Welcome To Luke

Luke 4: 14-30

I remember the first sermon I preached here in Elgin.  Pastors call that sermon a “candidating” sermon because the minister has not yet been chosen by the congregation.  She is still a “candidate.” First sermons, like first impressions, are important. When I was a Seminary student preparing to receive my first call, I was instructed to steer clear of controversial issues in the candidating sermon.  A first sermon is not generally the time to launch into a theological quagmire of questions that the best pastors still puzzle over. Not the time to start a campaign about the political issue of the day. First sermons generally take place on safe territory.  They say something about the preacher, but not anything too difficult for the congregation to hear. After all, there are hundreds of sermons (that is, if the preacher gets a positive congregational vote) to dip into the places where angels, and pastors, fear to tread.

Not so with Jesus.  In his first sermon in Luke, he treads into very unsafe territory.  Jesus is preaching at the synagogue in his hometown; a place where he probably had attended as a parishioner for many years.  His sermon, scarcely a few sentences in length, made quite an impression. It also gives us a taste of what is in store for us as we travel through the gospel of Luke this year.  Listen, with me, to our story today in Luke 4: 14-30.

They tried to throw him over the hill.  Now…I have had seen some negative reactions to sermons through the years, but never have I seen a congregation try to throw the preacher over the hill!

Synagogue services in Jesus’ day generally included the Shema (“Hear you, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord alone.”), the recitation of the 10 Commandments, the eighteen benedictions, the reading of the Scriptures, the exposition (known among Christians as the sermon), and the blessing (which we often call the benediction).  Usually there was more than one reader, and each reader was expected to read at least three verses. The readings from the Torah were assigned over a 3-year period, but the reading from the haphtarah (which we know as the prophetic books) were chosen by the reader.

Jesus read that day from the haphtarah.  He chose the reading. It was a reading from the prophet Isaiah.  Then he handed the scroll to the attendant, and sat down. When a reader or rabbi sat down, the congregation knew it was the time he would begin to teach.  All the eyes of the synagogue were staring at him. Then he looked up at the familiar faces of the people he had grown up with and said, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled.”

Then there was silence.  It was a silence of astonishment.  Some gathered that day seemed to think his words were “sheer grace.”  Perhaps they were thrilled that the Messiah had finally come, and he was starting out his ministry in their little town!

Others were not so thrilled.  “Isn’t this Joseph’s son,” they asked.  They may have wondered…who would have thought that Joseph’s boy would someday be God’s prophet?  Who does he think he is? Does he expect that we are going to believe he is a prophet?

Other times I have read this passage, I believed the reason the townspeople tried to throw Jesus over the hill was because he claimed he was the Messiah.  Now I am not so sure. If we read the passage carefully, we notice that the crowd doesn’t react to Jesus until later. They reacted after Jesus said, “No doubt, you will say to me this proverb, Doctor, cure yourself!  Do here in your hometown the things we have heard you did in Capernaum.”

Here Jesus is recognizing that the townspeople have certain expectations of the Messiah.  They expect to see the wonderful happenings other folks have seen. They expect healings and miracles.  The kind of things the prophets of old had done. But Jesus wasn’t going there. He went on to describe stories in the sacred texts where God didn’t always show favor to Israel.  Jesus told them two stories from the prophets when Gentiles were healed and not the children of Israel. He said, “There were plenty of lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were healed…only Naaman, a Syrian.”

That did it.  Not his claim of being Messiah.  It was when he told them the Messiah of their God wasn’t just theirs alone.  God was going to bless those “other people.” Those other people who were enemies.  Those Gentiles. That was when the crowd went into a rage. So, they rode him out on a rail.  Drove him out of town. They took him to the top of a mountain and tried to throw him off. It was the behavior of a rioting mob.  What got into them?

Let’s step back from the top of that mountain for a moment and think about this incident.  The people gathered that day had been waiting for their Messiah for centuries. Have you ever waited for something for a very long time?  Prayed for it? The people in this story had been enslaved, exiled, disrespected, ignored and shunned. They had been praying fervently for the one who would save them and bless them.  Praying for centuries. And now Jesus has declared that God is sending a Messiah who isn’t theirs alone. No word in the English language is so powerful to a young child than the word, “mine.”  A child who believes she is entitled to something will ragefully defend that something until she falls exhausted. It’s mine!

The people of Nazareth thought the Messiah was theirs.  They were chosen by God. They had waited a long time. They wanted to get what they deserved.  But Jesus told them that God’s steadfast love doesn’t work that way. God came for everyone. The Syrian general.  The widow in Sidon. The Gentiles they saw as their enemies.

As we travel through Luke this year, we will hear this message over and over: “God came for everyone.  No one is excluded.” God does not have an exclusive covenant. And in the end, if we as God’s people are not open to the prospect of others’ sharing in God’s bounty, we ourselves will be unable to receive it.

Now is the time to see that our God is gracious.  If we insist on believing the Messiah was only belongs to us, we will suffer defeat at every level…military, political, and theological.  If we exclude others, we will exclude ourselves. Are there boundaries and limits to God’s love that you carry in your heart? Luke will challenge you to ask yourself that question over and over in the coming year.

And as we journey through Luke this year, I will bring this question to you as God’s church: What more might God be able to do with us if we allowed God’s grace to roll down like waters?