temple that they weren’t worthy of blessing. He was telling them that God’s blessing was for everyone, and that they needed to pay attention to what God was saying to them through the prophets. Elijah and Elisha were examples of prophets who had performed miracles for some who were not the people of Israel. These stories came from their own scriptures, stories that show that God’s miracles are not exclusively for the people of Israel. God’s miracles are not exclusively for the people of the United States.

God is still sending prophets to us, prophets who tell us that we are one people, one family of God…prophets who tell us to take care of each other, and take care of our world, because taking care of the world is taking care of each other. There are the prophets of the recent past, people like Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Ceasar Chavez. We have prophets living right now like Malala Yousafzai (Youzef-sai), and Greta Thunberg. Right now, I’m reading The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. Her work focuses on our relationship to the natural world and how we have to find a balance in how we interact with it. We need to listen to God’s message to us from all of these prophets. Things are so broken right now that average everyday citizens are celebrating felons and murderers. We so desperately need to hear God’s voice right now.

One of the slogans for our church is “God is still speaking.” God has sent so many prophets to us. Are we listening? All throughout the Bible, God sends prophet after prophet after prophet to bring God’s message to the people. That message still rings true to this day. That message will echo through the ages for all of time. And, the prophets of today have added their voices to that chorus. We need to change the way we treat each other, and we need to change the way that we are living on this Earth. The prophets have spoken. God has spoken. Are we listening? Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei