I have often her the phrase “ you can never go home again.” I have been trying to figure out if I believe it or not. I find lots of proof that it is true but I have lots of feelings that it is not true.
Here is what I am thinking about. I believe that all of us have gone away from home as some point. Some went away to college or the military or into the world and started to work and raise a family on their own.
When you go away for something more that a visit or a trip of some kind, you become changed. We get an education and experiences that are different than everyone back home. We grow and mature and get new friends. We become more independent and truly make decisions about and for ourselves.
When we go home everyone tends to expect the same person that went away. They feel that everything around the house and the neighborhood is the same as when you left. They expect certain things of you when you come back.
Depending on the circumstances, they may be full of pride, knowing that you have been working hard on your education….
Sometimes people come back because their life is messed up. The people again look at you expecting the same person, but everyone who goes away comes back changed for the good or bad. They are changed.
The question , Can you come home again?
In today’s Scripture lesson Jesus ends up in the synagogue that he grew up in. Pretty much every body knows him there. He has been gone for a while. We know that he went to Jerusalem and ended up out by the river and was baptized by John. He receives the Holy Spirit. Then Luke records the Genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam. I am not going to give you a definition of this list except that it does not match Matthew except on a couple of points and that it seem the importance of going all the way back to Adam would clearly open the kingdom of God to all of mankind.
After baptism Jesus goes into the wilderness and fast for 40 days and when he is his weakest Satan tempts him. He does not give in to Satan’s offers and heads home. According to Luke he returned to Galilee in the power of the spirit and people learned about him.
The phrase sounds a little odd, traveling in the power. Almost sounds like a car or something. Something you drive or maybe more like a bus where it drives you. Then the news spreading about him in the whole countryside sounds a little strange, how could the people tell. I believe all that clears up with the next verse.
The reason the people knew about him and that he was in the spirit is because he went to worship in church were ever he was because it was his custom. It is always what he did on the Sabbath. Most of us can relate to that, we worship our God on the Sabbath where ever we are. I know many of you do the same thing because you bring me copies of other church bulletins as your permission slip to come back to your class.
Last Sunday when Renee and I were missing we were at another church. The pastor was a friend of ours. We went in just a couple of minutes late, because when I go to other churches if I get there early they tend to invite me to say a prayer or want to introduce me. I find it embarrassing.
You know how our church works but you may not know how the synagogue works. So let me give you a quick over view.
To have a synagogue service required the presence of ten adult males. There were no priest there. It was a lay led service. At the service, the Shema was recited ,
Deuteronomy 6 (Shema - Call to Worship)
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Then came several prayers, including some set prayers like we say the Lord’s prayer. Tephillah - Intercessory prayer and the Eighteen Benedictions said silently standing facing Jerusalem. (Praise to God , repentance, healing, call for the messiah).
After this the Scripture was read, beginning with a portion from the Torah (Gen--Deut) and moving next to a section from the Prophets. It is my understanding that the scriptures for each week were assigned, probably defined by the priest in Jerusalem. Then the person that read scripture would give instruction or preaching. Often the speaker linked the texts together through appeal to other passages. The service then closed with a benediction.
In each community that Jesus stayed in for the Sabbath he would have gone to church and as he was a visitor that was of age he would have been asked if he would participate in the service. It was an honor to be asked and it still is today.
Perhaps the people wanted to hear fresh new speakers instead of the same old men teaching week after week. Always praying for the messiah to come and for 2000 years he had not come. I imagine that as he visited each place the Holy Spirit became obvious to the hearers in his confidence his manor or maybe in the way he speaks. We have no idea what scripture he read from until he reaches Nazareth, his “hometown.”
So, where he went to church on the way home, the folks went away saying you should have heard the Preacher last Sunday at Church. Wow could he preach, or maybe he knew what - he was talking about OR maybe there was something special, something you could not put your finger on…
So he gets back home, and Sabbath comes, Do you think he lays in bed after his long trip? No. It’s time for church. Mom probably did all his laundry and fed him all of his favorites after he was gone so long. He told the folks about the trip, the stuff that happened along the way. Maybe about the spirit coming down, maybe about his ability to do miracles including healing.
The family sees this man as changed. Maybe he looks more grown up some how. As far as we know he may have been gone a couple of months or even much longer. He has been on his own, making his own way, getting his own meals and places to sleep. He has experienced getting along in the world on his own and is different in many ways.
So in the synagogue I can picture him sitting with the family. Mom, with the proud look on her face as her hansom grown son sits beside her. Some may not recognize him right away. We know he is asked or volnteered to read the scripture that day. We are told that he found the place to read. Their scripture was not broken up by chapter and verse, it also does not have punctuation like we have either.
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
We don’t know if he read the official scripture of the day. We do know that we was asked to read from the prophets.
He reads and gives the scroll back and move to sit down. The people are all watching and waiting for his instruction on the scriptures. The feeling I get from the scripture is that they are all expecting to hear some great thing come from the new college Grad Sort of like saying. Ok you went and got all the book learning, say something good.
My question for you today was Can you go home again? Let me give you a partial though before we discuss the last few lines of our scripture to day.
So far in today’s lesson, Jesus has probably done everything that was expected of him. We was welcomed home, stayed at the house. Talked with friends and neighbors. Even went to church like all the other good Jews in town. -- You can always go home if you agree to do what is expected of you. If the experiences you had when you were Gone have not changed you so much that you act out or different.
Your family will even accept some of that because - home is always home.
To this point in scripture Jesus has met all the expectations. He is not out of line. He has come home to a place were they have known him from the time when he was in diapers. Every body knows everybody.
Jesus begins to speak, in response to the scriptures.
Weather they recognize him as the hometown boy, back from school or basic training or a visitor with some new ideas they are expecting to hear a word from God - Just like they do every Sabbath.
"Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
With his short teaching he has just inferred that the messiah has come. He has not embellished the reading or given them any stories to explain his ideas…..
This is unexpected….. This while simple is controversial.
Again using my imagination I can hear an uncomfortable silence. People politely waiting for more. Expecting, Jesus to have a thought or connection to some other scripture …… One sentence…. Something….
I think they expected more…..
Next week we are going to continue with the Question, Can you Go home again? We will pickup with the response of the hometown folks to this news that he has proclaimed.
Perhaps you were expecting More?
All glory be to God!
