Responding to Love

sermon by Torin Eikler
I Corinthians 13:1-13  Luke 4:21-30

The first scripture we heard today – the one from 1^st Corinthians – is probably very familiar … at least if you’ve been to very many weddings.  It may be the most popular scripture chosen for those ceremonies, and that’s not without reason.  It speaks eloquently about the enduring, accepting nature of love, and it fits with the occasion….  A couple deeply in love, surrounded by the people who have known them all their lives … the people who have seen them grow up … who have seen the mistakes and the success … who have witnessed their growth and development … the people who love them for who and what they are, who are proud of them, and who have gathered to bless the next step in their lives even as they wonder when these children found the time to grow up.

Fiddler on the Roof captured the feel of the scene so very well when Tevye and Golde sang, “Is this the little girl I carried?  Is this the little boy at play?” … “Wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?”  And, it truth, that’s the feeling we all have whenever the children we have known cross any hurdle, especially the bigger ones.  Those are just naturally moments when we step back from the day to day flow of time and look at the bigger picture of life and how much and (how little) has changed.

I think it might have been like that on that long-ago day in the synagogue….  It was one of those momentous occasions – a son of Nazareth, Jesus the son of Joseph, was preaching in the synagogue for the first time.  The people there knew him.  They had seen him growing up.  They had witnessed all that “growing in wisdom and favor,” and if the stories of Jesus’ childhood that didn’t make into the Bible are to be believed, they had seen him doing some spectacularly mean, childish things as well.  The funny thing is, though, that no matter how much they knew, no matter how much they had seen or remembered, they were terribly, terribly gracious … just glad to have this young man who was becoming someone in the wider world … just glad to have him home, pleased that he had made good, proud of his accomplishments and the promise of his future.

Yes, that’s pretty much the way it starts out in today’s reading.  Jesus had come home.  He was preaching to a crowd of people who had known him since he was just knee high, and they were pleased, and proud, and gracious. “Why, isn’t that Joseph’s boy?”  “Just a poor carpenter, he was, when he left us. And look at him now.”  “Where did he learn to read … and with such authority?  He was born to it, I’m telling you, born to it.”

 

By all accounts it’s a beautiful scene. So what went wrong? How did that tender little home-coming turn suddenly so ugly.

It seems a little risky to say this, but … as a preacher … I kind of think it was Jesus’ fault … at least a little bit.  Right in the middle of all their pride and praise, he just sort of went off.  “No doubt you’ll quote me the old proverb, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ And you’ll probably want me to do here what you’ve heard I’ve been doing in Carpernaum, that land so full of the Gentiles. Well, guess what, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. And when the prophets of old came to do miracles and wonders, more often than not it was for Israel’s enemies. So back off.”

Really … what was he thinking?  That’s not the way to win people over.  What had gotten into Jesus? Was he skeptical of their praise, suspicious that they just wanted to exploit him as a healer? Or was he just in a really, really bad mood.

 

To be honest, we can’t say for sure why he did it … why he sabotaged his homecoming.  But I do have a hunch. Because I’ve got this feeling, deep down, that as well as these folks knew Jesus, he knew them even better.  So, Jesus understood that these people who loved him … who were proud of what he was becoming … these people weren’t hearing him.  They didn’t really understand what he meant when he said that the scriptures were being fulfilled.  And so Jesus, who was never one to put PR ahead of truth, refused to let them sit comfortably, assuming that he was bringing special blessings for them.  There was so much more to what he was saying….

Jesus had just finished reading Isaiah’s prophecy of a year of favor, of Jubilee, when the blind find sight, the captives release, the oppressed relief, and all the poor of this world consolation.  And, if we want to be completely certain (well as certain as we can be) about the direction Jesus was headed, it’s important to note what he didn’t read because Isaiah goes on to tell of the day when the Lord would trample down all Israel’s enemies, the day when God would crush them underfoot and restore Israel to its rightful place.  

Jesus didn’t read that part.  He wasn’t thinking locally.  He was thinking globally, looking at the bigger picture, and this wasn’t a nationalistic sermon, but one in which he declared that God loves all the world and has a special concern for the poor.  For that prophesy to come true, there needed to be some changes.  Just like Mary sang before her boy was even born, in order to raise the lowly God will have to bring low the powerful; and in order to feed the poor, the rich will have to go away empty … at least more empty than they are used to being.

