Just Jesus
Luke 4:14-30
You know the definition of a “church expert?” Answer: Anybody that lives more than 45 miles away from your church! Maybe you get this at home yourself sometimes. Conversation after dinner goes into a topic you think you have some knowledge about and you begin carefully imparting that knowledge. You think you’re doing quite well and even impressing yourself a bit until the awkward silence is broken by one of your kids who says “What do YOU know about that stuff?”
It’s scary to think about how many lessons of life and faith we miss because we don’t listen to those we know best the way we listen to dynamic, outside speakers—those so-called experts! We’re too close. We know each other too well. We aren’t experts. We are just dad; just mom; just a brother; just a sister; just a friend; just a neighbor. We’re not experts. This reality is particularly strong when it comes to matters of faith!
That’s why the folks in Nazareth couldn’t hear Jesus. He was, after all, just Jesus. He was no expert. He was just a carpenter’s kid. He was just Mary’s boy, just a kid from up the street. They knew his brothers and sisters. He was just Jesus.
Oh, they were quite impressed with him. Remember, word had gotten back to them about all the great things he was doing in the surrounding area, and the rabbi made good was returning home. There was a buzz in the air. They wanted to hear him. They were excited to have him return. Mary and Joseph could feel proud of the son who was making a name for himself. Perhaps they would see some of the mighty works done right there among them. This was an exciting time, but the excitement soon turned sour as things began to go in an unexpected direction.
Read Luke 4: 14-30 here.
Jesus went to the synagogue. Synagogue was a place where the Jews were taught the Scriptures. Don’t confuse the synagogue with the Temple. That was the place in Jerusalem where the priests made sacrifices. Synagogues filled the local communities, and the Jews went there every Sabbath to hear and learn. Much like church we experience today. The order went something like this: There had to be ten men present. The gatherers would recite the shema from Deuteronomy 6. There would be a prayer followed by a reading from the Torah (Law). Then a reading from the prophets, and then a sermon that tied the prophets and the law together. The service would close with a benediction.
Jesus must have been the one who read the prophet that day. Whether it was a selected text, or whether Jesus chose one on his own we don’t know. But he read from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1-2 to be exact. What had become for the Jews a great Messianic passage. Jesus read the passage, and then sat down (all good rabbis sat to teach). The people leaned over in anticipation, waiting to hear the words this great new rabbi would speak. Imagine their stunned silence when all he had to say was, “This scripture has come true today before your very eyes.”
The passage leads us to believe they like the way he said it, but that didn’t understand what he said. Jesus was simply saying, “Today, salvation has come among you. God’s salvation.” And the response of the people was “What? That’s just Jesus!” They couldn’t hear the message, or they couldn’t accept the message because they were focused too much on the messenger. After all, it was just Jesus.
Who is it for you, that makes you like the folks in Nazareth? Who is the prophet from your hometown, the one with whom you’re too close to view them as an expert, the ones you know so well that certainly they have nothing to teach you?
• Just mom…
• Just Uncle Joe …
• Just crazy Sally from up the street…
• Just a kid…
The lesson for Nazareth is the lesson for us—they had everything they needed right there in their midst and so do we. We have just Jesus in our midst. And we find him in each other. The trick is to learn from the good people of Nazareth by being willing to learn from one another.
What keeps us from honoring our hometown prophets, the people we live with, work with, play with, eat with, and worship with? What makes us say, “Ahhh, it’s…
• Just mom…
• Just Uncle Joe …
• Just crazy Sally from up the street…
• Just a kid…
What keeps us from learning from one another, and what can we do about it? First is we’re just too close. We need to step back.
I remember as a kid—Aunt Katie lived in Baton Rouge. Our big summer trip was to Baton Rouge. Not Disneyworld, not Six Flags, not the beach—it was to Baton Rouge. On the drive into Baton Rouge on Highway 190, from across the river I could see the state capital. I was breathless along the ride, held in wonder by the awesome figure the tall building cast across the Mississippi River. For miles, I would keep my eyes transfixed upon the structure. All the way through town. I couldn’t wait to have the opportunity to go there. Sometime during the few days we were going to be in Baton Rouge, we would make the trip to the capital. Something happened though as we got closer to the capital. Standing on the steps, and going inside the building sort of diminishes the imposing nature of the structure. I never maintained the same feeling once I was inside that I had traveling down the highway viewing it in the distance. I got too close to enjoy the beauty and the overwhelming presence.
