Here’s the sermon for February 3, 2019. The texts for this week are Luke 4:21-30 and Jeremiah 1:4-10.
The most nervous I’ve ever been before a sermon was when I was in seminary, the night before I preached at Ascension Lutheran in Fond du Lac, the church I’d grown up at.
Pastor Jeff was on vacation, and since I’d had two years of seminary, I was asked to fill in as the supply preacher. I remember sitting on the couch in my parents’ living room on Saturday night agonizing over each word of the sermon, begging both my mom and my wife to read through it.
I’d spoken in worship in college, I’d preached in hospital chapels and on retreats, and I’d preached for my seminary classmates with a professor critiquing what I said. But somehow, giving the sermon as a seminary student back at home was terrifying.
What if these people who had encouraged me to go study to become a pastor decided they were wrong about me and I really should have stuck with computer programming? What if I said something they didn’t like and they decided seminary had corrupted me?
Afterwards, people were very nice and complimented me on both how the sermon went and how comfortable I apparently looked. Looking back, I’m not sure if the sermon was very good or not (however you measure that), but the hometown crowd I was so nervous about were so supportive I’m not sure it really mattered what I actually said.
They wanted to be encouraging, to celebrate that I was being sent out to serve the larger church. At any rate, my first official sermon at Ascension went much better than Jesus’ first sermon at his home church.
Today’s Gospel reading is really a continuation of last week’s. If you weren’t here last week, first of all, neither was I, so I suspect you missed a much better sermon than this one, but if you were here, you heard the first half of this incident.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus has been teaching in synagogues around Galilee. So far, his message has been well received. Luke says he “was praised by everyone.” Then he gets to his home synagogue in Nazareth, where he’d been brought up, and I imagine there were quite a few people there.
Not quite the same scale, but I picture how our county turned out for Maddie Poppe when she did her American Idol homecoming concert. Everyone turned out for synagogue that morning, to hear the local boy made good.
Listen to a few of the verses from last week: He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “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.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.
The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 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?”
Sure sounds like it’s going well, doesn’t it? Everyone likes Jesus’ message; they’re proud of Joseph’s boy. Six verses later, all in the synagogue are filled with rage and try to throw Jesus off of a cliff. Hometown crowds can be fickle.
The thing is, Jesus goes too far for the crowd. They like his initial message about the Spirit of the Lord appointing him to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free.
This is good news. Jesus is telling them God is on their side, the moment of redemption is at hand. In this broken world, God is coming to the rescue. As Luke says, these are “gracious words.” It’s all good.
But then Jesus pushes them. He gives some examples from Israel’s history of God blessing people outside of Israel. He reminds them that the prophet Elijah was sent to a widow in Zarephath, not in Israel.
The prophet Elisha famously healed Naaman, a Syrian leper. Jesus is not just talking about God blessing them; he’s talking about God blessing their enemies, the people they can’t stand, the people who are different, the people they don’t want in their land.
That message doesn’t go over so well. They get angry enough to try to kill Jesus.
Jesus is not there to be popular. He’s there to be a prophet, to speak the uncomfortable truths, to shake things up for the sake of God’s kingdom. Prophets come to challenge the status quo, to point to a vision of reality that’s different than what we’re used to.
Even as followers of Jesus, we’re still uncomfortable with this message. When we start talking about welcoming the stranger into our land, it sounds political, and some of you are thinking “Please don’t go there in a sermon.”
Prophets call us to see the people we don’t like, the people who look different, who are from other places, who maybe don’t speak our language or have the same traditions, to see them as children of God.
Prophets challenge us to see Jesus in people on the other side of borders, and to treat them accordingly. Prophets call us to see every person as a child of God, valuable and worthy of life and dignity, even refugees, even unborn children, even prisoners, even sex offenders, and murderers, and addicts, and even whatever category you’re thinking of.
Jesus’ message is not partisan, but it is political, and it’s still controversial. For those of us who like to think we play by the rules, who do our best to live faithfully, even just the gift of God’s grace is offensive. It makes sense for God to bless us, doesn’t it? At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. I mean, I know I’m sinful, and I don’t deserve God’s love, but all the same, I sure feel like I deserve it more than some other people.
Grace is good, but it’s so radical of an idea, so countercultural, that if you stop and think about it, it really is offensive. What do you mean God loves me the same whether I give my money to the church or steal from the offering plate? What do you mean God loves me just as much as some terrorist drug dealer? How can Jesus invite those sinners over there to the same table as me?
You can see how this grace thing could get out of hand. But that’s the good news. The gospel is offensive. Jesus gets away this time, but the power of sin in this world is so strong that eventually, his radical good news is going to get him killed.
This is the message we are given to proclaim, and there are people who don’t like it. Being a prophet is dangerous. Yet the words God speaks to Jeremiah are spoken to us as well. “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.”
No wonder Jeremiah objects. When God calls to him, he responds by claiming to be “just a boy” who does not know how to speak.
He’s not wrong. He is not prepared to be the prophet of the Lord. He is not ready to be God’s messenger, to put up with the persecution to deliver this offensive message. No one is.
But the beauty of Jeremiah’s call story is that God rejects his objection. What matters is not who Jeremiah is, but who God is. What matters is not “I am only a boy” but “I am with you to deliver you.”
I think I can safely say none of us in this room are called to the same kind of radical public proclamation as Jeremiah. His career takes some weird turns, including using a rotten loincloth as an illustration and being beaten and thrown into a cistern to die. But we are called to be messengers of God’s radical grace, and God promises to be with us to deliver us.
If you are a member of this church, you made some promises either when you were confirmed or when you joined as an adult. One of those promises is that you would proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed. Our actions in the world outside this building need to match what we say we believe.
You promised to serve all people following the example of Jesus. All people includes an awful lot of people. You promised to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. These are big promises.
I invite you to pray with me. Lord Jesus, help us to follow your example. Give us boldness to share your good news, to stand up for the oppressed even in the face of opposition. Help and guide us to work for justice and peace in all the world, and by your Holy Spirit, give us a living, daring faith in the power of your love. Amen