Scripture for the Sermon – Luke 4:21-30

 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.

 Sermon – A Too Young Boy, A Home-Boy, and St. Paul the Economist     Pastor Kent Elliott

 These are words of life:

"Do not say that you are too young. ... I give you authority over nations and kingdoms, to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."

 

Sometimes the words of life are not welcome words, yet these are words of life.

"I am sure you will quote this proverb to me, 'Doctor, heal yourself.' ...A prophet is never welcomed in his home town." 

 

"He walked through the middle of the crowd and went HIS way."

 

These are words of life.  Words of life have the power to take us from the warmth of familiar scripture to violent anger as we hear them at the depth of their challenge to us.

"If I speak like a mortal or an angel, but do not have love, I am a cymbal dropped on the folding chair in the middle of the bassoon solo."

 

We are drawn here because we desperately yearn for, and we need to hear words of life.  Let us not settle always for words of advice, when what we need is a prophet.

As we have our conversation about the Scripture, and as we place our lives before God today, let's measure our conversation by these three possibilities:

         = That in words of life we are being called,

=    that the call is as prophetic for us as for Judah when Jeremiah was a boy, or for Galilee when Jesus the homeboy came to Nazareth,

=    that Paul's lovely song to love is a challenge to the Corinthian's economics and values.

To get to these words of life for us, we begin our story with the people of Nazareth. These are folks who remembered Jeremiah.  Not because he had lived at a recent time, that some would remember. It had been over 600 years since that day when the Lord had called Jeremiah to be a prophet.

     Through the scripture they remembered. So they remembered the great prophet, who told the hard truth. Not as he had been received in his own day, the curmudgeon who said things nobody with any pride in themselves, their community or their nation would want to hear. After 600 years, exile, and return, and more conquest, after many generations of green years and dry, the prophet is the venerable truth-sayer that we read alongside Torah.

     We enter our story with these people, remembering, and looking for a new vision, a new birth into their future. The people of Nazareth were hearing rumors of their homeboy, Joseph and Mary's son, rumors of miraculous things, people healed, teaching with authority. And this weekend he's come to town.

     When I think of this scene, my mind's picture looks a lot like some good towns full of good folks where I have lived.

     Can you picture the scene? In a dusty town, people are coming out onto the street from church (The synagogue becomes a church in my mental image). The church has been full today, because that amazing son of Joe and Mary came back to preach. What could be better, or more rare, than a traveling evangelist who is also someone we know well and remember? Sitting in those pews were some whose minds wandered as he read and talked with such gracious words. Minds wandered back to days when he had been a smart-aleck kid in the Sabbath school. He always knew the memory verse, but then he'd ask the most annoying questions. Thank goodness the other fourth graders would groan when he asked them. That let me avoid admitting I had no answer (but he always made our arguing/debate into fun times, at that). Minds were wandering like that, while a deep down feeling of inner joy permeated the room, remembering and drawing new strength from his new presence now. What could be better than a traveling evangelist homeboy?

     Now the service is ended. The people come out from the church into the street. There's a cold bite to the wind today, causing a shiver. But we linger there anyway, each of us hoping to get a personal word with young Mr. Ben-Joseph. Maybe today is a new beginning for old Nazareth, and we want to encourage that. Our native son is home, with a kind of power we've never seen before. Our town is going to be the center of things again, just like in the good old days that grandma goes on and on about. Maybe it'll be even better.

     But now what's he saying? Someone asked him a question. What was it? Something's not right. He's twisting proverbs at us, presuming to tell us what we are thinking. I don't like this. How can our impressive native son be turning these stories of Elijah and Elisha on us? We are better than this.  Let's show him he can't treat his home town this way. He can't just go other places and expect us to accept it and tag along behind. Let's show him.

     And the mob reached the high edge of the cutbank before anyone was really aware what had happened. and yet...  Jesus walked through the midst of them, and went his way.

     It was not the time for crucifixion, not the place for a crown of thorns. Time for Jesus to be Prophet. And a prophet is without honor at home.

     Where is the power to be found for walking on his way?  Was it something he said?  Did he stare them down with eyes that penetrate the soul?  Or was it as it was with the young man who asked how to get possession of eternal life: Did he look at them and love them.

     There's something in that word love in the New Testament -- that agape thing -- that cuts so much deeper than we are ever ready for.

     Contentions at Corinth, too.  [[context for call to love..  What was going on was not a wedding, that prompted the poetic words...  "but have not love"

     In the days of Jeremiah, Judah needed a prophet. First century Nazareth needed a prophet. They were ready for minor reforms and for wonderful deeds, but they needed a prophet.

     Darrell Jodock interpreted these biblical images for our age this way:

 

 “…there are voices urging us to reform our public lives and move away from the idolatries of the present age. But we need a prophet, someone who will call us to a fundamental reorientation of individual and national priorities. We too are content with external reforms and not ready to confront the darkness in our own character. We want a future based on familiar premises even if they are no longer working. We still want to find our solutions in more education and technology, find communal well-being in more individual freedom, derive economic security from competition unbalanced by social concern, and acquire abundance through environmental exploitation. But disillusioned Americans drift without direction while an uncivil discourse born of frustration, disappointment and confusion grows more shrill and more disparaging. We urgently need a reorientation.  . . .

"Plenty of would be prophets call church members to take sides, to ensure the victory of one program or another.

"Paul urged the divided and factionalized Corinthians to follow the path of love -- not the romanticized and sentimentalized love of popular culture, but the deeper stuff of revised loyalties and commitment to the well being of the whole."

We need a prophet. And we need the kind of love Paul urges so eloquently: love that takes in the whole, never allowing for dominance of skill or power or even for supremacy by generosity -- but first and last -- love.

     We need a prophet of this kind of love. If we were truly to adopt this standard that Paul urges upon the Corinthians, that judges by what lifts up the community as a whole, we would discover that we cannot know what will lift the whole community without searching together for those practices in church and society worthy of common endorsement.

     We need to connect beyond reform, or retreat, or one side or the other, to sources, to humanity. A prophet is needed.  And the economy of love is needed.  And God speaks through whom God wills.  "I am too young, they won't listen to me," cannot be an excuse.  "The important decisions are made too far away from where I am, so I have no voice," cannot keep us from demonstrating Paul's practical vision of love in our common life.

     We need a common vision. We need a prophet speaking words of life, whether or not we are able to hear.