Christ the Prophet - Luke 4:14-21

The New Revised Standard Version The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry

The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry

(Mt 4:17; Mk 1:14–15)

14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth

(Mt 13:54–58; Mk 6:1–6)

16 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, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

18 “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,

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

20 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. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Prayer

God grant us clarity, discomfort, passion, and resolve as we encounter this text once again today. May we, like the first hearers of Jesus’ preached words, have our eyes opened to how these words call us to be pursuers of justice, mercy, and grace as we live out our faith in the world. May we at once be blessed with dis-ease at the way things are in the world and with deepened resolve to join in the work of being repairers of the breach. Amen.

Sermon

I love preaching on this text. If my records are correct, this is at least the 3rd time I’ve had the privilege of studying and preaching on this particular story from Luke in my almost 5 years here at St. James. This is a passage I go back to in my studies often, a key moment which inaugurates Jesus’ preaching ministry, a moment of coming out as who he truly is before his hometown crowd.

Preaching to the hometown crowd is a funny experience, I must say. In the years I’ve served in ministry, I’ve had the opportunity on many occasions to “go back home” to guest preach.

I grew up going to Calvin Presbyterian Church in Shoreline, WA. My parents were children in the youth group there, got married there, and my sister and I grew up amongst that congregation. I was the Sunday school kid who bounced around the fellowship hall after service, eating donuts, saying hi to all four of my grandparents, who attended the church as well, running around in the sanctuary after service. Actually, sounds a lot like some kids we know here at St. James!

When I began serving in fulltime ministry and pursuing ordination, the opportunity to go “back home” to preach came up a number of times. Young seminary students are great for pulpit supply and why not invite an old member to their home church?

Preaching a few times at Calvin Presbyterian helped me grow in the love of this craft. Since, I’ve also had the privilege of being a regular preacher at Everson Presbyterian Church, First Presbyterian Church, and Cordata Presbyterian Church. Each year, with our pulpit swap, I get the opportunity to “go back home” to FPC and Cordata, visiting old friends, connecting with new people, coming “home” to share the teaching for a Sunday.

One truth I have come to know as I have “returned” to these communities is that the warm welcome will always also be colored by a skepticism the kid “who got all growed up and came back to preach the word.”

Old home week is not as tidy or simple as we like to think it is. We can never truly go back to the time we’ve come from, back to the way things were. And yet there is an expectation that when we do we will take our rightful place in the order of things. And it can be a bit disruptive when we don’t.

Let’s return to Jesus and where he is in his ministry. Remember, two weeks ago, we heard the story of Jesus’ baptism by John. The beloved son is blessed and ordained to begin his ministry. Between that story in Luke’s Gospel and our reading today, there is a lineage of Jesus’ family accounted and the story of Jesus going out to be tested in the wilderness. These are texts of inauguration and preparation. The lineage reminds the listeners that Jesus belongs to their shared family — he’s one of their own and belongs in the role of prophetic teacher. The temptations in the wilderness show us Jesus’ capacity to bear the weight and challenge of confronting the powers of the world. He is tested and ready.

And so now he can enter his hometown synagogue and stand up and preach a prophetic, challenging word. He is ready.

And it so happens that he brings a text that would be very familiar to those in attendance, the proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor, the Jubilee Year, in which all debts were to be forgiven, land returned to its rightful owners, and a great leveling of society to take place.

Familiar text read by the hometown boy. No problem, right?

Shouldn’t be, but the problem is that when a prophet speaks the truth, it is often less than comforting to those who want the status quo to remain unchanged. And Jesus, it appears, has no interest in maintaining things, but rather is prepared to speak a new word of truth.

He reads from the prophet Isaiah and rolls up the scroll. The audience’s attention is focused, rapt and fixed upon him. They know something powerful is going on here. And Jesus seals it in vs. 21 by saying “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The crowd is amazed. They can’t believe this is their hometown boy. They go on to ask, “isn’t this Joseph’s son?” They can’t believe that that kiddo has come to them to speak with such authority and chutzpah.

The text continues on in Luke 4:22-30.

The New Revised Standard Version The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth

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.

This moment not as an opportunity for his congregation to pat themselves on the back and expect that because he’s the hometown boy, his healings will proceed in the same way they have in Capernaum.

I’ve had some strange experiences going back to preach and speak in communities I’ve previously belonged to. There is something comforting about a familiar face and with that comfort, there seems to come some expectation that the words spoken will be easy, tame, and simply reassuring.

And yet, I’ve found, this cannot not usually be the case.

Early on in my ministry career, a mentor spoke to me about the power of the word preached. They left me with this statement of meaning around what we are doing when we speak the word of the Lord in the company of God’s people: The work of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted AND afflict the comforted.

Hear that again: the work of proclaiming the Good News is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted.

But what we see in Jesus and what we know from experience is that his listeners only wanted comfort. They wanted to be able to pat themselves on the back and say, that’s our boy. The prophet has come home and we’re going to reap the rewards of his healings and truth because, that’s our boy.

