The Discomfort of Hope - 2/3/19

The New Revised Standard Version The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth

21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 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?” 23 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.’ ” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25 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; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 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. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Opening — Amazing Echo of Hope

Connection with last week’s text, that Jesus is heard proclaiming the prophet’s liberating good news. And he’s claiming it for himself, that he is the hope bringer, that the echos have been about him.

Last week — “Hope cries out, full-throated, true, with strength and commitment. Hope stands upon solid ground, a firm foundation, a sense of resolve, unwavering against the winds of the world which swirl around it and seek to unroot it.

Jesus stands before the people and proclaims a fulfillment of hope. Jesus stands before the crowd and speaks new words of hope, leaning further in to the message of God’s good, redemptive story.”

Yes — hope is an echo of God’s goodness, resonating to us in our time and place. It is an echo that speaks possibility.

But hope has another side to it — Hope brings discomfort.

Leadership and Risk

As an aspiring leader, I like to read and think and reflect about what it means to develop, to grow, to expand what I am capable of and helping others do the same. One of the things that I’ve been reflecting on over these last few months in terms of my leadership is the necessity of working in spaces that make me uncomfortable. In order to grow, I need to push my limits of what is in my competency range, what is comfortable and easy, so that I might test and strengthen the parts of my leadership skill set that are developing.

Think of it like an athlete, training for a race or lifting weights to strengthen muscles. You have to enter into realms of discomfort to get stronger, to go farther. I remember back to when I ran my first 2 miles. That seemed like such a long distance. But then, there was the first time I reached 3 miles, then pushed to 5 miles. Then it went to 8, 12, 15, 21, and finally 26.2, when I ran a marathon. Each distance seemed beyond my reach, but as I entered into the discomfort, I found that I gained capacity for each longer distance.

Weight training has never been my thing, but I do recall a similar experience in my high school weight training class. I liked doing squat lifts. We would add a little more weight to the bar, slowly and slowly getting into realms of discomfort, pushing my muscles, making tiny little rips and tears that, with proper rest, would heal and strengthen, allowing me to squat with more weight. It was kind of remarkable to me — that by entering into this incredible discomfort, carefully and intentionally, I could actually lift a fair bit of weight.

Leaders do this. They take those calculated, uncomfortable risks that help expand their organization’s reach and their own potential. Prophets do this, as they provoke their hearers to places of discomfort that call their hearers to question and consider the truth in a fresh light.

We, the community of Jesus, must do this as well. If we are to embody hope in its fullness, we must find ourselves in uncomfortable places, places where we are challenged to take a risk, to lean in to God’s arms, to step out in faith.

Tell us what we want to hear

This is all well and good, but the people hearing Jesus’ message want him to do something.

“Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Can you catch the sense behind that question? Isn’t this that kid we’ve watched grow up? He belongs to us — rather, we raised him, so he’s one of our own — of course, he’s got a duty to heal our illnesses.

The problem with this is that the people aren’t hearing the risk that Jesus is calling them to, to leave their lives behind and follow him in a whole new way of living in response to God. Rather, there’s a sense of entitlement among the crowd — “heal us.” “Do here in your hometown what you’ve done in Capernaum.”

Do you have a family member who’s a doctor or a counselor? Do you ever have the inclination to say, after dinner, perhaps enjoying a glass of wine on the couch or during a halftime break during the Super Bowl, do you ever lean over and say “Hey, I know you’re off the clock, but…can I ask you something? I’ve got this rash…do you mind if I…?”

If you’ve been on the receiving end of one of these questions…don’t you roll your eyes? Sigh.

In those interactions, and in these cries from the people at the synagogue…they don’t actually want the truth. You want your brother-in-law who’s a doctor to tell you that you’re ok. You want your best friend who’s a therapist to tell you you’re not depressed. You want the healer who “belongs to you” to change your situation without you having to change your life.

Tell me what I want to hear. Heal us like you healed those other people.

And…if you don’t...

The Discomfort of Hope

Ok, so we’ve got a call to take risks, to stretch our muscles and grow. To hear a liberating truth and make life change.

And we have this inclination to ask for the easy route, to feel entitled to God’s grace, to expect that since the prophet is from our hometown, that we’ve got a special pass from any of the life changing risk he’s calling us to.

