Senior Pastor

We find Luke today telling the story of when Jesus went public with his ministry, so to speak. He is back at his hometown synagogue and stands to read the scripture for the day. He is handed the scroll of Isaiah and reads to them. Then he says: Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

Luke goes on to record this: All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. (v. 22) It sounds like Jesus is a big hit. His coming out party is going very well. Yet, by the end of the story, just a few verses later, Luke records in v. 28: ...all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill… so that they might hurl him off the cliff. (28-29)

What happened? What went wrong? How did the crowd go from praising Jesus and being amazed to becoming so enraged that they are ready to murder him on the spot! That is a dramatic change. He certainly must of hit a nerve. He touched on a topic that set them off and I mean in a hurry.

Let’s flip back to verses 18 and 19 and hear what he read from Isaiah for a clue here: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Now in Isaiah, this is a promise from God to the downtrodden Jews who had been oppressed and held captives. It is a promise coming from the prophet declaring what God is going to do. It is good news for them. It is a prophecy that God is going to provide. They are his special people and now he is going to make it happen just for them.

But after Jesus reads these words and says today this is being fulfilled in your hearing, he goes on to say that this is good news not only for the downtrodden and oppressed Jews, but it also applies to the neighbors, their rivals and, in some cases, their enemies. And when Jesus broadens the scope of God’s work to include those on the other side, the Gentiles, the non-Jews, the mood of the crowd changes in a split second. It sets them off.

Let me show what a split second looks like: (go to pictures of piggy bank breaking, bicycle crash, jet boats flipping and man ejected, bull chasing man over the fence, lions jumping in battle and bear eating fish).

What would it be for you? What would set you off in a split second:

For someone to proclaim that God loves black and brown Americans as much as he loves white Americans? To say that God loves homosexual people as much as he loves heterosexual people? To say that God values women as much as men? To say that God loves Muslims as much as Christians? To say God loves illegal immigrants as much as legal immigrants? To say that God loves Democrats as much as he loves Republicans?

Jesus sets the tone for his ministry, here in Luke, by saying that God has sent him to reach out to the excluded, the discounted, the disenfranchised – God has sent him to proclaim favor on those disfavored by society. When he says, today this has been fulfilled in your hearing, he is declaring that today, he is setting out to do just that.

Rather than hearing this as an invitation to join in God’s work, they take offense and move to silence the messenger. It is a challenge to their religious life and beliefs. They clearly are rejecting the challenge that Jesus sets before them.

How do we respond when the message of Jesus challenges our life and beliefs? Can we hear the call of justice or do we think “just us”?

I read an interesting quote a couple of weeks ago by one of our United Methodist bishops. He said when hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, “Most people nod their heads in agreement and then continue to do what they have always done.” (Bishop Max Whitfield, Northwest Texas from 1/20/10 Faith in Action from GBCS)

Tex Sample writes about his senior year in college when he was serving a string of four churches in southern Mississippi. One of the women in the New Canaan United Methodist Church, Miz Anna, asked him if he ever made calls on folks who were not members of his church.

Wanting to seem like a good pastor he said, “Well, of course I do.”

Miz Anna then told him that Aunt Betsy lived out in the country and needed a preacher to call. “She needs help.” Then she proceeded to say, “I’ll go with you to show you the way and to make it all right. You see, the last preacher that went to see her she ran off with a butcher knife!”

The next Saturday they drove out a winding tree lined road until they reached a ramshackle of a house. Miz Anna went up first to make sure it was all clear. Tex revealed that he knew he was in over his head and when she said she would go up first, he felt like a coward. Yet, he also felt a sense of relief. “After a minute she waved me on up,” he recalled. “There were dogs and cats and chickens in the yard. I did not realize until I stepped into the house that they were also living in the house and one must step carefully to miss the deposits they had left all around.”

It was a one room house covered with soot from the wood burning stove situated in the middle of the room on the dirt floor. Over came Aunt Betsy, with bits of cereal still on her dress from breakfast and traces of soot on her face mixed with a dab of make-up – applied, no doubt, in the time it took Tex to walk from the car across the yard and up to the house.

“Oh Brother Sample, I am so glad to meet you. Miz Anna says so many nice things about you.” With that this eighty-year-old woman hugged him and they sat down for a neighborly half hour chat.

Once back in the car, Miz Anna started in almost immediately. “Brother Sample, I hope you don’t mind me bringing you out here, but as you can see, she needs help.” With that she went on to tell how Aunt Betsy as a young woman had been the most beautiful in the county and then she married the richest man in the county. But her husband so worshipped her that he did everything for her. When he died suddenly in his fifties, she was just lost without him.

She struggled for a couple of years. Then this fancy looking fellow came to the area and just swept her off her feet. He convinced her to sell everything and head out west with him. Well, she was back in about six weeks. That fellow had taken her for everything she was worth and now she was really a wreck and as lost as could be. She has never been the same. Nobody knows what to do. “You saw her on a good day, but she is kinda crazy.”

Miz Anna started bringing her to church after that. Everything seemed to be all right until one Saturday Tex got to town and heard the news that Aunt Betsy had had an “incident.” She had gone to a black juke joint and partied. Well, in that time and place, that was a sure sign she was crazy – a white woman willingly socializing with black folk. Her family had her committed to an insane asylum.

About six weeks later Tex got a call from the hospital. They wanted him to come pick her up. Not me, it should be the family, Tex argued. Turns out the hospital had called the family and they refused to come and get her. “In fact, she says she wants you to come and get her,” the administrator told Tex. He went and got her.

Then the trouble really started, Tex remembers. The family and the town’s folk were mad at him and were shunning Aunt Betsy. Well, that really threw Tex into a bit of a rage. It was Saturday night and Tex put together a sermon he called, “The Problem With Your Neighbor Is You.” He writes, “The basic idea was that if you have a problem with a neighbor in need, then the real problem is you, not the neighbor. Tex said that about six different ways in twenty minutes. Everybody filed out without saying much that Sunday.

Next Saturday when Tex drove back into town, he went straight over to see Miz Anna. “Brother Sample, you won’t believe what has happened. They have moved Aunt Betsy into another house, one up off the ground that’s really nice and clean. They opened up a line of credit for her at the store so she can buy groceries, and they even told her she can buy cigarettes.” The community had rallied.

About a month later, Aunt Betsy had an accident at church. One of the elders of the church told Tex, “Brother Sample,” he said, “don’t worry about Aunt Betsy. She’s ours. We know that now. We’ll take care of her.” (Earthy Mysticism)

That is a Christian story. It is a story of transformation of real people, of Methodist people. It proclaims that we can change. With God’s help, we can join the ministry of Jesus to reach out to the excluded, the discounted, and the disenfranchised.

Are you ready to say the Spirit of the Lord is upon me – God has sent me, to proclaim favor on those disfavored by our society?!

Lord help us all. Amen and thanks be to God.

Luke 4:21-30

Rejecting the Challenge 1/31/10

v. 28: ...all in the synagogue were filled with ______.

v. 18 and 19

…but also applies to the neighbors, their rivals and in

some cases their ___________.

What would set you off in a split second: __________?

(your choice)

Can we hear the call of justice or do we think “just ____”.

“Most people nod their heads in agreement and then

continue to do what they have always ______.”

Miz Anna asked him if he ever made calls on folks

who were not a member of his _________.

“The Problem With Your Neighbor Is _____.”

The community had ___________.

Are you ready to say the Spirit of the Lord is upon me –

God has ______ ____,

to proclaim favor on those disfavored by our society?!

Kid’s Question: Who led Tex to reach out to Aunt Betsy?