This sermon was preached at Glenwood and Canoe Ridge Lutheran Churches, Decorah, Iowa on February 3, 2019. It’s based on Jeremiah 1:4-10, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, and Luke 4:21-30. If you’d prefer to listen to it, find it at https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
4Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 5“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
6Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 7But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. 8Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”
9Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. 10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Luke 4:21-30
21Then Jesus began to say to all in the synagogue in Nazareth, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23He 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.’ ” 24And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They 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. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
How quickly a scene can change!
Jesus has just read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Today, Jesus tells all in the synagogue, 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.
So when do gracious words turn into rage-inducing words?
As Jesus read from Isaiah, did his hometown citizens locate themselves in the text? Did they see themselves as the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed? Even though this was Jesus—Joseph’s son, one of them, surely not divine in any way—did they begin to believe, for just a moment, that their Lord had finally come to save them?
They would have known this passage from Isaiah. It was part of their story, part of their faith, part of their hope for a life free from suffering and oppression.
But they also would have known the stories Jesus went on to cite: Elijah sent to a widow not in Israel, but in Zarephath in Sidon; Elisha sent to help not any of the many lepers in Israel, but Naaman the Syrian.
The people in the synagogue that day would have known these stories of their God working on behalf of outsiders—those outside their circle of concern, those outside the borders of their nation, those outside the boundaries of their culture.
And suddenly Jesus’ words are not so gracious to them.
Because suddenly he is reminding them that this good news—this salvation—is not just for them. It’s for all. It’s for the ones they would just as soon forget. It’s for the ones they hate. It’s for the ones they’ve deemed unworthy, or at least beyond the scope of their compassion.
And when they heard this—when they heard what they already knew, but had chosen to ignore or to forget—all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They drove Jesus out of the town so that they might hurl him off a cliff. Kill him. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
What is it in us that inspires such rage when it is revealed to us—once again—that the good news, the release, the sight, the freedom that Jesus embodies is not ours alone?
What is it that compels a hate crime in Chicago, racial and homophobic slurs and a noose around a black man’s neck? What is it that inspires the building of a 400-mile wall meant to divide Israelis from Palestinians along the West Bank—a wall that separates farmers from their lands, ruining their livelihood and devastating their spirit? What is it that leads to heated conversations in churches about supporting ministries beyond our buildings?
I suppose the answer is sin. Martin Luther put it this way: Our nature is so deeply curved in on itself that it not only bends the best gifts of God towards itself…but it also fails to realize that it so wickedly, curvedly, and viciously seeks all things, even God, for its own sake.1
Now, maybe Jesus could have held off a bit. Did he really need to mention God’s love for those outsiders right off the bat? Couldn’t he have won over the crowd by focusing solely on their own needs and then, over time, slowly, kindly, gently helped them look beyond themselves?
Sure. He could have done that.
But what if what was truly gracious, what was truly freeing, was speaking the truth from the start, no matter how hard it was to hear? What if what was truly gracious, what was truly freeing, was inspiring that rage within them, so that they could see their propensity to seek God only for their own sake, so that they could confront the sin that bound them?
Both our first and second readings for this day remind us that we are fully known by God. God knows our capacity for love, our capacity for hate, our insecurities, our jealousies, our desire to live insulated lives that spare us the pain of caring deeply for others, our hesitations, our fears, our passions, and our need to be set free.
In Jesus, their Lord had come to save them—those folks gathered in the synagogue that day. But good news didn’t sound the way they expected it to sound. Freedom didn’t look the way they expected it to look. Jesus opened their eyes to their sin, freeing them to love beyond themselves, beyond their religion, beyond their country, beyond their stereotypes, beyond their fears.
May he do the same for us.
Amen.
1 Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans