Called and known and sent
Commentary
Object:
Our readings this week are joined by a sense of calling. Most Christians expect their pastor to have a sense of call, even if it is virtual rather than literal. There are those who actually hear a Voice, or have some sort of vision or dream that tells them that God knows who they are and has a plan for them in a specific kind of service. Many others will say there was an irresistible urge to study the Bible, then to talk to their pastor, and so on, step by step drawing them into the ministry.
Our laity may think of professionals (doctors, nurses, police officers, lawyers, teachers, architects, etc.) as having a calling too. But most people have a hard time thinking of their occupation as being a call; how many people feel called to be a fast-food or big-box store worker or a cleaning person or mechanic? (Though, considering how difficult it can be to do those jobs, and how little worldly praise they’re likely to get for a job well done, it would be good if they could feel a sense of calling.)
What makes the difference between a job and a calling? If we take the words of Paul to apply to that question, it is a love that transforms not only us, but all of those around us. God’s love, spread abroad in our loving attitude even in difficult situations, can transform us, those around us, and thereby the world.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Jeremiah claims to be a child when God calls him to be a prophet. The words for child and slave are very similar, and it appears that slaves were forever called child, much as we today will call out “Oh, miss!” to get the attention of a waitress or store clerk of any age. But we have seen down through history that when God wants to present us with a hard message, it is often delivered by children -- from the prophet Samuel, who was three when God literally called out his name as he was sleeping, to the children of Lourdes, Fatima, and Medjugorge.
No matter his status in terms of free or slave, Jeremiah is a nobody, without status, without authority, entirely disposable in his society. But we need not think that this demeans his usefulness to God. This start to Jeremiah’s story makes it clear that the prophet does not rely on his or her own strength, but on the leading and guidance of God. Jeremiah is to proclaim the message God always assigns to the prophet: “You (God’s people) have strayed from the path that brings you to God. Therefore turn around, come back to God, and be saved from your errors.”
Jeremiah’s call follows the template of the prophet’s call in general:
1) God calls the person in such a way that the person knows that this is God, and that God knows the person being called. Often, this call comes as the person is doing daily tasks (Amos was trimming trees when God called him; Isaiah was making the incense offering at the Temple.)
2) The person objects: “Ah, Lord, you’ve got the wrong person. I am not worthy (or able).” This is followed by the reasons that this chosen one cannot do the job. Moses told God that he could not speak clearly; Jeremiah says he is only a child; Isaiah said that he lived in a country that had “unclean lips” and that he did too.
3) God sets aside these arguments. God knows his or her limitations and liabilities, and will strengthen, uphold, and supply the needs of the prophet.
4) Often, there is a second objection. Moses objected that the Hebrews wouldn’t listen to him if he couldn’t tell them God’s name; all of the gods of the Egyptians had names, so the Hebrew god had to have a name as well. Jeremiah claims ignorance.
5) God promises that no matter what difficulties present themselves, the prophet will be protected (at least long enough to deliver the message -- some of the prophets were beaten, run out of town [See Amos 7:12-16], or even murdered). In Jeremiah’s case, he was imprisoned in a dry cistern until the king’s eunuch begged for Jeremiah’s life.
6) God puts the prophet through a time of testing and preparation. The apostle Paul, for example, spent seven years in study of the scriptures and meditation to prepare him to do the ministry God had called him to. He had to be convinced, for a start, that Jesus really was the Anointed One the Jewish people had been waiting for, and to be able to quote the holy books to prove his case.
In Jeremiah’s story we have the assertion that God is not only calling him to a prophetic ministry, but that he was created and born for this ministry. This business of God knowing Jeremiah before he was “formed in the womb” refers to God having a purpose for Jeremiah that goes beyond the general goodwill God has toward all living things or even all people. This special calling [or appointment] requires a special consecration, and a deeper relationship with God than the average person. It is what makes a child (or anyone) into a prophet.
As with all the major prophets, God “puts [the necessary words] into the mouth of the prophet.” He is going to be talking to “nations and... kingdoms,” and that requires a knowledge and intelligence that no human beings can have in and of ourselves. God’s opposition to politics as usual is represented in what the prophet is given to say. Jeremiah has no control over his ministry. He is entirely at the disposal of the Lord God.