The former of these examples — the risk — this is where true hope is found.

The latter — where we feel entitled to the healing — this is a farce.

Sadly, most of us want to trust the entitlement. We want hope and possibility to be easy. We want to be granted our desires without any sacrifice or change.

Jesus makes reference to another prophet, Elijah, who did great and miraculous things across the land, but in his hometown, widows continued to starve. Why? Because the people did not own up to their complicity in the plight of the widows. The people did not repent. The people did not seek redemption. The people were not willing to do the work to tear their muscles so they could heal.

Hope should discomfort us. Early in my ministry career, I was taught a piece of wisdom regarding our true call as ministers of the church. The call is to “comforted the afflicted and afflict the comforted.”

Hope brings comfort to those who know they are in need of healing, not just externally, but internally. Hope brings comfort to those who are willing to pass through discomfort, to become acquainted with sorrow, to wrestle with what it means to risk, to step into the realm of impossibility in order to discover God’s love and joy and goodness on the other side.

Our first passage today, Paul’s passage on love to the Corinthians, speaks of the immense risk and beauty of love. All of those things love does not do (envy, boast, keep record of wrongs, etc.) — those are not comfortable. They are risky, messy, hard things to do. Love is willing to endure discomfort because it knows what it is worth to persist, to endure, to listen for the echo of love’s voice through all the hardship.

Likewise, when we find true hope, in Christ, the life of repentance and true healing, we will gladly embrace the discomfort it takes to pursue it, to grasp it, to abide in it.

Our Invitation to Discomfort

None of us want to be in the crowd who is trying to send Jesus over the cliff. We don’t want our entitlement to lead us to bitterness and force us to act in ways we would later regret.

Let’s land this plane and talk about it for our community.

Many here in our church have a sense that God is calling us to grow, to push into some new territories of mission, to double-down on our commitment to children, families, and vulnerable populations in our city, like the unhoused and the addicted. We can frame these groups or categories as hopes — a link to the prophetic call of Jesus to liberate and care for those in the greatest need.

In order to do this, though, we’re going to have to get uncomfortable. We learn to get used to rambunctious children running around our halls. We get acquainted with opening our doors to our addicted and recovering neighbors in a variety of 12-step groups. We step into that uncomfortable place of opening our lives to our unhoused neighbors on our streets by making meals and bringing warm clothing to share from our abundance. We get uncomfortable as we sacrifice some of our own needs so that others might have food, shelter, a place to belong.

All of this, if it leads us to a place where we remain comfortable and sit back listening for hope’s echo — it is misplaced.

Will we protect our own interests and ask for our own healing? Will we keep running at the comfortable distance or keep bench pressing the bar alone?

Hope draws us in, calls us to “lean in” more. If it opens us up to growth, if it leads us to a calm, grounded center of gravity which is the presence of the Holy One among us — this is the word of hope.

Let’s look to Jesus to see how this is finally fleshed out.

Closing — Calm Presence

The crowd pushes Jesus out to the hillside. I wonder if Jesus simply allows the crowd to direct his path. It doesn’t sound like he tried to resist. But with their pitchforks and their frustrations and their entitled sense of being “wronged”, they push him to the cliff — “Fine, if you’re not going to do this our way, then we are through with you!”

But there is Jesus. Calm. Can you picture the rabble, all the energy, all the noise? And then there’s Jesus. He simply keeps walking, right through it all.

Jesus passes through the midst of the crowd. Calm and steady presence, confidently walking through the rabble and the noise because he has heard the echo of hope.

I have heard this call here, among our church. So have you. We have heard the resonances, the echoes, the possibilities. We will walk in calm confidence toward it, together.

Jesus passes through the midst of the crowd. Calm and steady presence, confidently walking through the rabble and the noise because he has heard the echo of hope.

All the other noise, the entitlement, the bluster and the anger — these things will pass away. But faith, hope, and love remain.

Let’s pray.

Blessing

May the love of God

help you to bear all things.

May the love of Christ

enable you to believe all things.

May the love of the Holy Spirit

inspire you to hope all things,

so that you abide in faith, hope, and love

this day and forever.