That was what Jesus was talking about, and the crowd didn’t get it.  They couldn’t get the memories and the wonder out of their head in order to really listen.  So Jesus took it up a notch.  He drove his point home, and this time they did get it.  They got it so clearly, in fact, that they were they’re ready to get him.

It was good news that Jesus was sharing with them.  It was the proclamation that God loves every person on the earth – loved them so much that she would never abandon them – loved them so much that she had sent the Messiah to bring them new life.  But in the end, because they were not open to the prospect of sharing the bounty of God’s deliverance with others, they were not open to receiving it themselves.

 

Strange isn’t it … how speaking the truth – the simple, unadorned truth so often has that effect.  Instead of making people feel thankful for having their illusions cleared away, instead of awakening their sense of hope and joy, instead of energizing them to step out in new and better paths, it arouses anger and fear.  It seems that people would rather live in their comfortably confused cocoons than break out into a new and brighter world where they just might be able to fly.

 

It’s easy to judge the people who drove Jesus to the cliff instead of welcoming him with open arms.  It’s easy to sit here, knowing the whole story, and wonder how they could have missed the point … how they could have responded with such violence when they finally heard the truth.  But, I wonder if things have changed all that much?  

Do you think Jesus’ sermon about change and equity and release would go over any better today?  In a nation tied up in knots over whether millionaires should have their taxes raised and whether it’s fair to make sure everyone who wants to buy a gun has a clean record, would Jesus be cheered for his commitment to the Jubilee or would his message still make people see red?  If Jesus came here to this congregation, sitting in this comfortable space and announced the hard truth that we are not as fully or completely in line with the Kingdom’s values, would we celebrate and cheer?

Happily, it’s not as bad as it that might make it feel.  As I read it, Jesus did not condemn the people of Nazareth during his visit.  Chided them … yes.  Challenged them … yes.  But never condemned them.  How could he?  God’s love was just as much for them as for anyone else.  And so it is for us.  However like or unlike that congregation of two thousand years ago we might be, however much we have succeeded or failed in our struggle to live the lives Jesus would wish for us, the love of God and the promise of life that it offers are still there for us.

Good news, for sure, but it still leaves one troubling question: now what?

If we know that we have it within us to reject the truth offered by Christ, … if we are willing to admit that we almost certainly have turned away from the promise and challenge it brings, … and if we also know that we are still enfolded in God’s great love,  then how do we respond to that?

One idea would be to take a page from Isaiah and all the other prophets … from Jesus himself.  No matter how serious the situation … how harsh their words may have seemed … or how difficult the truth they shared with the people, their words always announced the wonderful truth of God’s love for the people.  Sometimes it’s so hidden in there that it seems like we weren’t meant to find it, but it’s always there… the love of God … running through the history of our faith and bringing hope of a better way.

And if you don’t think you can see yourself on the same level as the prophets of old, perhaps you can relate a little more to Paul – that passionate, misguided man who became such a powerful evangelist.  He had great faith just as we do.  He had hope in the future promised by God just as we do.  But, he didn’t quite get it.  As he said himself, he was no more than a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal until that moment on the road when he faced the truth of God’s love … and it changed his life … and he went out and shared the good news of his transformation … the good news that love was greater than any other thing that might move or control us … that love had come to save us from ourselves and bring us new life.

If we take a page from that book, we must push ourselves.  “Don’t just do good, caring, Christian deeds.” we must remind ourselves.  “Tell people why.”  There is a song that I love called “God is in” by Billy Jonas.  In it is the line where the Buddha says, “don’t just do something, sit there.”  Well that wasn’t Jesus’ message.  His mission was much more dynamic.  Go out and help the poor, feed the hungry, AND share the good news of Christ’s love with them.  God out and stand with the captives and the oppressed, AND tell them how Christ’s love sets them free.  Help the blind see that they are part of the family of God, surrounded by the love of brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

We have received a wondrous gift in Christ … the greatest gift:  love … love that accepts us as we are … love that offers forgiveness and new life.  How will you respond? …

 

However that response comes … whatever the Spirit whispers into your heart, embrace it.  Do it without fear because … because God is there with you … empowering you, encouraging you, … and embracing you in the endless arms of love.