Of course, we preachers may be given a word of God on any Sunday (or all, perhaps) or any preaching assignment. How do we know that these words are God’s and not ours? Professor Henry Gustafsen, when he was teaching at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, said, “The certainty that a specific person is a prophet of God can only be known by the outcome of his/her preaching.” But when any of us is thinking about what to preach, we want to be faithful to what God wants said. How can we know that? In order to know that we are faithfully passing on what God wants said, rather than just riding our own pony, we do well to listen to the words of Paul in our epistle lesson.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Recently, I received an e-mail from a young woman asking how anyone could possibly live up to all that Paul is saying about love in this passage. She was ready to quit saying she was a Christian, or that she truly loved anyone, since she couldn’t love in all the ways Paul lists in this passage. I doubt that anyone is all this perfect. But these are goals to shoot for. She was just expecting that she would become perfect in love if she believed in Jesus. Sadly, it’s probably not possible to achieve that goal in this life. (As a practical matter, if we were to become perfect no one would like us.)
This text is the most popular scripture to preach at weddings. Why people think that this passage is about marriage particularly probably stems from the fact that we have only one word for love (so “I love hamburgers” oddly enough uses the same word as “I love you to the end of the earth”) while the ancients had different words for different kinds of love:
* eros was about ardent love (not necessarily sexual -- Plato, in fact, thought that eros might start as sexual attraction, but that it should develop into a love of the soul of a person, not just the body: hence platonic love);
* philia was about affectionate love, such as between equals, friends, and those subjects we find passionately interesting;
* storge was about the kind of family love that makes us able to “put up with” one another even though we may see the world quite differently, for those times when we say “As much as I love you, you’re wrong about this”;
* and finally, agape was about a charitable sort of love, which Thomas Aquinas says is “to will the good of another” -- the love of a parent for a child, for example, which was then extended to the love God has for us, as God’s children. It’s what we mean when we talk about unconditional love.
The love Paul is talking about in our current passage is the central quality that defines the followers of Christ. And it is an idealized vision, certainly not something that we automatically have as soon as we declare our intent to follow Jesus. As far as this being instructive to husbands and wives, I would usually say, “Well, Paul was famously not only not married, he also thought everyone would be better off to be like him. So we know he didn’t test these qualities of love in a real-world marriage.” That usually brought a lot of laughter to those attending the wedding!
Paul has a great love of lists, especially lists of behaviors we need to change -- which he sometimes lists in a more positive way, as being the fruits of the Spirit, or in this case, the qualities of love. He starts by pointing out that too often we seek the gifts of the Spirit that are spectacular. But those gifts can corrupt us unless we have the deepest kind of love for God and for others. The television screen has been littered with the sins of those who aspired to be the best and the brightest in the Realm of God, but who let their love become corrupted by hubris or just plain greed.
Do we yearn for the Presence of God when we pray, or for the ability to speak in tongues? Do we want knowledge, or the power to heal, or the ability to perform miracles? What is our motivation for those desires? Do we want to instill the love of God in those who see what we are doing, or do we want the glory of being able to make these things happen? We might be serious in avoiding the temptation of fame and the accumulation of riches. But we can take pride in our austerity, and criticize our families for not being “on board” instantaneously. It is sadly true that we may take pride in being humble, but those who live with us day by day might have a different story to tell -- unless they have decided that our dishonesty is bringing them the material goods they long for.
When we look at this particular Pauline list, we are indeed confronted with a difficult path. How hard it can be to be patient when our spouse seems to want to fight, or our teenaged children are rolling their eyes at us! How hard it is to hear that we are not being loving when we criticize our children’s desire to dress like their friends, to listen to the music their friends listen to. How can we guide our children and make certain they know that what we want for them comes from our love for them? It’s natural, in our society, to hear from our teens that they hate us, that we’re ruining their lives when we deny them the privilege to go to certain parties or certain venues. How often have we heard our parents’ sayings come out of our mouths and cringed? On the other hand, many of us wind up calling our parents and thanking them for the boundaries and rules they set for us, once we realize that every parent must fight in order to rear their children to be faithful, productive, and loving adults.
