There
was once a pastor who was preaching a most wonderful sermon. Everything was going smoothly, and the people
in the pews were smiling and nodding in approval. However, when he
started to wrap up his reflection and bring his congregation round to his
conclusion, he said something a might bit controversial.
No
sooner were the words out of his mouth than one of the old pillars of the
church stood up - right then and there - and started preaching a sermon of his
own. This saint of the congregation
ranted and raved for a good five minutes, all the while pointing and wagging
his finger at the pastor.
Finally,
the parishioner sat down, red-faced and out of breath. What happened next,
I am not entirely certain. Most likely there was an embarrassed silence
followed by a bit of coughing before the church musician loudly played the
first notes of the final hymn, which the choir and congregation stood up to sing,
breathing a great sigh of relief.
Later
in the week, however, the pastor drove out to visit the impromptu preacher and
asked him, "What happened?"
Still
angry, the elderly gentleman blurted out, "I'll tell you exactly what
happened, preacher, you went from preaching to meddlin'!" (Philip McLarty)
Where
does one draw the line? When does a
sermon go from “preaching to meddlin’?
And who makes that call? You
certainly do not get those answers in seminary – and just as the preacher in
the story did not see eye to eye with his congregation, so it was with Jesus
when he read scripture and preached his first sermon in the synagogue in
Nazareth.
Our
Gospel reading this week actually begins where we left off last Sunday. If you will recall, Jesus had read from the
scroll of the prophet Isaiah:
God’s Spirit is on me;
he’s chosen me to preach the
Message of good news to the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners
and
recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
to
announce, “This is God’s year to act!”
Then,
you might remember – to the admiring clucks and comments of the congregation – Jesus
sat down – as was the custom - and preached an eight word sermon: “Today these words are fulfilled in your
hearing.”
Now
most people in the congregation were only half listening to what Jesus said,
and a few had their eyes closed (as is the way with congregations and sermons (no
matter how short)), but for the most part they were all surprised at how well the
young rabbi spoke – even if they were not all that clear about what he had actually
said.
Not
so with the old synagogue saint – a pillar of the assembly! He had been listening, and Jesus’ words had
sunk in. Though
he did not stand up to rant and rave as the elderly gentleman in the story I
told did, this riled up congregant did remark loud enough so that everyone
could hear: “Isn’t this Joseph’s son,
the one we’ve known since he was a youngster?”
“I
mean, look who’s talking!’ he continued disparagingly. “Just who does he think he is! Getting too
big for his britches, I’ll tell you that!
Thinks because he got out of this backwater town for a while – seen the
world – that he can be figurin’ he’s holier than us?
Precocious
young punk! Come on, he grew up in that
old carpenter’s shop right down on Main Street.
Born out of wedlock too, he was – and with questionable parentage. Remember all that flap about the Holy
Spirit? His mother was downright
crazy. I mean, come on!”
Now
what happened next really was Jesus’ fault.
I mean, if he had kept his mouth closed, everything would have been
OK. He probably would have had a nice
meal cooked by some overbearing Jewish mother, but at least he would have left
Nazareth on good terms and a full stomach.
He would have avoided that whole nearly being thrown off the cliff
incident and the sense of being railroaded out of his hometown.
But
no! Jesus instead went and rocked the
boat, making a snarky remark about prophets not being welcome in their
hometowns and that Nazareth would never be the ancient equivalent of Lourdes
with crutches and wheelchairs lying about as evidence of healings and
miracles.
But
even if he had just stopped there, he might still have gotten a good meal after
the service, but no! Perhaps being a bit
riled up himself just now, he answered the old man’s hostile observations with his
own brand of hostility. That is, he referenced
two stories from the Hebrew scriptures that undoubtedly spoke a profound truth
but were also handpicked to infuriate the congregation.
The first was
a tale about the beloved ancient prophet Elijah. As Baptist pastor Randy Hyde writes: “Israel went through a three-and-a-half year
drought which produced a tremendous famine. Widows were being made all over the
place, but when it came time for the prophet to give his attention to just one
of them, it happened to be a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. Simply read this from
Luke's gospel and it won't mean anything to you. Do a little homework, however,
and you will discover that the widow in Zarephath was a Gentile. That gets the
good folk in Nazareth a bit warm under the collar.”
(The
second story had to do with) “Elisha, disciple of and spiritual successor to Elijah.
He lived in a day, Jesus says, in which lepers roamed in large numbers. Not one
of them - not one - was cleansed, except for Naaman the Syrian. (If you are
familiar with this story,…. you will be aware that Naaman was a Gentile.”
There
was a common theme developing here, and the synagogue folk did not like
it. And the reason they resented this interpretive
twist was that it ran counter to what they had always believed.
