Year C

Luke 4:21-30

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Challenge and the Critique

In C. S. Lewis’ book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis portrays Jesus as a lion, a lion who roars, bares his teeth at evil, and is not safe. We don’t often hear Jesus described this way, but it does go along well with our Gospel reading today from Luke. Jesus has just captured the attention of all in the synagogue when empowered by the Spirit he reads words from the prophet Isaiah that serve as an announcement of his ministry. He has come to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the acceptable year of the Lord’s favor. After reading from the prophet Isaiah, Jesus takes his seat and announces to his hometown people of Nazareth that he was God’s chosen one to save God’s world. The people are amazed for a couple seconds then begin to question and doubt. They ask, “Is not this Joseph’s son?

Jesus had just announced that he was the one they had been waiting for and one would hope for a faithful response such as, “This is God’s Son!” But the people found it difficult to believe that this hometown boy could be the Savior of the world. Jesus anticipates their challenge when he says, “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.’” The people wanted proof. They wanted signs and miracles. In a lion like manner, Jesus confronts the people with their own weak faith and did not indulge them by performing a miracle. Instead he reminded them of what God did through two of their prophets long ago, Elijah and Elisha, of which we read about in the OT book of First Kings.

The prophet Elijah rejected by his own nation, was led by God to perform a miracle outside the boundaries of God’s chosen people. And even though there were many in need at home, it was a foreigner, a gentile widow at Zarephath, who was ministered to by Elijah. Elisha did the same sort of thing for Naaman, a leper and a foreigner, who sought out Elisha to be healed. There were lepers in Israel, but this outsider, a gentile had the faith to seek Elisha out. Jesus’ reference to these two prophets was a challenge and a critique of his listeners that day in the synagogue. He recognized their weak faith and compared them to the stubborn people of Elijah’s and Elisha’s day. If that wasn’t enough to get the people angry, Jesus announced by his reading of Isaiah, and his challenge and critique of the people, that his ministry would also go outside the boundaries of God’s chosen people. His ministry would be for Jew and Gentile alike.

It is at this point that the people not only get angry but violent. “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so they might hurl him off the cliff. We read that Jesus was able to escape this murderous crowd. The time would come when he would face suffering and death on a cross but it would be at a time of God’s choosing. Jesus could have soothed things over in the synagogue that day by performing a miracle and by downplaying God’s plan to bring the good news to all people. This would have helped them to understand and possibly accept Jesus but they would not have been saved. Despite the opposition of his own hometown people who thought they already knew him and therefore, wanted to manage him, he remained true to his ministry to the poor, the sick, the oppressed and the outsider.

Our culture still tries to make Jesus manageable. Author Flannery O’Connor, observed one very painful thing about writing as a Christian, that which is the ultimate reality for the Christian, the Incarnation, is something which nobody in her reading audience believed. Her readers, she said, were largely people who thought God was dead. To speak of a God who has come to earth in Jesus Christ, who is not only alive but profoundly involved in human affairs, is extremely offensive. The secular world is happy to recognize Jesus as a fine teacher and an admirable moral example. This is the modern day equivalent of seeing Jesus as Joseph’s son. Jesus is manageable, if we keep him in those categories. But when asked to see him as the revelation of God, Jesus becomes an embarrassment.

We too have our problem with him. We also like to manage Jesus. He is the one who can come in times of trouble, who comforts us and sympathizes with our human need and this is a true picture of Jesus. But he is also the King of Kings and Lord of lords who insists on being Lord of all of life. We often sing “Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart” hoping for an epiphany moment of revelation. Yet, we may not be ready for such a revealing because often the revelation begins with new insight into ourselves and our sinfulness which can sometimes be a painful process.  It is at this point that Jesus becomes difficult to accept and we are tempted, in our own fashion to follow the people of Nazareth in pushing him over some cliff.

It was when Jesus began to reveal who they really were that the people in the synagogue became upset. They were God’s chosen people so his suggestion that they were like their ancestors in Elijah and Elisha’s day who were bypassed for blessing while “outsiders” were favored, was totally unacceptable. They were not willing to accept “the least of these.” If the people of Nazareth had acknowledged Jesus’ critique of them and had sought forgiveness from the blindness and pride which had consumed them, they might have been the setting for Jesus to show the glory of God with miracles. Instead, there were no miracles there because of their unbelief. And their unbelief stemmed not from some spiritual lacking but from their unwillingness to see and confess their sins.

We come to worship each week, knowing that we will hear something that leads us to the conclusion: “We aren’t all that we ought to be. God meant for us to be more than this and this text shows us that following Jesus’ example of acceptance and liberation for all people is challenging. Unfortunately, as the people of Nazareth rejected his challenge, we are always in danger of following their example. Yet, it is when we accept that Jesus comes to change us that we are changed. He has changed us by his death and resurrection.

By the cross he has revealed our greed, our fear, and our blindness only to raise up in us repentance and new faith. As we face our own sin and are moved to repentance, we are saved. We are saved by a ferocious but loving king who one day we will see face to face.  Now we know only in part as Paul tells us: but one day we will know fully, even as we are fully know by God. So let us this day, accept the challenge to live a faithful life and join with all those insiders and outsiders who have placed their lives in the lion, Jesus.