How do we deal with a neighbor whose dogs frighten us or our children? Or the neighbor who has a loud, drunken party every weekend? How can we deal with friends or relatives who have taken advantage of us without “getting back at them”? And as pastors, how do we reflect that agape love to our congregations, especially when we are under attack for upholding the word of God as we understand it?
Even as I write this, I remember a man who was causing dissent in the congregation I served. He had organized a coalition that was meeting in secret to work up a list of complaints, bypassing the structures that our denomination has in place for resolving disputes. When this came to the attention of the Council, a meeting was called and the list of complaints was aired. One of the officers of the church got up and said, “I’m done with this. I quit.” As he stormed out of the room, I got up to go after him. The man who was the focus of the dissent group said, “Wait a minute, you can’t leave. We’re not done!” I turned to him and said, “I am still the pastor of this church, and one of my parishioners is in serious pain. You can do whatever you want, but I have work to do right now.”
Later in the process, this man turned to me and said, “You know, it’s strange, but in all of this mess, you have treated me better than many of the congregation have!” I said, “That’s because I’m your pastor. You needed care, and it’s my job to see to that.” Was this easy? No, it was not. But I kept reminding myself of what I was told early in my career by a pastor nearing retirement: Listen carefully to your enemy and they will tell you why they are hurting. But you must listen with the ears of Jesus. Or as Paul says, with the ears of Love.
Then Paul sums up: in life, everything changes. What we know changes constantly. The gifts of the Spirit are sometimes popular, sometimes not. Compromise seems to have become more and more difficult to work out in many areas of our society today, and that includes the church. More and more people are in favor of armed conflict rather than peaceful settlement of the world’s problems.
No matter whether in the church or on the political scene, no matter how polished an orator is, if love is lacking, s/he easily can become nothing but a demagogue.
Luke 4:21-30
This leads us to our gospel lesson: Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown. He has begun [v. 8] by reading Isaiah’s claim of God’s call [seeIsaiah 61:1-2]. He then says that “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In other words, he has identified himself to be the Anointed One of God -- the Messiah [Christ in Greek].
There is a background piece of information that explains the negative reaction of the men in the synagogue. The people of the Galilee were looking for Messiah, but they did not expect that the Messiah would be a normal human being. They expected Messiah to be much more like the book of Revelation portrays him: coming from the heavens, riding a white horse, and leading armies of angels to overcome the armies and the kings of Earth. They did not expect that Messiah would be the son of one of their neighbors.
Jesus clearly speaks well. He can read the scroll, which probably means he has been educated in Hebrew. Actually, the Bible of the time was in either Greek or Hebrew, depending on where you lived. In Galilee, the everyday language was Greek, and many used the Septuagint text. The Masoretic (Hebrew) text was commonly used in other parts of the Roman empire, but the whole idea of a common Bible at this period is up in the air, since there were several branches of Judaism and Jews living throughout the empire, who carried with them their favorite version of the scriptures. [See the Jewish Encyclopedia online.] In any event, Jesus is clearly being portrayed by Luke as being an educated man.
As the men began to say to one another “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Jesus quotes a proverb: “Doctor, heal yourself.” The moral of the proverb, according to The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, is that one should attend to one’s own defects rather than criticizing defects in others. There are those commentators who say that this reflects what was said by those who taunted Jesus on the cross, and that its inclusion here is like a bracket to the gospel. Luke does use that technique throughout his gospel, so that may explain a comment that otherwise doesn’t really go with the rest of what Jesus is saying in this passage. He hasn’t criticized the members of the synagogue up to this point.
It may be that Jesus is addressing street gossip about himself. His next comment would certainly tend to indicate that he has heard some grumbling before entering the synagogue: “Do the kind of things here that people say you did in Capernaum!” In Matthew and Mark, we see Jesus healing a blind man, restoring a cripple, curing a man “with an unclean spirit,” and even healing the son/servant of a Roman officer in Capernaum. In fact, Matthew says he had left Nazareth and established himself in Capernaum [Matthew 4:13].
