october-26-2008-click-here-to-play
preached by Winton Boyd on October 26
Text: 4:16-30
When visiting Nazareth a few years ago, I was taken to the hill local legend suggests was the site of this passage. The small city is surrounded by high hills, and our hosts took us to a small park on one such hill and said this was the “cliff” the townsfolk tried to throw Jesus off.
While I was vaguely aware of this part of the story, I was a bit surprised that that incident, not the context of the story in which it occurs, was most memorable to the remaining Christians in what is now largely a Muslim village surrounded by Jewish settlements.
This story combines two elements in Jesus’ life – an emerging public ministry rooted in healing and teaching throughout the poor peasant regions of Galilee; and his deep connection to the words of the ancient prophets, especially Isaiah who he quotes here.
While Jesus is pulling these ancient words out of his tradition – they are effective because they speak to the present reality. In the same way they spoke of hope to exiles in Babylon in the late 6th century, they were beginning to come alive for the peasantry with whom Jesus lived and moved.
But as he calls forth a vision of God’s liberation, Jesus is playing with a double edged sword. For these words carry both comfort and challenge to the very people who raised him.
After quoting Isaiah, Jesus goes on to remind his friends that at several points in the history of their faith, hometown folks have heard the prophetic word, but ignored it. They have praised the word, but thought that somehow, either it wasn’t intended for them or didn’t apply or even worse, that they were already living it when in fact they were not.
We begin to see why their anger started to rise. And now, the legend of the cliff begins to come back into focus.
What is there about a native son calling his friends and relatives to the counter cultural service and love for the poor that is threatening?
What is it about human nature that would prefer that the native son just be a really good carpenter?
So while this scene is the source of our greatest inspiration, it is also the source of our greatest challenge as people of faith. For while Jesus speaks of God’s liberation and freedom for all people – it also challenges all those who follow him to live in such a way to bring about that freedom and courage and new life.
While these words are 2000 years old, Luke’s depiction of Jesus’ hometown resistance reminds us that comfortability and conformity to what is are often hurdles in our ability to be courageous proponents of what, in the vision of God, can be.
Martin Luther King Jr understood how threatening transformational faith is to the status quo when he said, “This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed non-conformists. The saving of our world from pending doom will come not from the actions of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a dedicated minority.”
In seems to me then one of the best ways of passing the peace at church is to ask, “do you feel maladjusted today?” “How has your week been as a transformed non conformist?”
The truth is, we don’t get this mandate anywhere else. There are many ways we seek to live this out – in our work, in our volunteering, in our neighborhoods… but we need to remember how counter cultural this is, how truly out of step this is with the culture around us.
We may have hopes for certain candidates in this upcoming election, but nowhere in the debates and ads and stump speeches are we hearing a real concern for the poor and the blind and the imprisoned. Because our mainstream politics so often follow the money trail, it always stops short of Jesus’ vision.
Our entertainment venues, our families, our schools, our workplaces – they are all full of inspiration and creativity and education and hope – but they rarely take us to the depths that Jesus’ vision for the poor does.
We simply do not get this mandate anywhere else. The less we pay attention to it in our reading of the Bible, worship at church, in communion with other brothers and sisters in faith, and in our prayer life – the less likely it will remain a priority.
This was the word to exiles in Israel. In that context, it was a word of comfort.
This was a word to the regulars at Shabbat in Nazareth. In that context, it became a threat.
This is a word to us today. In our context,
it can be new information,
a cultural challenge,
or a nagging reminder of what we know to be true but would rather not have to pay attention to all the time.
It may also be a word of comfort – that God is there in our afflictions – or that our life really does have a purpose.
ALL WEEK I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS QUESTION – HOW DO WE SUSTAIN OUR WORK IN THE SPIRIT OF LUKE 4? HOW DO WE SUSTAIN OUR COURAGE AND OUR HOPEFULNESS?
I was reminded of some of the DVD footage from our recently completed “Heart and Soul” class called Brave New Nation. It was a series of discussions between young and old activists.
One conversation featured 90-year-old Pete Seeger, songwriter/singer and activist with Majora Carter, a 40 something African American environmental activist from the South Bronx. Their discussion revolved several truths that help them sustain themselves in their respective work.
I offer their reflections to prime the pump on our own reflections about how we, as a community and as individuals, sustain ourselves in the grueling, counter cultural work of justice.
1. Look for who your allies are – and remember you may surprised. In Seeger’s case it included uniting union activists and environmentalists, which was uncommon in his experience. Living out this vision is so hard; we need all the allies we can get.
2. Do something, even if it is small. Seeger quoted Rosa Parks after a weekend of nonviolent activism education, “I don’t know what I am going to do, but I am going to do something.” Don’t be daunted by the enormity of the work, start somewhere.
3. Line out the hymn – Seeger, as an aging singer/songwriter, has never been a great singer – his genius was in getting whole stadiums and concert halls and classrooms singing together songs of joy and freedom and courage. Now, he can no longer sing, he MUST line out the songs. This is, he suggested, a good truth to live by. “Give em the words” – leadership in this work is about bringing others along, telling them, teaching them, creating opportunities for others to speak their truth and to feel a sense of community. How do we bring others into the “singing?”
4. Prayer – Another activist Jim Wallis speaks about prayer, writing, “Prayer is a necessity. Without it we see only our point of view, our own righteousness, and ignore the perspective of (others)… When we have brought (those who fight against the poor) into our hearts in prayer, it becomes most difficult to maintain the hostility necessary for violence… By softening our hearts toward our adversaries – or those who hate or ignore this vision of Jesus, prayer can become treasonous.
5. Dislocate – carry this vision with you to unexpected places. In your order of worship you have this text on card stock. Part of keeping courage is trying these words out in various settings. We might be used to them in church. How do they read in a classroom or a grocery store or with our bridge playing friends or on a walk in nature? What does it sound like to be challenged to be a force for liberation and possibility when we hear the call in an unusual setting? I am not talking about preaching to others – but absorbing these very words in a different place and space. Maybe there will be insights there that we can’t see anywhere else.
We don’t get this mandate anywhere else, and many need us to live it out. God empowers us, trusts us and needs us. And so does the world. Amen.
