I attended
Yale Divinity School at a time when the notion of women pastors was a fairly
new concept for many people. Though the
United Church of Christ has ordained women for 150 years, longer than any other
denomination, many local Protestant congregations had never heard a woman
preach or seen a woman celebrate communion.
However, Yale University, striving to be at the forefront of theological
education, made all of us females feel for three years that women in ministry
was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
So – I felt
pretty good about myself when I, a newly ordained minister, was invited to lead
worship at my home church in New Jersey.
I preached a scintillating, stimulating, dynamic, and entertaining
sermon – first rate, if I do say so myself.
And the congregation seemed to agree.
As people left the sanctuary, I heard many “nice sermon, Reverend”
comments, all of which just made me feel so good. “I’m cool.
I’m cool.”
However, one
of the very last people to approach me was a slightly built elderly woman in a
navy blue dress with large white polka dots.
She took my hand and said two things to me.
The first
was this: “You know, I was sitting in the back row, and I could hear every word
you said. You speak like a man.” That kind of brought me down a notch, but it
was nothing compared to her second heartfelt observation: “With girls like you up there,” she
announced, “we don’t need ministers.” So
much for the hometown advantage!
Hometown
folks can be a tough crowd – no doubt about it!
They certainly keep you humble.
So – I think I know a little bit of what Jesus was feeling that day when
he came back to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth.
Fresh from
some pretty spectacular healings – from the unnamed woman with the 12 year flow
of blood to the actual raising from death of the daughter of Jairus, who was a
synagogue hotshot in Galilee, 30 or so miles to the northeast – Jesus probably
felt pretty darn good about himself as he made his way home.
Now Nazareth
was a small agricultural town with a population of around 300 at the time Jesus
lived. It was a fairly settled place and
once there, people did not move around very much. Therefore, many of the townspeople knew
Jesus, remembered him from his youth and early adulthood – and were glad to see
one of their own returning.
As was the
custom, when the Sabbath rolled around, Jesus and his family attended services
together in the synagogue. It was a
proud day for the carpenter’s clan because Jesus had been asked to speak. Now, not just anyone could get up and preach
or teach. You generally had to have some
sort of training, usually an apprenticeship with a local rabbi.
That most
likely was not the case with Jesus, so when he spoke, an exception had
clearly been made. Apparently he had
been recognized as both competent and worthy.
But make no mistake. He was not
the chief worship leader. He probably
only shared a five minute reflection or very brief homily.
However,
that being said, as Anglican priest Peter Fisher writes, “The
people in the synagogue were amazed at Jesus’ teaching. They all thought they
knew who he was. What he said appeared to them to have genuine insight; it would
have been clear and straightforward. It would have been honest and open. The
regular guy had not been away that long, but he had come back and He was
different…Those who listened, really listened, and were open to
Jesus’ words were the ones who were really amazed.”
And so it
was that the trouble started. What with
all their really listening, some of the congregation actually heard
what Jesus said. And there was the
rub. Maybe he was a bit uncompromising
in his views. Maybe he spoke a few
truths that they did not really want to hear.
Maybe his message made folks feel a tad bit uncomfortable.
So was it
really all that surprising when one old curmudgeon turned to his buddy in the
back row and whispered, “Who is this guy anyway? He’s just a carpenter, a repairman. Who does he think he is telling me how to
live my life?”
That did
it. The scene was set, and the grumbling
spread rapidly. “He’s just Mary’s son, right? An illegitimate nobody.” That particular remark, of course, was
politely questioning Jesus’ parentage (which, as you will remember, was once a
source of great shame). The rumors had
never really been forgotten. Someone was
again bringing up that awful scandal around his mother’s pregnancy 30 years ago. Conceived by the Holy Spirit – what a joke!
“Who is he,
a bastard son, to tell me how to live my life?
Why should we take notice of him?”
And the grumbling grew while more and more people in the congregation
took offence at Jesus. In short, they shut
him off and paid him no mind.
Now you did
not have to be a rocket scientist to see the handwriting on the wall – and Jesus
told them so in no uncertain terms: "A
prophet has little honor in his hometown, among his relatives, on the streets
he played in as a child." How
frustrating it must have been to come home to this!
And between Jesus’
frustration and the stubbornness (some would say faithlessness) of his own
people – the hometown crowd – Jesus could not do much there in Nazareth. His miraculous powers seemed to have left him
for the moment. Oh, he accomplished a
couple of simple healings – rashes disappearing, coughs subsiding – but nothing
that reflected the reputation that had preceded him.
For himself,
Jesus was amazed at the villagers’ reaction – the scoffing, the disbelief, the
feeling that he could never shed the past here in Nazareth. He would always be just the carpenter’s son
with no skills beyond those afforded by a hammer and nails.
Maybe it was
then that the enormity of this life journey he was embarking on, this journey, which
in the end was meant to be a ministry of transformation, became crystal clear
to him. There really was so much to do
and so little time – particularly given the stubbornness and faithlessness of
most people.
Perhaps it
was at that moment that Jesus realized that it was not humanly possible for one
man to accomplish all that needed to be done.
Perhaps that is why he sent out his disciples, the ones who were even
then just learning from him. Even as he himself
moved onward to other towns and villages, so the disciples went out two by two
to preach the good news of repentance and reconciliation.
“Just go,”
Jesus instructed them. “There is so much
to do, so little time. Do not take a lot
of baggage. Just go – preach the good
news and heal the pain and brokenness you find along the way. Just go.”