It may be that Jesus had already been criticized for healing the servant of a Roman officer, because he goes on to talk about Elijah, who went to a widow of Zarephath for shelter when he had to hide from the king of Israel [see 1 Kings 17 for the full story]. The same goes for the story of Elisha and Naaman, a Syrian general [2 Kings 5]. Jesus seems to be goading the men gathered for study and worship. His overall message in Luke is that God is not only the Lord of the Hebrews, but is also Lord over all the earth. Luke constantly quotes Jesus in ways that bring that lesson home. Of course, we, being Gentiles, can discern that message in what Luke has Jesus saying, but for the people of Israel in that time, fighting to maintain their identity, they had to feel undermined by such ideas.
Furthermore, Jesus reminds them that God didn’t send Elijah to any of the scores of widows that had to be living in Israel. This is a direct attack in a way -- Jesus has prefaced his stories with a comment that “no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” Thus, he has announced that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, and compared his reason for being to two of the greatest prophets ever to appear. Finally, he has told his hearers that God might care as much, or more, for Gentiles as for the children of Israel!
This is the sort of message guaranteed to enrage those who believe they and they alone are God’s Chosen People. The folks gathered in that synagogue got so angry that they rose to their feet and grabbed their Famous Son -- and, pushing and shoving, they drove him from the synagogue and out of town, to a cliff edge nearby where they planned to throw him over the side. To their consternation, he easily pulled away from their grasping hands and walked away through the crowd.
Luke has placed this episode directly after his story about Jesus’ temptation in the desert, which in turn follows his baptism by John. In short, this is Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ call and acceptance of that call from God. It seems that Luke is trying to tell us that Jesus’ temptations are continuing -- it’s not enough to face the devil, Jesus has to also face rejection by his own people. This theme is carried through in the general structure of Luke’s gospel.
For the entire first half of the gospel, people keep asking who Jesus is. The Pharisees are convinced that Jesus is a blasphemer for forgiving sins [Luke 5:21]. Simon the leper/Pharisee says to himself that Jesus is no prophet, for he lets a “woman of the streets” touch him [Luke 7:39]. In Luke 8:25, the disciples ask “Who is this, that the winds and waves obey him?” When word about Jesus reaches Herod, he asks himself “I killed John. So who is this Jesus?” [Luke 9:9].
The only ones who know who Jesus is are the demons he casts out. They keep crying out “I know who you are!” [Luke 4:34, 41; Luke 8:27-35]. “Have you come to destroy us?”
Just before the Transfiguration, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do the people say that I am?” They tell him that it is generally agreed that he is a prophet, perhaps Moses or Elijah come back (a high compliment, since these are the two prophets considered to be the greatest of all). Right after that Jesus takes his disciples to one of the high places, and they see his radiance, and he is flanked by those two prophets [Luke 9:28]. From that point until his trial before Pilate, no one asks who he is. First, Pilate says that he finds no fault in Jesus; then Herod, disappointed as he is in Jesus’ performance, sends him back to Pilate, wrapped in a sumptuous robe. The leaders of the nation mock him, but do not ask who he is -- rather, they say what the devil said in the desert: “If you are the Messiah, prove it!” The two thieves with whom he is crucified are divided in their opinion, the one challenging Jesus to save himself and them. The other thief chastises the first, and asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom, which Jesus evidently agrees to. When Jesus surrenders to death, it is the Roman centurion standing nearby who “praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ ”
So the questions that are asked at the beginning of Luke’s story find resolution in his trial and death. And from beginning to end, Jesus confronts the authorities, who do not understand -- nor do they want to understand -- who Jesus says he is. This first encounter with his hometown neighbors sets the tone for those interactions throughout the gospel.
From Luke’s perspective, Jesus came to draw people back to God. But the “good” people are not the direct recipients of God’s love -- not because God doesn’t love them, but because they do not love God. They were more concerned with their positions and power than with helping the poor and outcast. The angels come to shepherds in Luke’s story -- outcasts because they cannot easily bathe out in the fields with the sheep, poor because no one wants to pay shepherds much. This was a job often assigned to the youngest boy in the family (like David, who became king). It is left to those who have no hope to proclaim what God has done for them, and why would the powerful listen to them?
