Expectations

Sermon for SMHP, Year C, Epiphany + 4, Feb. 3, 2019

Luke 4:21-30

          When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because God has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
²⁰And 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.                         

               ²¹Then Jesus began to say to the people in the synagogue, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

          ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

          ²³He 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.’” ²⁴And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.

               ²⁵But 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; ²⁶yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹They 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. ³⁰But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

          So let’s go to Nazareth, okay?  Here it is today…well, last March.  It does indeed sit up on a hill, like much of Israel.

          At the center of town is The Basilica of the Assumption, which has mosaics sent by Christians from all over the world. 

          Here’s Mexico’s.

          Here’s Brazil’s.

          Here’s the one sent by the people of the U.S.

          The outside of the basilica has beautiful carved icons of the four evangelists:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  I took a picture of St. Mark for us.

          And here’s a nice place to get falafel and gyros.  Number One in Nazareth! 

          And you know, I’ve done some traveling in the Middle East.  I’ve been to Turkey, Jordan, Iraq.  I know what they look like today. 

          But every week we read stories about Jesus in his native land, so no matter what I knew in my head, I think I still expected Nazareth to look more like this [2 slides] than this [last slide].

          Expectations, right?  They can get us.

          Our lesson for this morning is all about expectations, and how they play out or don’t, and what it means for the community of faith.

          When Jesus returned to the synagogue at Nazareth, people had an idea of who he was. 

          He stood up to read, like you do in your home church, and they gave him the scroll.  He read those words from Isaiah:

¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because God has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ 

          And then he said “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

          And the response of the hometown crowd was…?

          Amazement.  ^“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?’”

          “Psst…who is that?”

          “It’s Jesus…you know, Joe and Mary’s kid.”

          “Oh.  He reads good for a carpenter.”

          How is Jesus known in other parts of his native land?

          Jesus of…?  Nazareth.

          How is he known at home?  They’re not going to call him “Jesus of Nazareth.”

          Jesus bar Joseph.

          Jesus the son of Joseph, the carpenter.

          They expect Jesus to grow up and be…?

          A carpenter. 

          So this holy man who reads scripture and then says “this has been fulfilled in your hearing!”

          …this is unexpected.  And Jesus knows he’s not what they’re expecting.  In fact, he reads a lot into their reaction, so if you got a bit of whiplash hearing this lesson, don’t worry—you are not alone.  There’s either a line or two left out, or Jesus is just being Jesus and understanding more than meets the eye…because he hears their words of amazement, takes one look at them and says, “I can’t work with you people.”

          It seems a little harsh, maybe?

          But he backs it up with stories of the faith.  “Prophets can’t work in their home towns.  Elijah had to go to Zarephath.  Elisha cured Naaman, the Syrian general.

          The Spirit does her best work in the unexpected places.  The Word goes where it can be heard anew.  It is a liberating word.  It goes to the places where the poor and the captives live, not the halls of power, not even the nice little towns with the nice little synagogues and the nice little carpenters.

          That wasn’t a word that the people of Nazareth could hear.  They drove their hometown hero right out to the brow of the hill. 

          Is it a word that we can hear?  Can we hear the word of liberation anew?  This probably wasn’t the first time you heard those words from Isaiah, right?  I’ve read them twice in this sermon alone, three times last week and they show up a bit in the lectionary. 

          We can hear them as ancient scripture, about the sort of liberation that God has in mind for people somewhere.  We can cheer from the sidelines, or from our pews.  It can be a Super Bowl of Liberation:

          “Yay God, free those captives!”

          “Rah rah, sight to the blind!”

          Or we can hear those words the way that Jesus hears them, and the way he hoped his hometown crowd would hear them—as a call to join in the dance of liberation.  A call to not just cheer from the sidelines, but to get in the game. 

          A call to free the captive and oppressed and give sight to the blind.

          A call to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  To offer jubilee. 

          Maybe there is someone in your life who is captive to something or someone—an addiction, a bad relationship, loneliness.  Can you help that person be free?

          Can you stand for the oppressed?

          Can you declare the year of the Lord’s favor—the time of jubilee?  Is there someone whose debt you’ve been holding, and you could release it in an act of holy jubilee?

          I think we can hear differently.  I think we can be the unexpected ones, the ones who don’t just read about liberation, but become the liberators.

          Hear these words one more time, and see if you aren’t in them:

¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because God has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’