Dr. J. Lawrence Cuthill

January 31, 2010

Winter Park Presbyterian

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “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.’” And he said, “Turly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six somths, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was clensed except Naaman the Syrian.” When theyheard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and sent on his way.

* * * *

Jesus’ popularity is spiking… He has returned to Galilee from a spell in the Judean desert, where he had a face-off with the devil. Now he makes his way through the villages teaching. The word spreads like the discovery of “gold in them-thar-hills.” Then, on to his hometown of Nazareth.

Jesus enters the synagogue and is handed the scroll with the reading for that particular Sabbath day which was from Isaiah. The passage contains a reference to One who would come, and upon whom the Spirit of the Lord would descend and anoint (an almost exclusively biblical word meaning ‘to pour out upon the head’, signifying the blessing of God for a particular purpose). This one was anointed to:

Preach the Gospel to the poor
Proclaim release to the captives
Recovery of sight to the blind
Set free the downtrodden
Proclaim the favorable year of the Lord (Jubilee).

All of which, Jesus said, “I have come to do,” (and he did).

Such a pronouncement created a stir! Something resonated in the heart of every Jew who heard him say those words. And yet, they were puzzled because they knew him; he had grown up in their village. Wouldn’t the Anointed One, the Messiah, come sweeping in grand fashion, entering with a mighty military flourish? Why, isn’t this fellow just Joseph’s son?

Jesus sensing their bafflement -- impressed but doubtful. He anticipated what they were thinking: do some tricks; perform some powerful magic like we heard you did in Capernaum. Do it here! Now!

Why not? Because this is not his way. To be sure, he has done miraculous healing. But this crowd is restive; looking for a show. They sound a bit like that voice he’d heard earlier in the desert… “Do something sensational! Prove it. Perform. Make us believe.” But this is not His way. They wanted to be wowed. He wanted to see them come to recognize the reign of God in their midst, in each of them … not sensationalism but come to their senses; not grandstanding but God standing with them. (Don’t we all look for God in the extraordinary and forget God’s often in the ordinary?) Never mind faith; Give me proof… Cold, hard facts; verifiable demonstration.

People that respond to the sensational often need a steady diet of sensation or they wither or wilt. It’s because they’ve not grown, haven’t discipled themselves, nor humbled themselves before the God who stoops to be human, present ... the God before whom our lives are altered. They have a narrow definition that reflects their tastes, opinions and preferences. (Elaine once pointsed out that, whenever your God hates the people you hate and likes all the things you like, you have an idol, created in your image…)

They say familiarity breeds contempt. The initial excitement—favorite son comes home to adoring crowds—now moved in another direction; and turned ugly. Jesus wouldn’t play their game; he would not gobble up their praise and play to their expectations. It would have made for a much smoother experience. Instead, he tells an offensive story they all knew. It was about Elijah and Elisha, both revered prophets who broke the mold and defied expectations. They went to outsiders; they healed infidels … and the crowds in the synagogue were offended, and not just a little. They became nraged! Murderous! So much so that they took him up to a cliff with the intention of tossing him over. But this was not his time; and we are told, whether by sheer force of personality or whatever, he simply “passed through their midst and ‘went his way.”

This story bears some analysis. What is happening there, and what could it possibly say to us here? Among the things we might draw from this 1^st century report is that human nature hasn’t changed a lot in spite of all the growth in knowledge and technology. We react when someone challenges our views and values, especially if it has to do with God. But what if it is God who is the one challenging our views, our time-honored concept of God? Would we react? Quite likely. And that is why preachers must be very careful what we say lest we risk offense.

Will Willamon muses about the preacher whose usual line was, “Wherever Jesus encountered people; he filled them with a great sense of peace. He who calmed the angry waves in the storm calmed the troubled spirits of the people too.” True, but not the whole truth That preacher must never have read the 4^th chapter of Luke. Jesus did calm the stormy seas, but he also stirred things up. After the fashion of the Old Testament prophets, he could discomfort the comfortable, as well as comfort the discomforted … and he did.

But that begs the question. Are we preachers being truthful if we only present the domesticated version, the tamed and gentle Jesus meek and mild? Was that the case with John Calvin? He cared little for popularity and was asked at some point by the city fathers to leave town. (Of course, a short time later they asked him back.) John Knox was a galley slave for several years because of the Christ he proclaimed. They say John Wesley, when he preached in Liverpool (the center of Britain’s slave trade) and advocated abolition, left the door open behind the pulpit so he could make a quick exit and escape the ire his sermon generated.

The temptation is so great to preach only what we know will be well received. And there is always the temptation to hear what we want to hear and construct an image of Jesus that conveniently leaves out the parts of his personality that challenge us.

Students at a seminary were engaged in small group discussions about the practice sermons they had preached in local churches the past Sunday. One of the class members told how a number of folks in the rural congregation where he’d preached had strongly disagreed with his sermon. One man had even walked out before the final hymn. The class members, wanting to be helpful, tried to analyze the content and delivery. Had he spoken in harsh tones or strong terms?

The crusty old homiletics professor listened to the discussion for awhile and then said, “Have you assumed it was a bad sermon because of the reaction? I’m bothered by the assumption that many of you seem to have made that there is some way to talk about Jesus without offending or getting hurt. Let me assure you, none of you are smarter than Jesus. Jesus got into trouble for preaching; so will you!” That is, of course, if you don’t water it down to thin pablum.

Do you recall the Anglican cleric who bemoaned, “Everywhere Paul went there was a riot. Everywhere I go, they serve tea.”

Now I fear that someone may walk in here for the first time and conclude this church is stern, harsh, demanding. Not at all, we typically are nice folk, respectable people who have services that encourage and build up … but it is incumbent upon us from time to time to remember Jesus didn’t come to confirm we that we are all just fine.

He came with the intention of recapturing us, transforming us, loving us into repentance and a new life. Listen to this assessment:

Preaching among us has far too often turned into the mere dispensing of advice. Even worse, the advice we hand out consists of little more than exhortations about a host of supposedly achievable life-enhancements, without even once getting our hearers within shouting distance of the astounding gift that’s been handed us in Jesus at the price of no human accomplishment whatsoever.

Our pulpits are fountains of irrelevancy when they are not puddles of dullness. They soak us with helpful hints about self-improvement … the advice that, if we are loving, we will find the key to earthly happiness.

Jesus proclaims unlimited forgiveness, not the breast beating of sinners. He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them.

He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement game; he meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing … not only is all advice demonstrable malarkey; no pandering to a market that the Gospel has no interest in pleasing. It’s what the world thinks it wants to hear, not what God in Christ has to tell it.

This reality is not what we had in mind. It often defies our self-generated view of Jesus, which almost always reduces him to being a lot like us, liking especially people like us. Then he has the nerve to say God plays no favorites…

Remember Elijah and Elisha, revered prophets? They healed the alien, the immigrant, the outsider … and for of that the good folks of his home town took Jesus to a cliff to rid the world of one of their own badly misguided sons. But this was not his time and he “passed through their midst and went on his way.”

Now would we rather have the Jesus of our own creation, an illusion? Or the Jesus who will stop at nothing to tell you the truth, to model a reality that challenges our notions but, if trusted, sets us free?

AMEN