Our laity may think of professionals (doctors, nurses, police officers, lawyers, teachers, architects, etc.) as having a calling too. But most people have a hard time thinking of their occupation as being a call; how many people feel called to be a fast-food or big-box store worker or a cleaning person or mechanic? (Though, considering how difficult it can be to do those jobs, and how little worldly praise they’re likely to get for a job well done, it would be good if they could feel a sense of calling.)
What makes the difference between a job and a calling? If we take the words of Paul to apply to that question, it is a love that transforms not only us, but all of those around us. God’s love, spread abroad in our loving attitude even in difficult situations, can transform us, those around us, and thereby the world.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Jeremiah claims to be a child when God calls him to be a prophet. The words for child and slave are very similar, and it appears that slaves were forever called child, much as we today will call out “Oh, miss!” to get the attention of a waitress or store clerk of any age. But we have seen down through history that when God wants to present us with a hard message, it is often delivered by children -- from the prophet Samuel, who was three when God literally called out his name as he was sleeping, to the children of Lourdes, Fatima, and Medjugorge.
No matter his status in terms of free or slave, Jeremiah is a nobody, without status, without authority, entirely disposable in his society. But we need not think that this demeans his usefulness to God. This start to Jeremiah’s story makes it clear that the prophet does not rely on his or her own strength, but on the leading and guidance of God. Jeremiah is to proclaim the message God always assigns to the prophet: “You (God’s people) have strayed from the path that brings you to God. Therefore turn around, come back to God, and be saved from your errors.”
Jeremiah’s call follows the template of the prophet’s call in general:
1) God calls the person in such a way that the person knows that this is God, and that God knows the person being called. Often, this call comes as the person is doing daily tasks (Amos was trimming trees when God called him; Isaiah was making the incense offering at the Temple.)
2) The person objects: “Ah, Lord, you’ve got the wrong person. I am not worthy (or able).” This is followed by the reasons that this chosen one cannot do the job. Moses told God that he could not speak clearly; Jeremiah says he is only a child; Isaiah said that he lived in a country that had “unclean lips” and that he did too.
3) God sets aside these arguments. God knows his or her limitations and liabilities, and will strengthen, uphold, and supply the needs of the prophet.
4) Often, there is a second objection. Moses objected that the Hebrews wouldn’t listen to him if he couldn’t tell them God’s name; all of the gods of the Egyptians had names, so the Hebrew god had to have a name as well. Jeremiah claims ignorance.
5) God promises that no matter what difficulties present themselves, the prophet will be protected (at least long enough to deliver the message -- some of the prophets were beaten, run out of town [See Amos 7:12-16], or even murdered). In Jeremiah’s case, he was imprisoned in a dry cistern until the king’s eunuch begged for Jeremiah’s life.
6) God puts the prophet through a time of testing and preparation. The apostle Paul, for example, spent seven years in study of the scriptures and meditation to prepare him to do the ministry God had called him to. He had to be convinced, for a start, that Jesus really was the Anointed One the Jewish people had been waiting for, and to be able to quote the holy books to prove his case.
In Jeremiah’s story we have the assertion that God is not only calling him to a prophetic ministry, but that he was created and born for this ministry. This business of God knowing Jeremiah before he was “formed in the womb” refers to God having a purpose for Jeremiah that goes beyond the general goodwill God has toward all living things or even all people. This special calling [or appointment] requires a special consecration, and a deeper relationship with God than the average person. It is what makes a child (or anyone) into a prophet.
As with all the major prophets, God “puts [the necessary words] into the mouth of the prophet.” He is going to be talking to “nations and... kingdoms,” and that requires a knowledge and intelligence that no human beings can have in and of ourselves. God’s opposition to politics as usual is represented in what the prophet is given to say. Jeremiah has no control over his ministry. He is entirely at the disposal of the Lord God.
