21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 He 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.’ ” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 But 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, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 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. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Luke 4:21-30
My sermon from the 4th Sunday after Epiphany (January 30, 2022) on Luke 4:21-30.
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So last weekend was a really amazing weekend for football. Every game was close, exciting, and required a last minute field goal. My favorite articles this week were full of quotes from Kansas City Chiefs fans who chose to leave Arrowhead stadium when there was only 13 seconds left in the fourth quarter. If you’re a fan of one of those teams that played or will play today, I’m happy for you. But if you’re a fan of another team, you might have spent this last week wondering how yours will stack up twice a year against Patrick Mahomes now that he’s entered his final form. As a devoted fan of the Denver Broncos, I have no idea how we’re going to win in the future. But I’m hopeful the team can figure it out and they started that process this week by hiring a new coach. Now, I’m getting used to the fact that, every two or three years, the Broncos fire their head coach and go find a new one. A good coach is hard to find and I don’t know all the details of what it takes for that to happen. But the whole process, from the outside, can be a bit frustrating because it feels like the same small group of people are interviewed every year. It seems like most have been a coach on each other’s staff and the whole adage – it’s not what you know but who you know – is on full display. On some level, it makes sense to hire people you already know because, in theory, you understand their strengths, weaknesses, and how they work. Yet when the same group of people keep hiring each other, a kind of bubble forms where their conversations, thoughts, expectations, and points of view reinforce the status quo. And once we’re in a bubble, our world becomes really small. This kind of network of relationships can be a life-giving place where we experience love, care, wholeness, and a sense of purpose. But when our network stays small, we end up limiting who we are because we act as if we already know what we can become.
Today’s reading from the gospel according to Luke is a continuation of what we heard last week. Jesus had just started his ministry and was wandering in and out of the towns around the sea of Galilee. He made a pit stop in the town he grew up in, taking the opportunity to see his folks, do his laundry, and eat his mother’s food. He wasn’t in Nazareth for very long but Jesus, being Jewish, made sure to head to the synagogue on the sabbath day. When he walked through the door, I imagine people nodded their heads and came over to say hello. The community knew about his travels and they wanted to ask about his mom, his siblings, and what life was like being on the road. He was among the people he grew up with and that included his friends, his classmates, his neighbors, and everyone who had their own story about interacting with Jesus. They had, over the years, attended each other’s weddings, helped build each other’s homes, and brought their version of a 1st century casserole when a neighbor was in need. As neighbors in a small town, they created their own small network of people who had invested time, energy, and care for each other. They were their own kind of community and Jesus was a part of them. So when they handed him a scroll containing words from the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus was simply their Jesus. And after he announced he would be the one who’d make the oppressed go free, give sight to the blind, help all captives be released, and bring good news specifically to the poor, the community was amazed. Their Jesus was becoming a big deal and they turned to each other to speak.
Now our story records one thing they shared but I imagine that wasn’t the only thing they said. They already knew Jesus was doing new things and they got excited about what that might mean for them. In a world where who you know matters a lot, having a miracle worker in your in-group would be pretty awesome. We don’t know exactly what the community thought Jesus might do but they were excited about the possibilities. Their minds raced because they knew Jesus before he was cool. They assumed he would stay close to his friends and offer them the good news they specifically wanted. Yet what Jesus had in mind was a bit bigger than anything they expected. The good news he was bringing into the world wasn’t meant only for them. It was meant for everyone – which meant his words and his ministry were going to be a bit complicated. The good news one group wants to hear might not be the good news others need. Yet God’s love is always God’s love – and it works to constantly expand our imaginations about what is possible in our world. It moves us to break through the bubbles we build because the limitations we place on our relationships will not limit the work of our God. When we stay primarily focused only on the people around us, our imagination becomes a bit stagnant since the stories we share, the situations we find ourselves in, and our assumptions about what it means to live well in the world remains the same. It’s difficult to be new when we can’t see new and we sometimes don’t even realize how limited we are. We need a gentle or not so gentle nudge from Jesus to show our bubbles are not the limit of what it means to be with God. There is always more and that more is going to build bridges through, around, and over the walls we build that keep our relationships small.
Now those kinds of relationships are never easy because what works among one group of people might not work with someone else. We have to grow in how we communicate with each other and that requires learning each other’s history, values, hopes, and dreams. This work invites us to listen to stories that might challenge who we know ourselves to be. And it expands our sense of what good news actually is because what’s good for a Bronco fan might not be what the Rams need when they take the field this afternoon. The good news of God is a very particular kind of news because it speaks to who we are right now. It challenges us in ways that require us to love and serve and see the world differently while giving us hope that God’s promises are actually true. The limits we place on what’s possible with God are limits that God will always break through. And that’s because by the very nature of our baptism – of our being brought into this body of Christ that includes people from all places, all walks of life, all genders, all nationalities, and even from different time periods – we are already connected to a web of relationships that can never be small. We are part of an inclusive and expansive in-group that breaks through every smaller in-group we set up that invites us to do one one hardest and yet most essential things we can do in our lives. And that’s to just love. Love the people we’re with. Love the people who know us and who claim us as their own. Love the people we don’t know and those who God brings into our lives. And when we feel the urge to keep our network of relationships small, we need to let the limitlessness of God’s love show us how big God’s kingdom actually is. Now we’re always going to have our own in-groups. And it’s okay to have our own network of people that nourishes our body, mind, and spirit. Yet these networks are not meant to be the limit of our relationships because the Son of God connects us to so much more. We can, through love, keep ourselves and our communities open to the possibility we can change and grow. And even though we can’t fully know what that growth will look like, the Jesus who has made us part of his network of relationships will be there to carry us through.
Amen.