And they did.
According to
a survey done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, nearly 80% of
Americans consider themselves to be Christian, to be disciples, followers of
Jesus. That being said, one could argue
that this nation is a “hometown” for Jesus.
I mean, with 80% of the population claiming to stand for what he stands
for, surely we are “his” people, the hometown crowd. America would vote for Jesus, right?
Right? But what about Jesus’ off the cuff remark in
Nazareth, the one about prophets not being respected in their hometowns? What
does that remark mean in America – with 80% odds in Jesus’ favor?
Therein lies
the paradox. As environmentalist Bill
McKibben notes, “America is simultaneously the most
professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its
behavior.”
Is that
true? To what extent does our national
agenda dovetail with Jesus’ agenda? What
are Jesus’ expectations, his platform, anyway? In the version of the story that
we just read that is found in the Gospel of Luke, that writer tells us that the
Scripture Jesus read in the synagogue that Sabbath morning came from the
prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because
he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to
proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set
the oppressed free.”
In a nutshell, that
is Jesus’ agenda, his platform. Of
course, he expanded on those ideas in a couple of other telling Bible verses –
like “Blessed are the peacemakers” from the Beatitudes, “turning the other
cheek” and the business of clothing the naked and feeding the hungry in the
parable of the sheep and the goats, both in the Gospel of Matthew, culminating
of course in “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Non-violence, reconciliation, and charity – that is what Jesus stands
for. Non-violence, reconciliation, and
charity: would America vote for Jesus?
Let’s take a quick look….
“Good News to the
Poor” - Did you know
that the United States ranks virtually at the bottom of developed countries in government
foreign aid as a percentage of national budget (we give away about 1.5%)? Foreign aid includes medical and food
supplies in Africa, disaster earthquake disaster relief in Pakistan, and a
response to the fact that 40% of the world’s population live on less than $2.00
a day. Is this good news for the
poor? Did America vote for Jesus?
And there is
that business of "turning the other cheek" - As Bill
McKibben notes, “We are…the
most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that
of our European peers. We have prison populations greater by a factor of six or
seven than other rich nations…(and) we're the only Western democracy left that
executes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is
theoretically strongest.”
Did America vote for Jesus?
And how
about "Blessed are the peacemakers"? - In contrast to the 1.5% that goes to
humanitarian aid, 20% of the federal budget is dedicated to defense spending. That’s $683.7 billion! The 2009 U.S. military budget accounts for approximately 40% of
global arms spending.
The 2012 budget is 6-7 times larger than the military budget of
China and is more than the next twenty largest military spenders combined. The
United States and its close allies are responsible for two-thirds to
three-quarters of the world's military spending (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible
for the majority). How much is enough –
and did America vote for
Jesus?
And finally
- "Love your neighbor as yourself” - McKibben
goes on to say: “Although its rhetorical power has been dimmed by repetition, that
is a radical notion, perhaps the most radical notion possible. Especially since
Jesus, in all his teachings, made it very clear who the neighbor you were
supposed to love was: the poor person, the sick person, the naked person, the
hungry person. The last shall be made first; turn the other cheek; a rich
person aiming for heaven is like a camel trying to walk through the eye of a
needle. On and on and on—a call for nothing less than a radical, voluntary, and
effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of
love….what Jesus meant is the most deeply potent political, cultural, social
question.”
Did America vote for Jesus? Though Jesus spoke of feeding the hungry and
clothing the naked, have we defended Jesus’ platform when the safety net is cut
away from “the least of these” both locally and globally? Though Jesus spoke the language of
non-violence, have we aspired to be anything less than the most powerful
military presence on the globe? Have we
really loved our neighbor as much as we love our affluent lifestyle?
Are we hypocrites here in the United
States – saying one thing and doing another - like the villagers in
Nazareth? Of course we are – all of us –
you and me too.
That being said, is there hope for
us? I believe there is – or I would have
left the ministry shortly after the woman in the navy blue dress with white polka
dots reminded me that hometown crowds are tough. You see, I believe that hope lies in churches
like ours – moderate small churches that really can make a difference.
As Bill McKibben notes, “Even the
first time around, judging by the reaction, the Gospels were pretty unwelcome
news to an awful lot of people….(However, if the church can take) seriously the
actual message of Jesus, (that) should serve at least to moderate the greed and
violence that mark this culture... If some modest part of the 80 percent of us
who are Christians woke up to that fact, then the world might change.”
Whether or not America would vote
for Jesus is perhaps not the question right now. The real question is would YOU vote for Jesus
in your own life?
To what extent are you willing to live
day to day the message of Jesus in your own lives? To what extent will you be changed
when you leave this place today? To what
extent will you be like the disciples who went off and lived the Gospel message
on a wing and a prayer rather than be like the scoffers of Nazareth?
I have great faith in the potential
of the church – and in each one of you in this particular church – to be a
radical change agent in the world. And I
also have great faith in this nation of ours – the hometown crowd, flawed as it
is - to significantly impact a global transformation if we - beginning with you and I - take the gospel
message of non-violence, reconciliation, and charity seriously.
If you are wondering how we might go
about that in this church, then stay tuned for some information on a mission
trip. Tom, Bonnie, and I met this past
week, and we would really like to take a group to Maine Seacoast Mission in
Cherryfield in Washington County next summer.
Anyway, I have decided that Jesus
has my vote. But how about you? Do you vote for Jesus?