Of course, we preachers may be given a word of God on any Sunday (or all, perhaps) or any preaching assignment. How do we know that these words are God’s and not ours? Professor Henry Gustafsen, when he was teaching at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, said, “The certainty that a specific person is a prophet of God can only be known by the outcome of his/her preaching.” But when any of us is thinking about what to preach, we want to be faithful to what God wants said. How can we know that? In order to know that we are faithfully passing on what God wants said, rather than just riding our own pony, we do well to listen to the words of Paul in our epistle lesson.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Recently, I received an e-mail from a young woman asking how anyone could possibly live up to all that Paul is saying about love in this passage. She was ready to quit saying she was a Christian, or that she truly loved anyone, since she couldn’t love in all the ways Paul lists in this passage. I doubt that anyone is all this perfect. But these are goals to shoot for. She was just expecting that she would become perfect in love if she believed in Jesus. Sadly, it’s probably not possible to achieve that goal in this life. (As a practical matter, if we were to become perfect no one would like us.)
This text is the most popular scripture to preach at weddings. Why people think that this passage is about marriage particularly probably stems from the fact that we have only one word for love (so “I love hamburgers” oddly enough uses the same word as “I love you to the end of the earth”) while the ancients had different words for different kinds of love:
* eros was about ardent love (not necessarily sexual -- Plato, in fact, thought that eros might start as sexual attraction, but that it should develop into a love of the soul of a person, not just the body: hence platonic love);
* philia was about affectionate love, such as between equals, friends, and those subjects we find passionately interesting;
* storge was about the kind of family love that makes us able to “put up with” one another even though we may see the world quite differently, for those times when we say “As much as I love you, you’re wrong about this”;
* and finally, agape was about a charitable sort of love, which Thomas Aquinas says is “to will the good of another” -- the love of a parent for a child, for example, which was then extended to the love God has for us, as God’s children. It’s what we mean when we talk about unconditional love.
The love Paul is talking about in our current passage is the central quality that defines the followers of Christ. And it is an idealized vision, certainly not something that we automatically have as soon as we declare our intent to follow Jesus. As far as this being instructive to husbands and wives, I would usually say, “Well, Paul was famously not only not married, he also thought everyone would be better off to be like him. So we know he didn’t test these qualities of love in a real-world marriage.” That usually brought a lot of laughter to those attending the wedding!
Paul has a great love of lists, especially lists of behaviors we need to change -- which he sometimes lists in a more positive way, as being the fruits of the Spirit, or in this case, the qualities of love. He starts by pointing out that too often we seek the gifts of the Spirit that are spectacular. But those gifts can corrupt us unless we have the deepest kind of love for God and for others. The television screen has been littered with the sins of those who aspired to be the best and the brightest in the Realm of God, but who let their love become corrupted by hubris or just plain greed.
Do we yearn for the Presence of God when we pray, or for the ability to speak in tongues? Do we want knowledge, or the power to heal, or the ability to perform miracles? What is our motivation for those desires? Do we want to instill the love of God in those who see what we are doing, or do we want the glory of being able to make these things happen? We might be serious in avoiding the temptation of fame and the accumulation of riches. But we can take pride in our austerity, and criticize our families for not being “on board” instantaneously. It is sadly true that we may take pride in being humble, but those who live with us day by day might have a different story to tell -- unless they have decided that our dishonesty is bringing them the material goods they long for.
When we look at this particular Pauline list, we are indeed confronted with a difficult path. How hard it can be to be patient when our spouse seems to want to fight, or our teenaged children are rolling their eyes at us! How hard it is to hear that we are not being loving when we criticize our children’s desire to dress like their friends, to listen to the music their friends listen to. How can we guide our children and make certain they know that what we want for them comes from our love for them? It’s natural, in our society, to hear from our teens that they hate us, that we’re ruining their lives when we deny them the privilege to go to certain parties or certain venues. How often have we heard our parents’ sayings come out of our mouths and cringed? On the other hand, many of us wind up calling our parents and thanking them for the boundaries and rules they set for us, once we realize that every parent must fight in order to rear their children to be faithful, productive, and loving adults.
