4th Sunday after Epiphany, January 31, 2010, “Series C”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, Luther described the Scriptures as the cradle that held your living Word for our lives. Through the power or your Holy Spirit, continue to open our hearts and minds to your Word, that we might become more aware of our desperate need and deep dependence upon your grace. Enable us to respond to your Word, not just with renewed faith, but also with an enthusiasm to reach out to other in witness. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
This morning’s Gospel lesson is the conclusion of the story that began with our lesson last Sunday. In that lesson, Luke tells us that Jesus had developed a reputation for being able to preach with authority throughout the region around the Sea of Galilee. In his travels, he returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where he had been raised as a child, and he was asked to address his local congregation on the Sabbath.
Jesus accepted their invitation, read from the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, and took the seat of proclamation. Our text ended where we pick up this morning, with the open words of our Lord’s sermon: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And as I pointed out last Sunday, the emphasis of Jesus’ message is that the Scriptures are not dead, but that even today, God’s Word continues to be lively and active, powerfully at work, to call people into relationship with him, change lives for the better, and able to redeem us from sin and death. As a result of the incarnation of the Word of God in Jesus, and through his death and resurrection, the Scriptures continue to be fulfilled in our hearing.
When the people thought Jesus was finished with his message, Luke tells us that they “all spoke well of him, and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But that admiration didn’t last long. In that small town in which Jesus grew up, there were a lot of people that knew the human side of Jesus all too well. “Is this not Joseph’s son?” the people asked.
And Jesus responded in a way that gave credence to their concern. “No doubt,” Jesus said, “you might say to me, ‘I knew you all your life. You might start by applying your message to yourself.’” Isn’t it amazing, how many of us have a hard time outgrowing our childhood image, especially when we go into a career or profession that no one would have believed we aspire to? Even my mother had a hard time accepting the fact that I had become an ordained minister, although, she is impressed with our ministry here at St. John’s.
Obviously, as Luke tells us, following his sermon, the communication between Jesus and his hometown congregation didn’t go very well. In fact, the situation reached the boiling point, in which the town elders led Jesus out of the synagogue, to the brink of a cliff, and were ready to toss him over the edge, presumably to stone him to death. But somehow, in their frenzy, he escaped.
This brings me to the point of my sermon for this morning. And that is that I believe Luther’s assertion that the Scriptures are really the cradle, which contains the living Word of God, but not literally, the Word of God. Consider this illustration, which I have shared with you before some nine years ago, from Thomas Long, Professor of Preaching at a theological school in Atlanta. [Pulpit Resource, Logos, 2001]
“There was once a small, church-related college that had an annual event called Christian Emphasis Week. The student Christian group would invite a speaker to campus, who would preach several times and have discussions with students – all aimed at deepening faith and creating a mood of religious revival.
One year, however, the students at this college got more than they bargained for. They invited a speaker whom none of them had heard before, but he had a reputation for being dynamic and exciting. Indeed he was. On the first night of his arrival, he was scheduled to preach in the campus chapel, which was filled with the faithful. Of course, the ‘Animal House’ types and other impious students avoided the service, which they viewed as an activity for the truly religious.
The speaker began by opening the Bible and reading a passage of Scripture. When he had finished, he closed the Bible, and then suddenly flung it across the stage and out an open window. The congregation sat in stunned silence. Where their eyes playing tricks on them? Did the preacher really throw the Bible out a window?
It was then, in the midst of their stunned silence, that the preacher looked at them and said the following: “There goes your god,” and then proceeded to preach a challenging sermon on the difference between worshiping the Bible and worshiping the God who comes to us through the Scriptures.”
On that day in Nazareth, when Jesus preached in his hometown, there were those who could not see that they were sitting in the very midst of the presence of God. They couldn’t understand that in Jesus, the very incarnate Word of God, that what the Scriptures proclaimed, was truly in their presence. They were too focused on the material aspects of life, on their experience of Jesus as a young child, etc. Their minds were held captive by their past experience, to grasp the presence of God in their midst.
And is that not where we stand today? Now in all honesty, I am not about to toss the lectionary, which cost over one hundred dollars, which Ralph and Betty donated to our congregation, out of the window. I do believe that the Bible, as do all the furnishings of our worship, need to be treated with respect. But not with the same respect, nor with the same devotion, that we give to subject of our worship – to God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Is this not what Jesus truly wanted the people of his home town to come to know, that in him, God was among them, fulfilling his promise to redeem them from sin and death? He wanted them to understand, that by knowing the Scriptures, they would come to know him, and through him, the love of God that forgives us and enables us to change the course of our lives for the better.
If I might return to the illustration that Thomas Long utilized in the story, which with I began my sermon, “What happened at that little college? The congregation that night seemed in outrage and left the service muttering blasphemy. Word spread around campus about what had happened, and the next night, the religious regulars stayed away, but the “tax collectors and sinners” drew near. The place was packed with fraternity types, those who would never think of themselves as religious or curious.
The preacher chose to preach that night on forgiveness, and when it was over, he engaged the congregation in dialogue. On person, intrigued by what he had said, although skeptical, asked, “I heard what you said tonight, but how can a person really know, really know, that you are forgiven?
Well, this preacher said to the student, “In the name of Jesus, I tell you that you are forgiven.” Well, the student didn’t accept that answer at first, and so he asked again, and again, with the preacher giving the same answer. Finally, the student sat down, believing that he was forgiven.” End quote.
And isn’t this how it happens to all of us? We read the Scriptures, we come to worship, we listen to sermons, we participate in the sacraments, even participate in Sunday school, but every now and then, we realize that through the Scriptures, through our worship, through our studies in Sunday school, or our participation in the sacraments, we actually encounter God. God is present to us. God is in our midst.
And the fact that Jesus was able to pass through his own town fold, without their knowledge, surprises me. Yet I believe that it serves as a warning to us all. May we seek to focus, not on the cradle that holds the living Word of God, but on the living Word of God in our midst. For it is the living, incarnate Word of God that can truly redeem us and direct us in our lives as baptized disciples, to carry on his ministry.
Amen.