Methodist
lay minster Bill Peddie reminds us that the Jewish population “associated their
beliefs with a strong sense of a localized God who had guided their history as
the chosen people – and further that all their history was bound up with a
popular notion that God traditionally took their side against the troublesome
enemies who surrounded them on every side….(In the Elisha story particularly,)
Jesus reminded his audience (that Elisha) had not cured any of the many lepers
in Israel, but instead had healed the commander of the enemy army.
The
unacceptable notion that God would help an enemy of Israel prosper,
particularly while ignoring those (God) should have been expected to heal, was
directly counter to (their beliefs) at the time and we can well believe that
this would infuriate those who believed that they alone were the chosen
people.”
I
cannot emphasize enough how repugnant those two stories would have been to
these stalwart synagogue goers. Not
surprisingly, they were speechless, feeling their only recourse was to rid
themselves of this man Jesus – perhaps like we all wish to do when the truth
hits too close to home. No wonder that
they rose up in righteous indignation and tried literally to fling him over a
local cliff.
Of
course, the Gospel writer tells us that Jesus passed through the midst of his
accusers and went on his way. And we
know that it will not be the last time that people will resort to violence to
silence Jesus – nor will it be the last time that he overcomes such violence to
once again go on his way – this time down through the centuries and millennia
even to us here today.
Now
the question for the congregation in that ancient synagogue was this: Who was this man Jesus to tell them that
God’s mercy and liberation and healing were meant for everyone – and not just
for the Jewish people?
For
us, the answer is easy – though it helps to have 2000 years of hindsight. Jesus is the embodiment of all that God wants
for the world and aspires the world to be – a compassionate humanity committed
to justice, a human race that has pushed the margins so far in all directions
that everyone is included under the vast umbrella of grace. For we who our Christians, Jesus is indeed the
Word (God’s Word of justice and compassion and reconciliation and peace and,
today most of all, inclusiveness, God’s Word) made flesh, dwelling among us,
breaking into our neighborhoods and gated communities.
And so, for us
– we who are a congregation not in an ancient synagogue but in a modern church
– surely we are asked to reflect on what Jesus has put forth in this tale - that
we too – even today - are called to find
value in the ones who are not like us – in the foreigners. For the synagogue goers to whom Jesus spoke,
it was the Gentiles like Naaman and the widow at Zarephath. For us it is those who do not share our
sexual preferences, our political leanings, even our Christian beliefs.
Methodist
pastor John van der Laar remarks “it's tragic that Christianity has too often
been more like the people of Nazareth than like Jesus. We love to hear people
speaking about Jesus as Messiah. We love to hear how God's Reign has come to
us. But, when someone points out how inclusive Jesus was, we find all sorts of
excuses to deny it.
When we are
challenged by the Gospel to welcome those whom we believe are
"sinners" or "outside" of God's "chosen ones", we
would rather attack the messenger than do the difficult work of opening our
hearts. We all have those we struggle to love. We all have those whom we
believe are undeserving of God's grace….The challenge of the Gospel is the way it calls us
constantly to expand our welcome and inclusion until all people discover that
they are actually "in" with God. This challenging journey into
radical, inclusive grace” is our journey.
And so we are
called to quit separating ourselves into exclusive camps and instead find
common ground – seek out the interdependence we so desperately need to survive
in this crazy world but more importantly to ensure that God’s Kingdom thrives. If we cut ourselves off from those we do not
understand or agree with, we are stunting our growth as God’s daughters and
sons.
Is it an easy
shift? No. Will it take time and enormous
intentionality? Yes.
Jesus was
clearly rubbing people the wrong way when he took on the old codger near the
back of the synagogue. But that is what
Jesus always seems to do – back in the first century CE and still today. There we always find him - crossing
boundaries, pushing the envelope, finding the forgotten ones, going back for those
left behind, raising up the least, loving in ways that are so new, so amazing,
so outrageous – and all the while calling us to follow in his footsteps and do
the same. “Trust steadily in God, (we
are told) hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is
love.”
But, you know
what else is true? Jesus always leaves
us with a choice – always – the choice to open ourselves to God’s grace and to
the kingdom or to throw him and the truth he proclaims over the cliff.
It is like
that story of the evangelist Bill Sunday. In a sermon, he said something
critical of local labor conditions.
After the service, several businessmen sent him a message, which read: “Billy, leave labor matters alone.
Concentrate on getting people saved. Stay away from political issues. You’re
rubbing the fur the wrong way”.
Billy Sunday
sent this message back to them: “If I’m
rubbing the fur the wrong way, tell the cats to turn around”.
Is
it preaching? Or is it meddlin’? Or is it the Gospel?
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond VIllage Community Church
www.rvccme.org
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