Sermon-Sunday-Jan 28, 2007
Jeremiah 1:4-10 , 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 , Luke 4:21-30
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
Our Gospel lesson says “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” What were they so mad about? Why would these people in the synagogue who had gathered to hear Jesus speak be so upset? At first, when Jesus spoke of the scripture that He read being fulfilled in their hearing, it says that they were amazed at His gracious words. But now they’re mad, they’re filled with rage. What happened?
This is the hometown boy, Jesus is returning to His hometown of Nazareth and He’s teaching in the local synagogue. This is a big moment. This is the realization of something that you would have to believe they had been anticipating for a long time. They had been hearing of all the miraculous deeds that Jesus had been performing. And now Jesus was coming home.
These Nazarenes had heard of some wonderful and miraculous things that Jesus had done in Capernaum. So if He was going to do all that for the people of Capernaum, then He must have had something truly wonderful in mind for the people of His hometown of Nazareth.
And if there was ever a city that was in need of good preaching, it was Nazareth. When Nathaniel said to Phillip “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he wasn’t just expressing a personal agenda that he had against Nazareth. That was a remark that was based in reality. It was a remark that would have made a lot of sense to most people at that time. Nazareth was not a nice place.
There were people that would have been considered heathens all around Nazareth. There were Phonecians to the west and north, there were Samaritans to the south, and there were Greeks to the west. They were surrounded by idolatry and paganism and they were very far away from the good influence of Jerusalem. It would have been very hard to be a good, pious Jew in Nazareth.
But if anyone could turn the city around it was Jesus. The people of Nazareth were probably thinking that when Jesus came back home, he’ll get things going. He’ll get the good Hebrew people of Nazareth fired up.
So Jesus shows up. He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath to teach. It’s standing room only. The place is packed, and people are beaming with pride at the return of the hometown hero. He reads from Isaiah. He says a few words, You can hear the murmurs in the crowd. “Isn’t this Joseph and Mary’s boy?” “They’ve done a really good. job” “They raised a really good boy.”
Then Jesus starts talking about miracles. He makes reference to the miraculous work that He had done recently in Capernaum. This is it. This is the big moment. Maybe he’ll start out with a little razzle-dazzle just to get the crowd going, and then He’d do some healings and some miracles and they would truly know that God’s power was there and they could finally clean up their city by going out and driving out the pagan Gentiles and their ungodly influences in the city. But, much to their surprise, Jesus does no miracles in Nazareth.
In fact what Jesus proceeds to say and do is just about the last thing that this crowd would have expected and wanted. Jesus tells them a story about the prophet Elijah being sent to a pagan widow, and God providing food for this pagan widow through Elijah. And then Jesus tells them about, in Elisha’s time, God healing Naaman, a Syrian, who had been struck with Leprosy.
That changes everything. In that moment, their pride turns to rage. This was not merely a situation where they were a little disappointed. This was not just a case of having great anticipation for something that, in the end, just doesn’t live up to the hype. This was not mere disappointment in a local boy who seemingly was not living up to His potential.
This was rage. And it was a rage that was so intense that it drove these people to fulfill what Jesus had previously told them; that no prophet was accepted in his hometown. And they drove Him out of town, and they tried to push Him off a cliff, but He just walked away. So again I ask you, what made them so mad?
Were they mad that He didn’t do miracles for them, like He did for the people of Capernaum?? Possibly. Did they maybe think that Jesus was saying that He loved the Gentiles more than His own people, and that made them mad? Possibly? Of course they would have been wrong. But at the heart of this is the fact that the people of Nazareth would not have expected Jesus to have any love at all for the pagans, or the Gentiles, or the heathens.
The fact that He did is what filled them with rage, because that went against every expectation that they had for Jesus. You have to understand, that when we’re talking about people that this ancient culture would have considered to be good, pious Jews as opposed to pagans, heathens and Gentiles, we’re not talking about something that would have been the equivalent, in contemporary culture to Protestants as opposed to Catholics, or Christians as opposed to Jews.
Jesus showing any love or compassion to pagans, Gentiles or heathens would have actually been the equivalent of someone today showing love or compassion to terrorists, or KuKluxKlansmen, or people who work in pornography or anyone else who we would consider to be on the dregs of society.
So how would you have acted? When you think about the idolatry and paganism that we see in our own culture, how do you think you would have reacted to what Jesus said? When you think about the lax morals in our society, or the rampant drug use, or the unwanted pregnancies, or the corporate corruption, or suicide bombers, terrorism, how would you react to someone telling you that you should be reaching out with love and compassion to people perpetuating all of those problems?
