Jubilee, Today, cont.

Luke 4:21-30

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 home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, 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 cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard 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 went on his way.

I appreciate when our readings start right where we left off from the week prior. In this case, we even repeat the verse 21—“Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” For a little refresher, this was the scripture from Isaiah 58 and 61 about freeing the oppressed, bringing good news the poor, restoring sight to the blind, and bringing about the year of God’s favor— the long awaited year of Jubilee, in which all debts would be forgiven all servants and slaves would be allowed to returned to their families and their ancestral land.

Today, the people are amazed and exclaimed “Is this not Joseph’s son?” impressed that this young man they’ve known since as a precocious young boy, the son of simple carpenter, whom they watched grow up, is here proclaiming good news of debts forgiven and captives set free. This would be like me going back to my church in Salem and announcing to everyone that all student and medical debts are forgiven and those of you who had your house foreclosed on can have your house back, and them actually believing me.

But then things take quite a turn, don’t they? They go from them being amazed by their hometown boy doing them proud to wanting to hurl him off a cliff.

You might remember that last week, we talked about the fact that there’s a version of this story in both Matthew and Mark, but it comes much later in both of their accounts; and their accounts of his rejection are also markedly different. Scholars think that Luke may have been influenced by a completely different mystery source since there is so little resemblance between his version and the other two, which is pretty unusual.

But before I get bogged down in literary analysis and comparisons, let’s look at our passage for today and figure out what made Jesus’ people turn on him so suddenly. He quotes this strange proverb “Doctor, cure yourself,” which is a sarcastic kind of remark one would make to a quack doctor; and then Jesus predicts that he will be asked to perform the same kind of miracles and healings he has apparently already performed in Capernaum. Before the crowd can even respond, Jesus then reminds them of two stories from their own scriptures—the first of the widow in Zarephath is from 1 Kings. It’s the story of the prophet Elijah, called by God to go to this widow in, a Phoenician land— a place in which the people were not Jewish, but rather polytheistic gentile pagans. Elijah receives hospitality from the widow, and the widow and her son are in turn, the recipients of miracles themselves. The story of Elisha is vaguely similar—Elisha heals Naaman, a military commander from what we now know as Syria, of his leprosy; again, he was a foreigner, a gentile, and yet, Elisha uses the powers of God to heal him.

The crowd’s response to hearing these familiar stories from their own scriptures quoted to them? Throwing Jesus off a cliff in a blind rage.

Huh. Why would this be? I think to help us out a little, we can look to Matthew and Mark’s versions of this story. They’re a little more straight-forward. In both Matthew and Mark, they see Jesus’ preaching as a little… uppity. They’re offended that this average carpenter claiming this authority, and in both these versions it’s written very plainly that these people simply do not believe. In Mark, its written that Jesus doesn’t perform many miracles there “…because of their unbelief,” and in Matthew it’s written that “…he was amazed at their unbelief.”

So what I see Luke doing here, is sort of the old writing and storytelling trick, “show, don’t tell.” It’s this idea that to make a story more interesting to the reader, the reader will experience the plot points of the story by subtext, but actions, by feelings, as opposed to the author simply hitting you over the head with obvious exposition.

So what is it in our passage for today, that shows, rather than tells us, about the peoples’ unbelief? The stories Jesus tells the people of his hometown are stories about God’s power and God’s love being bestowed upon non-Jews— foreigners, gentiles, pagans. They’re stories about the universality of God’s love, and they foreshadow the universality and the far-flung reach that Jesus’ message will have. The people of Nazareth do not like this. They want all the healing for themselves—all the power, all the love, they want to hoard the blessings of Jubilee; they believe they and only they are entitled to it. And yet, here is Jesus giving then very clear examples of God helping people who are “nonbelievers,” people these Nazarenes deem unworthy of God’s love and power.

Their rage about Jesus helping people they would consider “other,” people they would consider outsiders, people they would consider undeserving of God’s protection and love, that is how Luke is showing, not telling, their shameful unbelief. He doesn’t have to say that Jesus was amazed at their unbelief, or that Jesus didn’t help them because of their unbelief. He shows the reader in this dramatic and violent scene, in which the people of Jesus’ hometown, many of whom probably knew him since he was a fragile, vulnerable infant, threaten to throw him off a cliff, which is probably another way of saying they were going to stone him to death. This was essentially a lynch mob. This was a group of people who were so wildly angry at the mere thought of foreigners being helped before them, they were going to commit murder.