But we hear how it goes: by the end of the story, Jesus is being driven out of town to be hurled off a cliff. He sneaks away. His message has afflicted the comforted, the ones who expected their hometown boy to pull out the good stuff for them while he’s around.

Now, preaching well and helping guide others into the work of God is humbling, delicate work. It must be done with a clarity of purpose, not seeking to affront for the sake of affronting, but rather capitalizing on the nuances of the text, playing with possible meanings that will be helpful for the congregation to hear, encouraging engagement, not alienating people.

And yet, as I’ve preached for a number of years now, I recognize that we cannot simply settle for comfort, at least if we truly want to engage the prophetic power of Jesus’ words.

As I say, I’ve preached this text a few times. This text is also a foundational part of my doctoral work that I am currently working on.

The reason this text has such importance to me is from these encounters of “coming home.”

I’ve actually found that “going home” is often more difficult because there is an expectation of what and who you are that is held in the community imagination where you are returning to. Jesus is standing up in his home synagogue — oh, this is Joseph’s boy!

For me, preaching in congregations where I used to serve has at once been a great experience where my shared history with them allows folks to listen and attend to what I say with a certain level of trust. AND, at the same time, because that trust exists, anything that is uncomfortable or provocative about the message is further amped up by that shared history — hey, who does this guy think he is! He’s just that whippersnapper who used to be in the youth group. He can’t say these things with any authority.

Here’s where I want to focus our learning today. All of this is about the need to shift our expectations of what the preached word of God is meant to do and be.

So let’s focus this on how we perceive it, how we expect it, and how we might need to adjust those expectations.

The key statement of Jesus’ reading is not drawn from the text itself, but it is his very brief homily in response to Isaiah: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

He takes a familiar, comforting text, and he makes it very personal, very here-and-now centered, very clear that the aforementioned time of fulfilment is TODAY, NOW, THIS MOMENT.

Jesus may be able to get in the door with sharing the prophet Isaiah’s words. This is just a reading from the regular cycle of readings that we are all familiar with, right?

Jesus doesn’t stay there. Jesus, instead, disrupts the people’s expectations that he will simply comfort and heal them. They think that Isaiah’s words are meant to affirm and settle them into their status quo, to bless their way of life, to keep them comfortable and well.

Here’s what I see, the challenge and hope I gather from this text: I believe we need to change our perception of what the preached word is meant to do in us. Specifically, I believe we need to challenge the assumption that when we hear God’s word read and preached, that we are supposed to agree with it and it is meant to specifically make us feel good or better about our current circumstances.

Instead, as we see in Jesus’ teaching and as I know many of us have encountered in the power of the word preached, the sermon should rattle us.

Again, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted. For those in affliction, struggling to get by, at the end of their rope — the message of God is a balm, a healing and soothing word, an offering of hope even amidst difficulties. It is, very much so, disruptive — disruptive of sadness, despair, and dis-ease.

And at the same time, the message of God is disruptive in how it challenges us to overcome our apathy, our ambivalence, our disregard for the poor and the hurting. God’s word should make us squirm if we need to squirm — it should challenge us to become more humble, more sacrificial, more grace-filled than we currently are.

A number of times, when I’ve “gone home” to preach or speak, I’ve been met after the service by a person who wants to give me a piece of their mind. You see, the trusted relationship that was previously in place has been disrupted by something I’ve said or a way I have shown up differently than they expect. The word has cut differently and more uncomfortably than they would like.

The question, then, is this: do we submit to the way things were OR do we speak the truth boldly, knowing it will challenge, but it will also bring healing and new life through that challenge?

I’ll close by encouraging this of our community: As your pastor, I want to help you develop a healthy relationship with the discomforting word of God. I want you to expect that when we gather to hear the word preached, the prophetic word spoken through the scriptures, that it will challenge us. We must let go of expecting God’s word to be neutral, always soft, not pushing against our comforts.

If we cannot palette this, I have to wonder if we are not unlike the crowds who sought to throw Jesus off the cliff. Do we shut down and stop listening if we are disrupted? Or can we develop a loving relationship with disruption as a vehicle for growth, a lens for us to focus in on where our healing needs to take place?

The words from the prophet are meant to spark imaginations for a great reordering of society. Out of exile, debts are paid and land is returned. The disruption that must take place does so so all may be brought into the life of God.

I wonder, are we like the crowd? Does the message disrupt us and do we want to throw Jesus off the cliff? Does our inability to stomach uncomfortable words blind us to Jesus walking right passed us, continuing on his journey? Perhaps we need to check this in ourselves — does God’s word open your eyes?

Perhaps God uses the hometown kid to disrupt and open the eyes of the community of Nazareth in a way no one else could. Perhaps we are disturbed and challenged by those closest to us. What might we be invited to learn and grow into and serve like if we let this happen, let ourselves be challenged, let ourselves grow? I pray that we will let God’s word do this to us.