Understand, I am not talking about affirming, accepting, or approving any of those behaviors, I am talking about people who exhibit those behaviors; people who struggle with sin for the same reason that you do, because they are sinners. And it is for sinners, that Jesus came, and that is basically what He is telling these people, and that is what is making them mad.
If Jesus shows love to people on the margins of society then His disciples will be expected to do the same. That is what Jesus is telling those people in the Nazareth synagogue, and it’s what He tells you. This is about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and what it means to follow in His footsteps.
As disciples of Christ we are called to bring the eternal message of hope and forgiveness in Christ Jesus to sinners. And the message we bring will be rejected. Time and time again it is rejected. But we keep going. We continue to reach out with the radical love that Paul writes of in our lesson from 1st Corinthians; love that is patient, kind, never envious, boastful or rude, love that focuses on the neighbor and does not dwell on the material.
So how do we keep going in the midst of a world that rejects the Gospel? Again Paul gives us the answer in the 1st Corinthians passage when he refers to love that rejoices in the truth. We rejoice in the truth that we are sinners in dire need of forgiveness and we have been given that forgiveness in Christ Jesus. We rejoice in the truth that the words that were expressed to Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament lesson are also expressed to us; where the Lord 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.”
God knew you before you were born. God knew you to be the sinner that you are, and still He claimed you. In the waters of baptism, He claimed you as His own and marked you with the cross of Christ for all eternity.
Our place in God’s kingdom has been set for all eternity and for that reason we don’t need to dwell on the temporary and worldly. Martin Luther says this about our place in God’s kingdom..
Our citizenship or homeland, he says, is not here on earth, but in heaven; there we have our real existence and life. There Jesus Christ, the Lord, has something to do… There we are citizens and heirs of God, brothers and fellow heirs with Christ. Yes, we are already there with our hearts according to the spirit and faith; for we believe, as the children’s Creed teaches us, in “a holy Christian Church, resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” Therefore we have this firm hope and confidently expect that on the Last Day we shall arise and possess eternal life.
That is the truth, now let us rejoice in it, by reaching out to our neighbors, to sinners, with radical love and the eternal promise of forgiveness in Christ Jesus.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
Our Gospel lesson says “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” What were they so mad about? Why would these people in the synagogue who had gathered to hear Jesus speak be so upset? At first, when Jesus spoke of the scripture that He read being fulfilled in their hearing, it says that they were amazed at His gracious words. But now they’re mad, they’re filled with rage. What happened?
This is the hometown boy, Jesus is returning to His hometown of Nazareth and He’s teaching in the local synagogue. This is a big moment. This is the realization of something that you would have to believe they had been anticipating for a long time. They had been hearing of all the miraculous deeds that Jesus had been performing. And now Jesus was coming home.
These Nazarenes had heard of some wonderful and miraculous things that Jesus had done in Capernaum. So if He was going to do all that for the people of Capernaum, then He must have had something truly wonderful in mind for the people of His hometown of Nazareth.
And if there was ever a city that was in need of good preaching, it was Nazareth. When Nathaniel said to Phillip “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he wasn’t just expressing a personal agenda that he had against Nazareth. That was a remark that was based in reality. It was a remark that would have made a lot of sense to most people at that time. Nazareth was not a nice place.
There were people that would have been considered heathens all around Nazareth. There were Phonecians to the west and north, there were Samaritans to the south, and there were Greeks to the west. They were surrounded by idolatry and paganism and they were very far away from the good influence of Jerusalem. It would have been very hard to be a good, pious Jew in Nazareth.
But if anyone could turn the city around it was Jesus. The people of Nazareth were probably thinking that when Jesus came back home, he’ll get things going. He’ll get the good Hebrew people of Nazareth fired up.
So Jesus shows up. He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath to teach. It’s standing room only. The place is packed, and people are beaming with pride at the return of the hometown hero. He reads from Isaiah. He says a few words, You can hear the murmurs in the crowd. “Isn’t this Joseph and Mary’s boy?” “They’ve done a really good. job” “They raised a really good boy.”
Then Jesus starts talking about miracles. He makes reference to the miraculous work that He had done recently in Capernaum. This is it. This is the big moment. Maybe he’ll start out with a little razzle-dazzle just to get the crowd going, and then He’d do some healings and some miracles and they would truly know that God’s power was there and they could finally clean up their city by going out and driving out the pagan Gentiles and their ungodly influences in the city. But, much to their surprise, Jesus does no miracles in Nazareth.
