Finding Yourself in the Story [Epiphany 3C - Luke 4:14-21]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Epiphany 3C
1-23-22
Luke 4:14-21
Finding Yourself in the Story
What happens immediately before today’s Gospel story is that
the Devil tries to convince Jesus to throw himself off of the pinnacle of the
Temple. What happens immediately after
today’s Gospel story is that the people with whom Jesus grew up try to throw
him off a cliff. In between those two assassination
attempts, Jesus took his turn as a lector. And, I’m not saying this is the
point of the Gospel, but maybe those who read this morning should avoid steep heights,
for at least the rest of the day.
Forty days: that is how long Jesus was alone in the
wilderness. Well, not exactly alone; I’m
sure there were singing birds and curious beasts and also there was a very
chatty and conniving Devil. But there were
no friends, and perhaps more significantly, no food. And so Jesus returned to Galilee like a
college freshman coming home for Christmas break: excited to see some old
friends and starving for a home-cooked meal.
At this point, at least in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus hasn’t
really accomplished anything all that noteworthy. He was baptized; he camped out in the
wilderness. When he was twelve he had a
short residency at the Jerusalem Temple, but that was almost two decades
earlier. Still, the people in his
hometown seem pretty excited about his arrival; perhaps he had performed some
unreported miracles on the road back home.
Maybe they were just short on lectors (it happens) and were glad to have
a young adult willing to read Scripture on a Saturday morning.
That Saturday he walked into his home synagogue. And the first thing that happens when you
return to a place like home, is you notice the smell. And it takes you back in time. This was where Jesus learned the stories of
his ancestors, where he chanted the psalms, where he fell in love with
God. It was where he first carefully held
a sacred scroll. It was where he discovered that family can be bigger than
blood. It was in that very synagogue
that he first found himself in the old sacred story.
But that was a long time ago and Jesus had grown up since he
last walked through the synagogue doors.
He now returned to those old familiar places as a man. Baptized in the water, tempted in the
wilderness, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. He was raised in this village, and in this
synagogue, but the hometown folks couldn’t truly know him, at least not this
grown version, because he was no longer who they remembered, no longer the
little boy with the pinch-able cheeks who helped sweep up the dust from his
father’s workshop floor.
Things had changed. The boy from the forgotten hill country
was returning with messianic buzz. And
they are excited to see him; and he is a great speaker; and he can read a
scroll with the best of them. But to the
folks in the village, to the ones who knew him before he was famous, he was
still Joseph’s son. To them, that is all
he would ever be. Their job, as they saw
it, was to make sure he remembered his place.
The folks in Nazareth were happy to have him back. He could eventually take over his dad’s
business. And on the side, he could read
in synagogue and be the village miracle man.
When Jesus tells them he is not staying, that God has a
different plan in mind, that there are other people in other villages who need
him too, that the mission of God is bigger than the village, even bigger than
the nation, that is when the people decide to throw him off the cliff. If they can’t have him, no one can. And where
does he get off, acting like he is so special?
Well-known preacher, Fred Craddock, used to say, “The Holy
Spirit rarely calls someone to…ministry in a voice loud enough for the whole
family to hear.”[1] And I guess that was true of even Jesus.
Jesus didn’t have the pedigree of a messiah. He was born under suspicious circumstances, to
an unwed mother, in a humble setting, of an occupied people. His family was from a backwater village. They were, as they say of the people of my
hometown, hillbillies. They weren’t
scholars or politicians or wealthy entrepreneurs. They were peasants. And he was a peasant. And when you grow up poor, you are told not to
dream because dreams turn into disappointments. And so maybe the villagers in Nazareth were
just trying to protect Jesus, in the most misguided way possible.
I wonder if Jesus’ heart was beating fast when he took the
scroll of the prophet Isaiah that Saturday and found this passage, his passage,
the passage in which he found himself. I
wonder what it felt like for him to admit his outsized dreams in front of his
family and friends. I wonder if his
palms were sweaty when he dared to say, out loud, “Today this scripture has
been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Certainly that statement, attached to that passage, sounded
like messianic talk. And that was a bold
claim for someone like Jesus to make. But
he did. Because even though no one else
could hear the Holy Spirit’s call, he could hear it. And he had the courage to accept it, to actually
believe that God believed in him.
Now we’re talking about Jesus here. And admittedly, you are no Jesus. But also, you kind of are; you are, and I am
quoting the Apostle Paul from today’s epistle, the Body of Christ. And so maybe you can make the same bold claim
Jesus made in his hometown synagogue. You
were, after all, sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism; and so the Spirit of the
Lord is upon you. You can make that
claim too. The same Spirit that called
and empowered Jesus lives in you and moves through you. The same Spirit that called Jesus to
ministry, is calling you to ministry.
You are not called to be the messiah, but you are called to continue the
work he started.
Today’s Gospel is not just some old story about Jesus. Today’s Gospel is for you, for you to find
yourself in the story.
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