How do we deal with a neighbor whose dogs frighten us or our children? Or the neighbor who has a loud, drunken party every weekend? How can we deal with friends or relatives who have taken advantage of us without “getting back at them”? And as pastors, how do we reflect that agape love to our congregations, especially when we are under attack for upholding the word of God as we understand it?
Even as I write this, I remember a man who was causing dissent in the congregation I served. He had organized a coalition that was meeting in secret to work up a list of complaints, bypassing the structures that our denomination has in place for resolving disputes. When this came to the attention of the Council, a meeting was called and the list of complaints was aired. One of the officers of the church got up and said, “I’m done with this. I quit.” As he stormed out of the room, I got up to go after him. The man who was the focus of the dissent group said, “Wait a minute, you can’t leave. We’re not done!” I turned to him and said, “I am still the pastor of this church, and one of my parishioners is in serious pain. You can do whatever you want, but I have work to do right now.”
Later in the process, this man turned to me and said, “You know, it’s strange, but in all of this mess, you have treated me better than many of the congregation have!” I said, “That’s because I’m your pastor. You needed care, and it’s my job to see to that.” Was this easy? No, it was not. But I kept reminding myself of what I was told early in my career by a pastor nearing retirement: Listen carefully to your enemy and they will tell you why they are hurting. But you must listen with the ears of Jesus. Or as Paul says, with the ears of Love.
Then Paul sums up: in life, everything changes. What we know changes constantly. The gifts of the Spirit are sometimes popular, sometimes not. Compromise seems to have become more and more difficult to work out in many areas of our society today, and that includes the church. More and more people are in favor of armed conflict rather than peaceful settlement of the world’s problems.
No matter whether in the church or on the political scene, no matter how polished an orator is, if love is lacking, s/he easily can become nothing but a demagogue.
Luke 4:21-30
This leads us to our gospel lesson: Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown. He has begun [v. 8] by reading Isaiah’s claim of God’s call [seeIsaiah 61:1-2]. He then says that “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In other words, he has identified himself to be the Anointed One of God -- the Messiah [Christ in Greek].
There is a background piece of information that explains the negative reaction of the men in the synagogue. The people of the Galilee were looking for Messiah, but they did not expect that the Messiah would be a normal human being. They expected Messiah to be much more like the book of Revelation portrays him: coming from the heavens, riding a white horse, and leading armies of angels to overcome the armies and the kings of Earth. They did not expect that Messiah would be the son of one of their neighbors.
Jesus clearly speaks well. He can read the scroll, which probably means he has been educated in Hebrew. Actually, the Bible of the time was in either Greek or Hebrew, depending on where you lived. In Galilee, the everyday language was Greek, and many used the Septuagint text. The Masoretic (Hebrew) text was commonly used in other parts of the Roman empire, but the whole idea of a common Bible at this period is up in the air, since there were several branches of Judaism and Jews living throughout the empire, who carried with them their favorite version of the scriptures. [See the Jewish Encyclopedia online.] In any event, Jesus is clearly being portrayed by Luke as being an educated man.
As the men began to say to one another “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Jesus quotes a proverb: “Doctor, heal yourself.” The moral of the proverb, according to The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, is that one should attend to one’s own defects rather than criticizing defects in others. There are those commentators who say that this reflects what was said by those who taunted Jesus on the cross, and that its inclusion here is like a bracket to the gospel. Luke does use that technique throughout his gospel, so that may explain a comment that otherwise doesn’t really go with the rest of what Jesus is saying in this passage. He hasn’t criticized the members of the synagogue up to this point.
It may be that Jesus is addressing street gossip about himself. His next comment would certainly tend to indicate that he has heard some grumbling before entering the synagogue: “Do the kind of things here that people say you did in Capernaum!” In Matthew and Mark, we see Jesus healing a blind man, restoring a cripple, curing a man “with an unclean spirit,” and even healing the son/servant of a Roman officer in Capernaum. In fact, Matthew says he had left Nazareth and established himself in Capernaum [Matthew 4:13].
