They Wanted to Kill the Preacher
Sermon text for August 26, 2007:
Luke 4:21-30
You know the old expression: “You can’t go home.”? It really is true, especially if the one who left home has been through some kind of life-changing experience. After my first semester in seminary, I was home for the Christmas holiday and I ran into an old high school friend. He asked me what I was doing with myself, and I told him that I was in seminary studying for the ministry. He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to hurt himself. I felt bad because my friend could not see the important changes in my life that made me a different person than I was four or five years before.
This kind of thing happened to Jesus also. He went to Nazareth after having some life-changing experiences. Some people don’t understand that even Jesus had to learn how to live with his call to ministry. They seem to think that he came out of the womb a complete person. But the way I read scripture, his baptism, the temptations, were formative for Jesus. At the least they taught him how to live in the world as the Son of God.
After the temptations Jesus tried out his message around Capernaum, and other places around the Sea of Galilee where he taught and performed miracles. The crowds marveled at the power of his message, so Jesus knew it was time to go back to Nazareth, where he went to the synagogue where he had grown up. We know that word of his miracles and his powerful preaching had gotten back to Nazareth. Perhaps that may be the reason he was invited to read the lesson and offer the message. And his sermon that day was indeed powerful, and the hometown crowd was impressed. He was changed so much that the members of the synagogue had to ask themselves “Isn’t this Joseph’s son”?
Of course Jesus had just made a startling statement, one which would have made any congregation wonder. He had read from the Book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then he said something that should be foundational for the church two thousand years later. He said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Those words are Jesus’ mission statement. They define what Jesus is all about. But I have never seen a church mission statement that was modeled after Jesus’ mission statement in the synagogue.
So far Jesus is not in danger, in fact most of the people worshipping that day are genuinely impressed and happy. Others wanted some proof that what he said was true. They had heard of his miracles in other places and they wanted to see him perform a miracle for them. Then they would believe.
It seems like a reasonable request. Jesus has taught with authority, and performed miracles in Capernaum, why not in Nazareth? The problem that even Jesus faced is that the power of God can never be demanded. Those who experience God’s power never use it to prove anything, which is why some in the Synagogue wanted Jesus to perform a miracle. The power of God only comes into our lives as a gracious gift. It can be asked for, waited on, even pleaded for, but it cannot be demanded. And those in the Synagogue were demanding a show.
And then things got worse for Jesus. Not only would he not perform a miracle in Nazareth, his sermon seems calculated to enrage the crowd. In paraphrase, this is what Jesus said. “You think that you can make demands upon God because you of some prior right, because you are a part of the Chosen People? Let me tell you the truth. There were many starving widows in Israel in Elijah’s day, but he was sent to save only a widow who was not of our people. And there were many lepers in Israel in Elisha’s day, but it was only Naaman our enemy who was cleansed.”
The words infuriated the crowd. It was unthinkable that God would save gentiles before members of the in-group, and yet Jesus used their own scriptures to prove his point. No one has a prior claim upon God, because God does as God pleases. We call that the sovereignty of God. God does whatever God wants and it’s up to us to try to understand which way God is moving and then follow God’s lead. The Jews in the synagogue were so angry at his sermon that they took Jesus out to a cliff to stone him.
According to Jewish law when someone was about to be stoned, it made little difference if the stone hit the victim or the victim hit the stones. So the crowd wanted to throw Jesus off the cliff to the rocks below. The bible says that Jesus passed through the crowd and went on his way.
The word of God is not always pleasing to us and sometimes when we see what Jesus did, and hear what Jesus says, it is beyond our comprehension. Jesus knew that his message was hard for many people. In fact he is quoted as saying, “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
My prayer for First Presbyterian Church of Lakewood is that you will take the time in prayer and conversation to see where God is leading you. When you are able to do that, you will once again become a strong, dynamic congregation.
