Luke 4:21-30 Common English Bible
He began to explain to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.”
Everyone was raving about Jesus, so impressed were they by the gracious words flowing from his lips. They said, “This is Joseph’s son, isn’t it?”
Then Jesus said to them, “Undoubtedly, you will quote this saying to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we’ve heard you did in Capernaum.’” He said, “I assure you that no prophet is welcome in the prophet’s hometown. And I can assure you that there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it didn’t rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land. Yet Elijah was sent to none of them but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon. There were also many persons with skin diseases in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha, but none of them were cleansed. Instead, Naaman the Syrian was cleansed.”
When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with anger. They rose up and ran him out of town. They led him to the crest of the hill on which their town had been built so that they could throw him off the cliff. But he passed through the crowd and went on his way.
One: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
All: Thanks be to God.
REFLECTION: Here in Your Hometown
This reading is the second part of a story from the gospel of Luke when Jesus returns from Galilee to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. He reads from the prophet Isaiah and announces that Isaiah’s words are being fulfilled, right here, right now. It is a dramatic and yet humble announcement of what he has come to accomplish, and the hometown crowd is duly impressed. This young man, a labourer, son of their friend and neighbour Joseph, speaks so well, so calmly and confidently.
Of course they are amazed, of course they are entitled to be proud of him and to bask for a little while in the glow of his bright future. It’s what we naturally do when a hometown kid makes good.
But that feel-good moment for the folks in Nazareth is short-lived because Jesus makes it immediately clear that he is not there for approval or congratulations, he is there to push them right out of their comfort zone.
The bit we often miss in this story is that it isn’t the people listening to him who start an argument, it’s Jesus himself. Up until this point, the crowd is on his side, but Jesus starts putting words in their mouths. He basically says, I know what you’re thinking but not saying, and quotes some familiar proverbs: “Doctor, heal yourself.” “No prophet is welcome in the prophet’s hometown.”
Why would Jesus do this? Because he wants to make it very clear, right from the beginning, that his ministry is not to the insiders, the people who know him and his family, but to the outsiders. That is where he started his ministry, in the hinterland of Galilee which is largely populated by the marginalized Gentiles. He’s probably right, the people of his hometown expect him to treat them at least as well as the people of Galilee: “Do here in your hometown what we’ve heard you did in Capernaum.”
But instead of doing the expected thing, staying in Nazareth to preach and heal, Jesus tells them stories of prophets of the past who also did not do the expected thing. In spite of the clear need in their own communities, Elijah and Elisha were sent to minister to the outsiders. Elijah visited a starving widow in the land of Sidon, an enemy of Israel, and because she was willing to share her last food he performed a miracle and she had as much as she could eat. When the enemy commander Naaman approached the king of Israel seeking to be cured of his leprosy, Elisha told him to wash in the Jordan river and he was cleansed.
To the people in the Nazareth synagogue, the widow and Naaman are the ultimate outsiders, and they are furious that Jesus is telling them so bluntly that he has a ministry not just to them but also to the Gentiles, to the outcasts, to their enemies. They are so angry that they are ready to kill him.
Isn’t it true that we often feel most betrayed by those who are closest to us? We don’t expect our realities to be challenged when we are safely surrounded by family and friends. We expect help and support, not uncomfortable truths. And if one of our own has particular gifts, we expect them to use those gifts for our benefit, not our enemy’s. The person for whom we had such great hopes becomes our enemy when they fail to live up to our self-centred expectations. Surprise leads to shock, and shock leads to anger.
Which might help to explain the extreme reaction to a sermon delivered by Bishop Mariann Budde at the interfaith prayer service held at the Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 21. In another place and time, it would not have been a particularly shocking sermon. She preached on the theme of unity and the dangers of polarization. She preached on the quality of mercy to outsiders and the marginalized. Gently but firmly, she reminded the president of his responsibility to those who will suffer as a result of his policies. An insider, Bishop of the Episcopalian church in Washington DC, speaking to insiders representing the new government, she preached justice for outsiders, for immigrants, for gay and transgender people and their families, and the working poor. She preached the gospel of Jesus, the gospel that he preached to the people of Nazareth.
The reaction has been astounding. Interest in mainline churches has seen a huge uptick, as lukewarm members and avowed atheists alike are drawn to the courage and compassion expressed in Bishop Budde’s sermon. Many didn’t even know that mainline churches like ours offer a more inclusive vision than the evangelical churches they read about in the news. Bishop Budde’s books are selling out, and spiritual seekers are checking out their local mainline churches. It’s a huge moment of opportunity for our churches to remind the secular world that we’re still here and we’re still relevant.
The backlash is perhaps more predictable, from questioning the Bishop’s authority to speak as a woman, to threats to deport her, all the way up to death threats. “No prophet is welcome in the prophet’s hometown.”
Jesus was not welcome in his hometown of Nazareth, as his words of truth and power hit home and his friends and neighbours realized that Jesus was not going to follow their expectations, that his good news wasn’t just for them but also for their outcasts and for their enemies. In anger, they forced him to the edge of a cliff, ready to throw him off.
But this is not the end of the Jesus story, only the beginning, and Jesus knows it. He passes through the crowd and goes on his way. There is so much mystery and power in this simple sentence. Jesus simply refuses to accept the boundaries that people try to impose on him, he crosses those boundaries and carries on. He does not respond in fear or anger, in blame or defensiveness, he continues on the path that God has laid out for him.
The challenge to us today in these anxious times is to look for the places where Jesus wants us to be, to cross the boundaries, to resist participating in what Bishop Budde calls the “culture of contempt.”
Anger and blame will not serve us now, anger and blame have never served us. God calls us to continue to work towards unity. I don’t mean becoming the 51st state. I mean the kind of unity that Bishop Budde called for, and I’d like to share the foundations for unity that she finds in our sacred texts by quoting from her sermon.
The first foundation for unity is honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, which is … the birthright of all people as children of the One God. In public discourse, honoring each other’s dignity means refusing to mock, discount, or demonize those with whom we differ… If common ground is not possible, dignity demands that we remain true to our convictions without contempt for those who hold convictions of their own.
A second foundation for unity is honesty in both private conversation and public discourse. If we aren’t willing to be honest, there is no use in praying for unity, because our actions work against the prayers themselves. We might, for a time, experience a false sense of unity among some, but not the sturdier, broader unity that we need to address the challenges we face…it’s incumbent upon us to speak the truth, even when–and especially when–it costs us.
A third foundation for unity is humility, which we all need, because we are all fallible human beings. We make mistakes. We say and do things that we regret. We have our blind spots and biases, and we are perhaps the most dangerous to ourselves and others when we are persuaded, without a doubt, that we are absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong.
The dignity of all human beings, honesty, humility. The gospel of Jesus, the values that cross boundaries as we seek to step away from the cliff and follow Jesus on the way.
Let me close, again in the words of Bishop Budde,
Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.
May God grant us all the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, speak the truth in love, and walk humbly with one another and our God, for the good of all the people of this nation and the world. Amen.