It may be that Jesus had already been criticized for healing the servant of a Roman officer, because he goes on to talk about Elijah, who went to a widow of Zarephath for shelter when he had to hide from the king of Israel [see 1 Kings 17 for the full story]. The same goes for the story of Elisha and Naaman, a Syrian general [2 Kings 5]. Jesus seems to be goading the men gathered for study and worship. His overall message in Luke is that God is not only the Lord of the Hebrews, but is also Lord over all the earth. Luke constantly quotes Jesus in ways that bring that lesson home. Of course, we, being Gentiles, can discern that message in what Luke has Jesus saying, but for the people of Israel in that time, fighting to maintain their identity, they had to feel undermined by such ideas.
Furthermore, Jesus reminds them that God didn’t send Elijah to any of the scores of widows that had to be living in Israel. This is a direct attack in a way -- Jesus has prefaced his stories with a comment that “no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” Thus, he has announced that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, and compared his reason for being to two of the greatest prophets ever to appear. Finally, he has told his hearers that God might care as much, or more, for Gentiles as for the children of Israel!
This is the sort of message guaranteed to enrage those who believe they and they alone are God’s Chosen People. The folks gathered in that synagogue got so angry that they rose to their feet and grabbed their Famous Son -- and, pushing and shoving, they drove him from the synagogue and out of town, to a cliff edge nearby where they planned to throw him over the side. To their consternation, he easily pulled away from their grasping hands and walked away through the crowd.
Luke has placed this episode directly after his story about Jesus’ temptation in the desert, which in turn follows his baptism by John. In short, this is Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ call and acceptance of that call from God. It seems that Luke is trying to tell us that Jesus’ temptations are continuing -- it’s not enough to face the devil, Jesus has to also face rejection by his own people. This theme is carried through in the general structure of Luke’s gospel.
For the entire first half of the gospel, people keep asking who Jesus is. The Pharisees are convinced that Jesus is a blasphemer for forgiving sins [Luke 5:21]. Simon the leper/Pharisee says to himself that Jesus is no prophet, for he lets a “woman of the streets” touch him [Luke 7:39]. In Luke 8:25, the disciples ask “Who is this, that the winds and waves obey him?” When word about Jesus reaches Herod, he asks himself “I killed John. So who is this Jesus?” [Luke 9:9].
The only ones who know who Jesus is are the demons he casts out. They keep crying out “I know who you are!” [Luke 4:34, 41; Luke 8:27-35]. “Have you come to destroy us?”
Just before the Transfiguration, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do the people say that I am?” They tell him that it is generally agreed that he is a prophet, perhaps Moses or Elijah come back (a high compliment, since these are the two prophets considered to be the greatest of all). Right after that Jesus takes his disciples to one of the high places, and they see his radiance, and he is flanked by those two prophets [Luke 9:28]. From that point until his trial before Pilate, no one asks who he is. First, Pilate says that he finds no fault in Jesus; then Herod, disappointed as he is in Jesus’ performance, sends him back to Pilate, wrapped in a sumptuous robe. The leaders of the nation mock him, but do not ask who he is -- rather, they say what the devil said in the desert: “If you are the Messiah, prove it!” The two thieves with whom he is crucified are divided in their opinion, the one challenging Jesus to save himself and them. The other thief chastises the first, and asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom, which Jesus evidently agrees to. When Jesus surrenders to death, it is the Roman centurion standing nearby who “praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ ”
So the questions that are asked at the beginning of Luke’s story find resolution in his trial and death. And from beginning to end, Jesus confronts the authorities, who do not understand -- nor do they want to understand -- who Jesus says he is. This first encounter with his hometown neighbors sets the tone for those interactions throughout the gospel.
From Luke’s perspective, Jesus came to draw people back to God. But the “good” people are not the direct recipients of God’s love -- not because God doesn’t love them, but because they do not love God. They were more concerned with their positions and power than with helping the poor and outcast. The angels come to shepherds in Luke’s story -- outcasts because they cannot easily bathe out in the fields with the sheep, poor because no one wants to pay shepherds much. This was a job often assigned to the youngest boy in the family (like David, who became king). It is left to those who have no hope to proclaim what God has done for them, and why would the powerful listen to them?