But I think the most telling thing about this is— the last straw was, apparently, having their own scripture being quoted to them. They were being shown with no ambiguity, this is what our faith tells us, and this is what you’re mad about. They were being shown their blatant and blasphemous hypocrisy.

In our prayer of invocation earlier, by the priest and theologian Henri Nouwen, we asked God to “teach us to stand up free and to shun no criticism.” If we are to truly be good Christians in this cruel and chaotic world, we have to listen to one another and we have to listen to what our faith tells us—and when we’re confronted with a hard truth, or with a critique, we don’t want to get defensive, or angry; we certainly don’t want to get homicidal like Jesus’ own people in today’s passage. In one of my Bible commentaries, the author, professor and preacher Fred Craddock writes,

That these two stories were in their own scriptures and quite familiar perhaps accounts in part for the intensity of their hostility. Anger and violence are the last defense of those who are made to face the truth of their own traditions which they have long defended and embraced. Knowing what we already know is often painfully difficult.

Just a couple weeks ago, the Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde made quite a splash at the inaugural prayer service when she pointed out that “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.” This isn’t controversial. This isn’t shocking. The only thing that should be shocking about this is that it was looked upon as subversive and shocking. Exodus 22:21: “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” Leviticus 19:34: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” And of course—the words of Jesus himself, Matthew 25:40: “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren you did it to me.” Not to mention parables like the Good Samaritan, and of course the stories of the widow and Naaman that inspire this irrational and prideful rage in our passage today. And the answer to Bishop Budde’s plea for mercy and paraphrasing of scripture was met by anger, rage by those in power and even violent threats by anonymous internet trolls.

To be good Christians in this world, we have to be open to and honest with ourselves and with what is happening around us. And if we really want to live by what Jesus preached, we’re going to be strong in our faith, we’re going to have to stand strong in the face of irrational and defensive rage and anger.

Last week, our scripture passage, the very the beginning of this story, begins with the statement that Jesus returned to Galilee “filled with the Holy Spirit.” I think we have to remember this for our passage today. When he’s driven out of the synagogue by this angry mob, when his life is being threatened, he simply walks through the crowd, unharmed. No other explanation. It’s no accident that Luke begins this story saying that Jesus entered into this situation filled with Spirit. This, I think, it what protects him from this lynch mob—because that’s what they are, a lynch mob—from taking their shame and anger out on him by killing him. He’s protected by his faith, by his confidence that he knows he’s right by making it clear that he stands for all people, not just those from his hometown, or those of his own ethnicity or even religion.

We must be inspired by this, now more than ever. When faced with any kind of self-righteous anger when we’re speaking truth, when faced with any kind of defensiveness, we have to stand our ground, we have to hold strong to what we know is right, what our scriptures and faith tells us, in the face of hatred. And I don’t mean online, I wouldn’t recommend getting in any facebook comment arguments with anyone—I mean act your faith out in your everyday life. Make sure your faith is strong enough to both engage with criticism and really listen to one another, but also stand strong by your faith and by your values—our faith that tells us to love the stranger, to love our enemy, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  Again, there is no ambiguity there.

The more I looked at this passage, the more I saw Jesus’ disappointment and a sort of… sense of melancholy and a feeling of being resigned. Even after the people are amazed by his words, he knows this goodwill will not last long, and he preempts it by destroying that goodwill himself, predicting their sarcastic questions and their assumptions that the power of Jesus will be exclusive to only them—when in reality, God has long shown their love to be universal.   

Among so many other feelings in the air right now, that feeling of disappointment in our fellow human is there, I think, along with that tension and anxiety—that feeling that we knew there would be cruelty and chaos, and yet we are so disappointed and somehow shocked that the cruelty and chaos is rampant. And this is why we have to, no matter what, no matter how disappointed we become, not matter what anger or rage or cruelty we are faced with, we have to hold onto the Holy Spirit. We have to hold onto that power of love with which the Holy Spirit buoys us. And we have to be sure enough in our faith to withstand hypocrisy and hatred.

“Today the scripture has been fulfilled,” Jesus says. Remember— we can have an earth as it is in heaven, we have the emotional, mental, and physical resources for that to happen today, for every human to have enough to eat, a place to live, to feel safe and secure, if only we really want it and work to make that happen. That’s what our faith calls us to. And that is faith we must live by now, just as we always have. And that faith and that hope is what will keep us safe and strong and protected. Amen.