Luke 4: 21-36
September 3, 2017
I am embarking on something new. Something that I
hope will be invigorating and exciting to you as it is to me. For the past five years I have used
what is known as the Revised Common Lectionary as the basis for scripture for
sermons. The RCL is a table of
scripture readings, issued in a three-year cycle, that are appointed to be read
at public worship. It gives us a
nice overview of the Bible and Jesus life and ministry. While it has served us very well I
think it’s time to try something different. Now, as the listener of sermons you may not have even
realized that there was a particular pattern to the scope and content of my
yearly preaching, but trust me, there was.
This ‘new thing’ that I’m doing or that I will
be engaging is a thematic approach to preaching. As a guideline I’ll be using a book written by Rev. Susan
Cartmell entitled, “Uncommon Preaching”.
[Thank you Cynthia Sheetz
for gifting me with this book.] By
using monthly themes we can engage the contemporary questions of our faith, the
great themes in the Bible and the imperative of our faith. The themes for the coming months
are hospitality for September, vocation for October, stewardship for November,
and hope for December. There’s
more for the entire year but for now that’s enough! It is my hope that dialogue
will begin among you around each topic and get you thinking in terms of what
does this topic mean for my life and for the life of OCC.
So it’s September and we begin with
hospitality. In many ways when you
hear this morning scripture you’ll think that it is the complete antithesis of
hospitality and it left me scratching my head too. Just prior to where we pick
it up today’s scripture from Luke we note that Jesus reads a little piece from
the prophet Isaiah, his inaugural address you might call it. [In fact the theme
of the hymn we just sang echo’s Isaiah’s words], “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
let the oppressed go free.” But, they didn’t like what they heard, so we
read:
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
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.”
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.
What an inhospitable crowd, eh? You just wonder if this is what Jesus
thought would happen. They start off all right when he sits down and tells them
that the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing, they even sit in awe
and amazement. “This is Joseph’s son!” I think they must have been
honored and proud that such a prophet and healer could be a hometown boy.
A pretty remarkable fellow in our midst and he’s one of our own.
Fancy that!
But it sure didn’t take long for the people of Nazareth to get angry
with Jesus after he gave this “inaugural” address, which is what
we heard in today’s scripture reading.
The pundits weighed in swiftly and forcefully.
The people got angry with
Jesus, angry enough that they wanted to throw him off of a cliff on Mount
Tabor, a mount that has seen plenty of disaster and death through the years,
the lives of Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Josiah and Saul, Jehu and Jezebel,
Elijah and Elisha, they all died in that region. Jesus was raised in the metaphorical ‘cradle’ of Israelite
history in Nazareth and around Mount Tabor and the Jezreel Valley.
The interesting twist
here is that it’s Jesus who incites them with his own words outguessing
what he thinks they were going to think and ask next. He says, ‘if I did here
what I did in others places like Capernaum and up in the Galil, that is preach
and heal and perform miracles, you wouldn’t get it, you wouldn’t pay attention.’
That’s what angered the people. Dismissed, devalued, underestimated,
however you want to name it, they were mad.
He was in their midst but
they just couldn’t understand the profound nature of his being and of his life.
He knew this and so he put words to their eventual actions and they were
madder than wet hens and nothing is worse than an angry group of people.
What I like best about this passage and where the Gospel bell rings true
I think for our purposes today is a tiny detail at the end of the passage… ‘but
Jesus slipped through the crowd and got away.’ (CEV)
They were so mad, and were
arguing and filled with rage to the point where they forgot or ignored Jesus
and he quietly took his leave. He slipped through their hands. He
left without notice. If you ask me, that’s remarkable. But then
again perhaps maybe it’s not.
David Ewart of Capilano
United Church in Vancouver has done a lot of conflict mediation within churches.
He says that he’s not surprised that Jesus could slip right through this angry
crowd; this crowd who probably thought of themselves as ‘good synagogue’
people. Ewart has worked with angry and divisive congregations and he
says, “Jesus has slipped right out the back door and down the alley, you never
would have believed that they were a community of faith because there was no
evidence of Jesus in their midst”.
In the congregations he worked with the divine
presence was no more present than the man in the moon in their negotiations and
deliberations about God’s work and God’s church. They were congregations who had lost their way and forgotten
or lost sight of why they exist.
They were congregations who just couldn’t come to consensus on how the
cause of Christ should be carried out with the resources at hand. And so, while they hurled
invectives at each other, Jesus left their midst for those proverbial greener
pastures. They did not show
hospitality for the sacred one in their midst.
If we think of hospitality in the
broadest sense we understand it to be the friendly, generous reception of
guests, visitors or strangers. But
that’s only a surface definition of hospitality. Hospitality can mean a whole lot more and that’s what we
will explore this coming month. As a friend of mine so beautifully expressed:
A Hospitality of place
Is
being sure that your space is arranged in a pleasing and inviting way.
Hospitality of spirit
Is hearing
another’s story without judgment but genuine interest
Hospitality of mind
Is
being open to new ideas, new ways of doing things or seeing things
Hospitality of time
Is making
room for others, not just you[i]
Hospitality asks more of us, plain and
simple. There are many ways in
which hospitality can manifest itself and we must always remember that
hospitality is at the heart of Christianity. Jesus welcomed all by his side, he invited all to be a part
of the journey that he was on.
Guests, visitors and strangers were always welcome to break bread with
him and to experience God’s magnificent grace. Jesus welcomed Gentiles to be part of the covenant; we are
proof.
In return, how hospitable towards Jesus
are we? Do we welcome Jesus Christ
into our midst and our hearts? Or
do we, like the people of Nazareth get so busy doing (not arguing because
that’s not who we are), but so busy doing things that we forget to invite
Christ among us? We always need to
be aware of his presence at our tables, the tables we have coffee around, the
tables we conduct business around, the tables we share potluck dinners around,
and certainly the table that we break consecrated bread around. You know if it
weren’t for Christ, we wouldn’t exist as a church community. Is there more we
can do to welcome Christ? What
more might we do to welcome him?
You know you are witnesses to
the Gospel and to the hospitality that God has shown you in each one of you. You are a testimony that Jesus has not
slipped out the back but has been welcomed as the stranger, the downcast, the
friend.
Always stay focused on the task and
ministry at hand and Christ will be in our midst. Never forget that OCC exists for God, not for
ourselves. As we minister to one
another, we give strength to one another so we can then minister to the wider
community. Let us open our hearts,
let us make space in our souls, let us welcome and received that dear Christ
who so very much wants to enter in.
Amen.
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