It can be the same way with people. We can get so close to them that we take for granted the awesome work that God is doing in their lives, and we lose the power of their lives. We know their faults and failures. We know their parents. We know where they work. We know what they like and what they dislike. Or more, we know who they like and who they dislike. To see one another in all our wonder, beauty, and depth we need to step back, get a new perspective, see the big picture. Perhaps we need to step back to see what a gift are those closest to us. The one sitting on your left or on your right—to see them as the prophets they are in your life. What is that person saying? STEP BACK.
Secondly, we need to sit down because another thing that keeps us from honoring our hometown prophets—the thing that makes us want to throw them off a cliff—
• Just mom…
• Just Uncle Joe…
• Just crazy Sally from up the street…
• Just a kid…
That is we just don’t like what they’re saying! This was certainly the case in Nazareth that day. Everything seemed to be going fine. Jesus had come home. Big crowd around him, invited to read the scripture, but then, he made the fatal mistake: he gave a sermon! They liked the reading and the preaching, but they couldn’t take the application. It was a radical message from an everyday guy—just Jesus.
His message was a slap in the face to his hearers. He brought up the prophets Elijah and Elisha—two prophets who prophesied in what was known as one of the most apostate times in Israel’s history. He said, “Remember Elijah and Elisha? Folks were looking for something special then, but they went to a couple of Gentiles to show God’s mighty works.” It was if Jesus was saying, “God ain’t gonna’ do anything special here. You’re like the people in Elijah’s day—you think your so spiritual and God-favored and all, but you’re really not. You’re not going to see God work. That work will be done elsewhere.” Radical stuff, especially from someone who was just Jesus. They just didn’t like what he was saying.
An old saying goes something like this: “When you throw a rock in a pigpen, the pig that squeals got hit?” When someone we know, someone close to us, has a message for us, and that message
• makes us start to squeal because we don’t like it…
• when we dismiss the hometown prophets in our lives…just mom, just Uncle Joe, just Sally, or just a kid
• when we want to throw someone off a cliff because we don’t like what they say…
• that’s the moment we are called to pause…to sit down because we just got hit with a rock and the one that threw it might just be the savior…Just Jesus! The truth will generally make us mad before it sets us free!
What truth is being spoken to you here at Benton UMC—your hometown church? What message do you need to hear from someone right here in your own sanctuary?
Does it have to do with affirming the music? Does it have to do with exploring new, innovative ministry for your children, or your role in it? Does it have to do with forming a long-range vision and mission? Does it have to do with finding and calling new leadership? Does it have to do with your own faithfulness and your living out Christ’s call? Only you can answer, but only if you have the courage and wisdom to sit down and really hear the message for you. Not just from outside experts, but just mom, just Uncle Joe, or just crazy Sally, and even just a kid.
There’s a final earplug keeping us from recognizing the everyday prophets in our lives and the word of God they may be trying to deliver. Before computers, walkie-talkies, and telephones was the telegraph machine. The first way to communicate over long distances was through a series and sequence of clicks known as Morse Code. A young man answered an ad in the paper for a job as a telegraph operator. He went to the address in the ad, stepped inside, signed his name at the bottom of a list of other applicants and took his seat. It was a busy office filled with people and lots of noise. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, walked through a door into an inner office and closed the door behind him. The other applicants looked puzzled and thought certainly the young man would be removed from the list for skipping his turn and they had a good laugh about it. A few more minutes passed, and that same door swung open and the young man reappeared with an older, distinguished looking gentleman who announced: “All those interested in the job as telegraph operator, attention please. Thank you for coming in, but the job has been filled. This young man is our new telegraph operator.”
Well, needless to say the other applicants were not to pleased. One of them stood up and declared: “That’s not fair. You haven’t even spoken to us. We were here before this young man and he was waiting for hardly a moment. Why does he get the job?”
The distinguished gentlemen replied kindly, “While you were sitting here waiting, I was repeatedly tapping out a message over the speaker in Morse Code. That message was, ‘If you hear and understand this message, please come into the inner office, the job is yours.’ This young man heard the message. You did not.”
We need to listen up! After we step back and sit down, then we’re ready to listen up! Not physically up, but spiritually in such a way that we’re able to hear a message, no matter how faint and regardless of whom the source may be.
In this information age, where we receive 10,000 messages a day, from email, voicemail, US mail, television, radio, theaters, and from those we pass on the street; it’s more essential than ever that we pay attention, that we listen up.
Listen up, so that you may look beyond the messenger to hear the message no matter how unlikely the source. Christ lives in those unlikely places—in mom, in Uncle Joe, in crazy Sally, and even in kids.
Who am I not to listen?
So step back and gain a new perspective. Sit down, even when you don’t like what’s being said. And listen up in this increasingly noisy world. So that we, right here in Benton, La., don’t make the same mistake as the people of Nazareth. We might miss Jesus. But then again, it’s just Jesus.