Copyright © 2007 by Dwight R. Blackstock
Luke 4:21-30
You know the old expression: “You can’t go home.”? It really is true, especially if the one who left home has been through some kind of life-changing experience. After my first semester in seminary, I was home for the Christmas holiday and I ran into an old high school friend. He asked me what I was doing with myself, and I told him that I was in seminary studying for the ministry. He laughed so hard that I thought he was going to hurt himself. I felt bad because my friend could not see the important changes in my life that made me a different person than I was four or five years before.
This kind of thing happened to Jesus also. He went to Nazareth after having some life-changing experiences. Some people don’t understand that even Jesus had to learn how to live with his call to ministry. They seem to think that he came out of the womb a complete person. But the way I read scripture, his baptism, the temptations, were formative for Jesus. At the least they taught him how to live in the world as the Son of God.
After the temptations Jesus tried out his message around Capernaum, and other places around the Sea of Galilee where he taught and performed miracles. The crowds marveled at the power of his message, so Jesus knew it was time to go back to Nazareth, where he went to the synagogue where he had grown up. We know that word of his miracles and his powerful preaching had gotten back to Nazareth. Perhaps that may be the reason he was invited to read the lesson and offer the message. And his sermon that day was indeed powerful, and the hometown crowd was impressed. He was changed so much that the members of the synagogue had to ask themselves “Isn’t this Joseph’s son”?
Of course Jesus had just made a startling statement, one which would have made any congregation wonder. He had read from the Book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then he said something that should be foundational for the church two thousand years later. He said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Those words are Jesus’ mission statement. They define what Jesus is all about. But I have never seen a church mission statement that was modeled after Jesus’ mission statement in the synagogue.
So far Jesus is not in danger, in fact most of the people worshipping that day are genuinely impressed and happy. Others wanted some proof that what he said was true. They had heard of his miracles in other places and they wanted to see him perform a miracle for them. Then they would believe.
It seems like a reasonable request. Jesus has taught with authority, and performed miracles in Capernaum, why not in Nazareth? The problem that even Jesus faced is that the power of God can never be demanded. Those who experience God’s power never use it to prove anything, which is why some in the Synagogue wanted Jesus to perform a miracle. The power of God only comes into our lives as a gracious gift. It can be asked for, waited on, even pleaded for, but it cannot be demanded. And those in the Synagogue were demanding a show.
And then things got worse for Jesus. Not only would he not perform a miracle in Nazareth, his sermon seems calculated to enrage the crowd. In paraphrase, this is what Jesus said. “You think that you can make demands upon God because you of some prior right, because you are a part of the Chosen People? Let me tell you the truth. There were many starving widows in Israel in Elijah’s day, but he was sent to save only a widow who was not of our people. And there were many lepers in Israel in Elisha’s day, but it was only Naaman our enemy who was cleansed.”
The words infuriated the crowd. It was unthinkable that God would save gentiles before members of the in-group, and yet Jesus used their own scriptures to prove his point. No one has a prior claim upon God, because God does as God pleases. We call that the sovereignty of God. God does whatever God wants and it’s up to us to try to understand which way God is moving and then follow God’s lead. The Jews in the synagogue were so angry at his sermon that they took Jesus out to a cliff to stone him.
According to Jewish law when someone was about to be stoned, it made little difference if the stone hit the victim or the victim hit the stones. So the crowd wanted to throw Jesus off the cliff to the rocks below. The bible says that Jesus passed through the crowd and went on his way.
The word of God is not always pleasing to us and sometimes when we see what Jesus did, and hear what Jesus says, it is beyond our comprehension. Jesus knew that his message was hard for many people. In fact he is quoted as saying, “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
My prayer for First Presbyterian Church of Lakewood is that you will take the time in prayer and conversation to see where God is leading you. When you are able to do that, you will once again become a strong, dynamic congregation.
Copyright © 2007 by Dwight R. Blackstock
posted by Dwight Blackstock | 6:46 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home