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Epiphany 4
1 February 2004
Jeremiah 4:4-10
I Corinthians 13:1-13
Psalm 71:1-6
Luke 4:21-30
Luke keeps the narrative going at a hectic pace while we were away on holiday, if we were away. Commonsense dictated we should have a holiday break, while some still gathered here to keep the story alive. Now in Chapter 4 Luke quietens the pace - for a paragraph as we see the now adult Jesus intent on his itinerant preaching programme around Galilee, and the growing respect people had for him.
The narrative we have in front of us begins as an ordinary Sabbath. The gathered assembly walks into worship expecting the ordered liturgy to run its even course. But that Sabbath in the end, turns out filled with rage and mob violence willing to kill.
What happened?
The action begins by taking up the scroll (some Presbyterian Churches still 'take up the scroll' as worships begins); the action does not begin with community experience, or warming up the worshippers, or appeal to nature as some of the more esoteric philosophies and popular spiritualities would have it. The action begins with a text, a word, a word framed in speech and spoken out by a speaker. The action is beginning as the text is spoken out, and the spoken out text begins to settle in the hearts of the hearers, like a grain of sand in an oyster, and it tickles (vs.22), then aggravates (vs.28), then infuriates (vs.29) the hearers.
The pearl that could emerge - the sweet pleasure that more people will hear God's news-laden healing word - is drowned by an anxious, fearful response. The anxious, fearful ones on that Sabbath, are the ones who will not let the borders of their community be breached by any foreign influence.
The response was sparked by Jesus pointing to familiar Hebrew texts which figure the Old Testament prophet, Elijah, taking his ministry outside the Israel community, to some Gentile woman - a foreign woman unqualified to receive God's grace. And in quick succession, Jesus follows that with another example of Elisha, Elijah's successor who gave healing attention to a foreign dignitary who had leprosy; an outsider who did not deserve attention, one unqualified to receive God's grace.
The two texts when spoken out, provoke rage among the good people Nazareth. Yet in these texts, along with the Isaiah 61 text, Jesus puts out for public scrutiny the new programme of God's engagement with the world. But Nazareth worshippers would not entertain it - not for one hour. Commitment to community boundaries took precedence over the joy that God was among them, bringing freedom and healing within, and freedom and healing even to outsiders.
'Keep this community pure, guard its borders, tighten its regulations and discipline, make its worship predictable and unambiguous. Don't mess us up with an untidy future of coping with neighbours - foreign widows and leprous intruders' say the people of Nazareth; and they were ready to kill for it!
There is a little clue in the text that suggests why that is so. It is in the phrase on Jesus' lips as he retells the people's story. '... the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and there was severe famine over all the land of Israel.' There was no life stream from heaven to earth, and the life on offer from God was denied Israel, and the life on offer was for channeling through Israel to foreigners. People forgot God, and God's broad agenda for humankind.
The taken-up scroll finds grounding among us when we allow the messiness of life into our lives and worship place. Admit to the messiness of life - that stuff we leave at the Church door, because we cannot admit to it in front of all these good people. It is here, amidst the messiness that god's grace may rest; for these texts arose out of the harsh realities of life and fought for a place in the Gospel story, and so it is the harsh realities of life they address, for that is where the love, the compassion, the faithfulness of God is sure to pause, and snag, and tether.
The foreign material that irks your soul may be your greatest ally, for it is here that the God of the text, the God of love finds resting place.
PRAYER
God, had we been present in that Nazareth Synagogue, what would our prayer be?
God, would we pray for the assembly, that it be kept clean, virtuous, and unstained,
for surely that would be music to your heart?
Would we pray for better guidance for our youth, that they would learn our mor¨¦s and values,
and traditions, and so make our lives pleasant, and our futures secure,
for surely that is your hope for us?
But God, the outcome of the text is troubling, and leaves us troubled,
for we are suspicious of angry young men,
and we cringe where there is controversy,
and death talk, even if rhetorical, leaves a bad taste.
God, with the scroll unrolled, and the text talking in our midst,
we cannot avoid the focus on the fringes, and ask ourselves,
Who is the one with leprosy seeking attention?
Who is the Gentile woman yearning for recognition?
God in Christ Jesus, open our blind eyes,
give us the words of good news, release us from a bondage,
so that we might proclaim release, bust open the oppression so heavy on us,
that we might become free, and free to advertise the Lord's favour.
And may our hue and cry be for the year of the Lord's favour,
and not our own favour, risky as that might be.
In the name of this risk-taker whom we worship, AMEN.