In fact what Jesus proceeds to say and do is just about the last thing that this crowd would have expected and wanted. Jesus tells them a story about the prophet Elijah being sent to a pagan widow, and God providing food for this pagan widow through Elijah. And then Jesus tells them about, in Elisha’s time, God healing Naaman, a Syrian, who had been struck with Leprosy.
That changes everything. In that moment, their pride turns to rage. This was not merely a situation where they were a little disappointed. This was not just a case of having great anticipation for something that, in the end, just doesn’t live up to the hype. This was not mere disappointment in a local boy who seemingly was not living up to His potential.
This was rage. And it was a rage that was so intense that it drove these people to fulfill what Jesus had previously told them; that no prophet was accepted in his hometown. And they drove Him out of town, and they tried to push Him off a cliff, but He just walked away. So again I ask you, what made them so mad?
Were they mad that He didn’t do miracles for them, like He did for the people of Capernaum?? Possibly. Did they maybe think that Jesus was saying that He loved the Gentiles more than His own people, and that made them mad? Possibly? Of course they would have been wrong. But at the heart of this is the fact that the people of Nazareth would not have expected Jesus to have any love at all for the pagans, or the Gentiles, or the heathens.
The fact that He did is what filled them with rage, because that went against every expectation that they had for Jesus. You have to understand, that when we’re talking about people that this ancient culture would have considered to be good, pious Jews as opposed to pagans, heathens and Gentiles, we’re not talking about something that would have been the equivalent, in contemporary culture to Protestants as opposed to Catholics, or Christians as opposed to Jews.
Jesus showing any love or compassion to pagans, Gentiles or heathens would have actually been the equivalent of someone today showing love or compassion to terrorists, or KuKluxKlansmen, or people who work in pornography or anyone else who we would consider to be on the dregs of society.
So how would you have acted? When you think about the idolatry and paganism that we see in our own culture, how do you think you would have reacted to what Jesus said? When you think about the lax morals in our society, or the rampant drug use, or the unwanted pregnancies, or the corporate corruption, or suicide bombers, terrorism, how would you react to someone telling you that you should be reaching out with love and compassion to people perpetuating all of those problems?
Understand, I am not talking about affirming, accepting, or approving any of those behaviors, I am talking about people who exhibit those behaviors; people who struggle with sin for the same reason that you do, because they are sinners. And it is for sinners, that Jesus came, and that is basically what He is telling these people, and that is what is making them mad.
If Jesus shows love to people on the margins of society then His disciples will be expected to do the same. That is what Jesus is telling those people in the Nazareth synagogue, and it’s what He tells you. This is about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and what it means to follow in His footsteps.
As disciples of Christ we are called to bring the eternal message of hope and forgiveness in Christ Jesus to sinners. And the message we bring will be rejected. Time and time again it is rejected. But we keep going. We continue to reach out with the radical love that Paul writes of in our lesson from 1st Corinthians; love that is patient, kind, never envious, boastful or rude, love that focuses on the neighbor and does not dwell on the material.
So how do we keep going in the midst of a world that rejects the Gospel? Again Paul gives us the answer in the 1st Corinthians passage when he refers to love that rejoices in the truth. We rejoice in the truth that we are sinners in dire need of forgiveness and we have been given that forgiveness in Christ Jesus. We rejoice in the truth that the words that were expressed to Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament lesson are also expressed to us; where the Lord 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.”
God knew you before you were born. God knew you to be the sinner that you are, and still He claimed you. In the waters of baptism, He claimed you as His own and marked you with the cross of Christ for all eternity.
Our place in God’s kingdom has been set for all eternity and for that reason we don’t need to dwell on the temporary and worldly. Martin Luther says this about our place in God’s kingdom..
Our citizenship or homeland, he says, is not here on earth, but in heaven; there we have our real existence and life. There Jesus Christ, the Lord, has something to do… There we are citizens and heirs of God, brothers and fellow heirs with Christ. Yes, we are already there with our hearts according to the spirit and faith; for we believe, as the children’s Creed teaches us, in “a holy Christian Church, resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” Therefore we have this firm hope and confidently expect that on the Last Day we shall arise and possess eternal life.
That is the truth, now let us rejoice in it, by reaching out to our neighbors, to sinners, with radical love and the eternal promise of forgiveness in Christ Jesus.
Amen
posted by Steve at 1:58 PM
1 Comments:
Great sermon! This is absolutely wonderful-has to be one of the best you have written!-And I mean every word!
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