January 30, 2022

 We pick up where we left off last week, with Jesus in the Synagogue, having just read his mission statement from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, that the blind will see and the prisoner’s freed and the oppressed will go free, and all will celebrate the year of Jubilee—the year-long Sabbath restart for the earth, society, and the culture.  Jesus sits down and says this isn’t a someday promise, but today the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing. 

            Almost everyone is still smiling and nodding, their expectations soaring about what this means, but a few people are finding their eyes opened a little wider by this reading.  They sense that Jesus is straying from the safe, comfortable mode they want to be in and that by reading this and claiming it is for today, he is about to disrupt the order of their community.  The Gospel of Luke is known as the one that continually highlights Mary, Jesus’ mother.  Yet, here, the people of Nazareth begin to question, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”  By this question, they are putting Jesus back in the place they feel he belongs.  By this reading and this claim, they feel Jesus rising above them, getting to uppity, too big for his britches.  They want to put him in his place. 

            It seems that Jesus senses their rising fear and anger.  I don’t know if he goes on calmly or if he is resorting to some fight or flight response, but he senses that they want to show their power over him so they can claim him and use him.  They put him in his place and he believes it is because they want to tell him that he owes them, that they should be able to order him around, to tell him how to use his power. 

I am starting to think this is a fourth temptation story.  Right before Jesus comes to Nazareth, he’s been out in the wilderness, tempted by the devil.  The devil tries to make Jesus prove himself, that he is the Son of God, by turning stones into bread and feeding himself, and throwing himself off a cliff to see if God will save him, and by offering him all the Kingdoms of the world if Jesus will fall down and worship the devil.  The devil says, “If you are the Son of God…” then do this to prove it.  In the same way, the people of Nazareth are saying, “If you are the Son of God…” then do this for us—read the scriptures, heal us, comfort us, make us proud.  The problem with all the temptations, including this forth one is that this isn’t what Jesus comes to do.  Jesus doesn’t come to feed himself or to stay at home and be the nice boy they taught him to be.

Jesus came to release the captives and heal the blind, let the oppressed go free and celebrate the Jubilee.  He came to upset the systems that are already in place that are nice because they ensure only the right people experience God’s blessing and those undeserving foreigners are left out.  Jesus goes on to tell the stories his people would have known well, of these people on the margins receiving God’s blessing, non-Jews, people in foreign lands, non-believers, desperate, undeserving people.  It would be like saying, we are going to turn this church building into a halfway house for people coming out of prison or the Spanish speaking Santa Cruz Congregation is going to be made the primary congregation in this place and we will be paying them rent, or each of us will take a refugee family into our homes for the year, or now we will have a transgender pastor or we will now rap a Mighty Fortress.  Jesus is bringing a disruption to people’s expectations and assumptions and comforts both then and now.

This is a shock to them and to us.  We just got done singing Away in a Manger about the poor baby asleep on the hay and we heard the words about a child being born for us.  Now he is disrupting and agitating us.  Perhaps when we read this Gospel, we get a good feeling, because we realize that if Jesus had stayed home in Nazareth, we never would have come to know the Good News of God’s love.  Maybe we’re thinking that we are the widow at Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian that Jesus was talking about.  In some ways, that’s true, but we’re mistaken if we think that Jesus came just for us and that’s where he stayed, because we can’t keep him either.  He keeps going out to the margins, to the unexpected.  He keeps shocking and upsetting those who want to claim his power for themselves. 

We have a choice to respond in fear and anger, or in faith, hope, and love.  Even if we find our immediate reaction is fight or flight, when we cultivate the gifts of faith, hope, and love, we will find ourselves following the path of Jesus.  We want to exercise those muscles so we can be ready to do the work of Jesus. 

If we can pull away from our fearful reaction and calm ourselves for a moment, we can learn something.  We can find out what is most important to us and why.  What is it about this that is bringing about such a strong response from me?  What are my assumptions about the way the world works?  What about my usual way of doing things is so important to me?  In what way does my usual way of doing things cause others pain or ignore the pain of others? 

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is good encouragement for people who have been reacting in fear and anger toward one another.  We have all these gifts that God has given us but if love doesn’t motivate how we use our power and our gifts it will not serve to build up the Kingdom of God or the body of Christ.  Love is not a feeling in this reading or in the culture Jesus was part of—it is an action, a practice.  This is agape—self-sacrificing love.  It is putting another’s needs before our own.  Agape love is giving up our own need to be at the center.  Agape love is giving up our fear that we won’t have enough for ourselves. 

Faith, hope, and love don’t let us stay in our comfort.  They challenge and disrupt us.  When we practice faith, we take risks to act like we are living in the Kingdom of God—to treat the other members of the body with respect, to follow Jesus into wilderness areas, to see Jesus in our hurting neighbors.  When we practice hope, we stand defiant of what the world says has value—money, status, recognition.  We hope in what will last—relationship and love.  When we love, we take ourselves out of the center and we put there what Jesus would put there—outsiders, neglected, ignored, blamed people from the margins.  We could all use more exercise of our faith, hope, and love muscles.  Where might Jesus be calling you to practice faith, hope, and love.  You don’t have to start with a marathon.  Start small.  Who in your community is like Namaan or the widow?  What opportunities do you have to listen to voices that disturb your comfort and challenge you to hold up a mirror and see what’s really going on?  In what ways can you make someone else’s life a little easier and especially that person who nobody sees or values.

Finally, when Jesus comes to us, let us respond like Naaman and the widow.  Maybe it’s really difficult to accept help.  Maybe we’re a little suspicious of why and how we’re going to experience healing.  It isn’t on our terms, the way that makes us feel better.  But once we’ve exhausted all other possibilities—trying to heal ourselves, trying to earn our way, may we see one option left, which is to receive the grace and love of God and let it overflow from us to others, to share our stories and the grace and love we’ve received so that others know they are not alone and they aren’t out of options. 

The season of Epiphany is the season we are learning about who Jesus is.  The main takeaway is that he is different from us—he has different priorities, he’s not afraid, his mission is healing love to outsiders.  He’s different from us, so he’s not going to meet our expectations.  He’s going to surprise us.  So let’s prepare ourselves for the surprise Jesus brings.  It may very well shock and offend us.  But can we move on from that and experience joy in the surprise Jesus brings?  Can we rejoice in the gift Jesus is for those who’ve never known love and forgiveness and welcome and healing?  Can we let their joy be our own?