Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany - February 3

For the People of Nazareth, Too
Luke 4:21-30

The Gospel reading we heard this morning is a direct continuation of the story we heard last Sunday. Jesus has come to his hometown of Nazareth and gone to the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. He stands up to read from the Scriptures and reads these words from 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 Lords favor.”

He sits down. The eyes of all of those people in Nazareth are upon him. People he’s grown up with, neighbors, people who know his family. Then he says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The Lord has anointed me.

This is where today’s reading picks up. Jesus’ reading gets a mixed response. At first people seem awed, moved perhaps by their awareness of the Spirit of the Lord within Jesus. Amazed at the possibility that this man might be the Messiah. But then some people, at least, appear skeptical. This man? Really? Jesus? The kid down the street? Think about names and faces of people you knew in childhood. Could you seriously accept the idea that somebody you grew up with could be God’s Son? I can sympathize with the skepticism of the people in Nazareth.

We cherish our connections to people who grew up to become famous… sports stars, entertainers, politicians. But this is a different world. Jesus himself suggesting that he is God’s anointed. In Mark and Matthew’s telling of this event, it is clear that Jesus could do no acts of power in Nazareth, and Matthew states that it is the peoples’ unbelief that limits Jesus’ power. Their own familiarity makes them blind to Jesus identity and shields them from his grace and power.

But there is another dynamic here as well. Before coming to Nazareth, Jesus has healed and cast out demons in Capernaum. And the people of Nazareth know of his deeds in Capernaum.

Writing about this passage, Fred Craddock (Interpretation Commentary on Luke) says: “The problem however, lies far deeper than blind familiarity. If the people of Nazareth assumed privileges for themselves, that error is joined to a more serious one: resentment that Jesus has taken God’s favor to others beyond Nazareth, especially Capernaum, said to have had a heavy non-Jewish population.”

Not only has Jesus taken God’s favor, God’s healing power, to people outside his own hometown, he has taken it to people who are not his own people. And then, to justify or explain his actions, he quotes Scripture to the people of Nazareth. He quotes to them their own Scriptures, the very familiar stories of Elijah and Elisha bringing God’s favor to non-Jews. Elijah, who helped the widow from Sidon and Elisha, who healed Naaman, the Syrian.

Craddock, again, “The war is between Judaism and its own Scriptures.” Between the Jews in Nazareth and the witness of their own tradition, their own Scriptures. Not only does Jesus not buy into their own biases against non-Jews, outsiders, he points out to them that those biases are non-Jewish, not supported by their own Scriptures.

This passage is about how viciously angry and defensive people can be when forced to look in the mirror at themselves. They try to kill Jesus rather than face the truth about themselves.

Quoting Craddock’s commentary again: “Luke’s point throughout Luke-Acts is that Israel should have understood and embraced Jesus’ message. Israel knew of God’s grace towards all peoples as early as the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 22:18; Acts 3:25). And Jonah stands forever as the dramatic embodiment of that capacity in all of us, Jew and Christian alike, to be offended by God’s grace to all those of whom we do not approve. The reason I did want to preach to Ninevites, said Jonah to God, was “I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Jonah 4:3).”

Jonah, and the people of Nazareth, embody that capacity in all of us “to be offended by God’s grace to all of those of whom we do not approve.”

“The synagogue, now a mob, attempts to stone Jesus. Hurling a person against stones was as acceptable a form of stoning as was hurling the stones against the person. Yet this is far from official procedure; it is angry mob reaction. Even, so, it foreshadows not only the trial and death of Jesus but also the fate of many of his followers. If it foreshadows Israel’s rejection of Jesus and the taking of the message to Gentiles, then it is important to notice that Jesus does not go elsewhere because he is rejected, he is rejected because he goes elsewhere.”

What does all of this mean for us?

1) Those who would exclude some people from the Body of Christ, for whatever reason, should take note. Jesus did not take the Good News to the Gentiles because he was rejected by the Jews in Nazareth. God’s mission of hope and healing to those seen as “other” was not a fall-back plan, some sort of plan B. It was always God’s primary plan. Jesus went to Capernaum and the Gentiles there first. That was what offended the Jews in Nazareth. We are all challenged to beware of out own capacity to “be offended by God’s grace to al of those of whom we do not approve.”

2) The interpretation of Scripture is not easy. It contradicts itself in places. We are challenged to listen to even the parts that do not confirm our biases of who God is or what God should do. The people of Nazareth resisted that challenge. And in the midst of Scripture’s complexities and contradictions, we might do well to place particular emphasis on those passages that Jesus quotes. Passages that stress the expansiveness and inclusiveness of God’s love and power.

3) Jesus died to save the people of Nazareth, too.

Thank God Jesus died to save the people of Nazareth, too.