Advent Lutheran Church

"Jesus' First Sermon"

Last Sunday I had the honor of blessing a baby in the womb.  We do this often around here, and it is a wonderful time to pray with w young couple and to bless a child who has not yet come into the world.  It always amazed me that the mother and father are will to submit to having everything they have known change completely overnight – and to be excited about the fact that their lives will never be the same!  And, it is exciting to share a few moments with parents who have such great “hopes and dreams” for their baby, and their future family.  It is just like God – who had “hopes and dreams” for all of the Creation – hopes and dreams that would be revealed through God’s son, Jesus.  The season of Epiphany is all about that revealing, and it is during this time that we hear the stories about how Jesus was revealed as the God’s hope and dream for us.

            In the gospel lesson today from the beginning of the 4^th chapter of Luke, Jesus has returned to Nazareth, where he grew up.  Prior to this, we have very little information about Jesus, but in those three opening chapters, we find that Jesus has already proved to be quite an amazing child.  First there was his miraculous conception, and then the announcement of his birth by a host of heavenly angels.  At his presentation in the Temple a few days later, two elderly priests, Anna and Simeon have proclaimed him “the salvation of Israel,” and by age 12, Jesus had returned to Jerusalem and was found teaching the scribes and teachers in that very Temple!  At his baptism in the River Jordan, the heavens opened up and God’s voice was heard proclaiming him “Beloved,” and now Jesus has just returned from his “boot camp” in the wilderness, where he has spent 40 days under the care of the Holy Spirit, being tested before his ministry begins.

            And now he has returned, back home to Nazareth.  He has grown, travelled, and been trained, and so today he begins the first sermon of his ministry.  He is given the scroll of the great prophet, Isaiah, and he unrolls it and find the place where the prophet speaks of a new vision.  It is a reading very similar to the song his mother, Mary sang (the Magnificat) when she realized she was with child - a song of liberation – of the lowly being lifted up and the haughty brought down; of the blind seeing and the captives going free; of the whole creation regaining its original shape and structure.  Jesus then announces that this will be his agenda for his ministry.  Today is the first day of a whole new way of life, says he, and the announcement is received as positively as Steve Jobs’ introduction of the IPad!  Excitement!  Pride!  Amazement! Jesus was a hit.  Verse 22 says  “all spoke well of him” and you can just hear the crowd trading stories about Jesus as a young man around the streets of Nazareth.  But then Jesus surprises us.  He picks a fight with the people at the synagogue!  Why?  Because Jesus knows…they LOVE to get comfortable. (You don’t know anyone like that, do you?)

            But, LOVE is not comfortable! Our second lesson today is I Corinthians 13, and it is a great description of our IDEA of love.  Paul’s great letter to the Corinthians is an oft-used wedding text, but it is also an often misunderstood passage.  Because for Paul, love is about the OTHER person.  And unfortunately, OUR idea of love focuses on OUR happiness, on OUR fulfillment.  When understood as Paul intended, this instruction to the Corinthian Christians about their discipleship was a hard word – a difficult expectation.

            Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story about a group of people at a Retreat.  Their first assignment was to share with the group their answer to the question, “Who has been Christ for you?”   Around the circle the sharing went, and their were wonderful stories told of friends who sat and held hands during chemotherapy sessions, those who had kept in close touch, checking in routinely following the death of a loved one.  There were stories of those who had run countless errands following a debilitating accident, and on and on.  Finally, the last woman was encouraged to share.  She hesitated because she had interpreted the question a bit differently.  She said that when she first thought about who had been Christ for her, she asked herself, “Who, in my life, has loved me enough to tell me the truth so clearly that I wanted to kill him for it?”  Jesus is the only one who challenges and upsets us, so that we do not confuse our own ideas of God with God.”

            So why would Jesus pick this fight?  Because he knew that his synagogue full of loved ones, the “chosen people of Israel” had become more comfortable with the IDEA of the Messiah than they were with the actual presence of the Messiah in their midst. Think about Jesus in human terms for a moment.  Imagine what it must have been like for him to return back to a “home” he’d outgrown.  Don’t you know how that feels every time you go home to mom and dad’s?  You’re 13 all over again!  Well, Jesus returned home to Nazareth knowing something bigger, grander, more urgent than he knew before.  Now he seen a vision for the whole world and he wants to share it with the people he loves the most in the world, but he also knows that they see themselves as the center of everything.  Just like we like to think of ourselves and our community as the center of the universe!  Some things just never change.  

            We like to think of church as a group of “like-minded people,” but that is an oxymoron (two things that contradict each other.)  We are as different as we can be!  In this very room this morning we have Democrats and Republicans; Builders, boomers and busters; Conservatives and Liberals; Jayhawk fans and Wildcats! And probably none of us agree totally on the issues surrounding immigration, capital punishment, abortion or sexuality.  We hold views that go from the extreme right to the extreme left and everything in between.  Luckily, we are not held together as a community by our agreement.  We are held together by God’s love for each and every one of us.  And God’s sense of community is so much bigger than ours.  And even knowing that, we can understand why the people who heard Jesus were angry.  No one likes to be reminded that although they are “the chosen ones” that God might go BEYOND their group; pass over their kind and move out into the communities beyond them to feed a starving Gentile widow, and heal a Gentile leper.                         

            So in the face of our “knee jerk” response, consider the Old Testament lesson of Jeremiah’s call from God.  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; I have consecrated you, you are mine.”  Comforting and frightening at the same time.  Like having your first child.  Like stepping out of your comfort zone.  Like trusting that God is God and you are not. 

            As we visit with Jesus in Nazareth, or, as Jesus visits us today, we are reminded that he does not belong to us, nor act like us!  In a few weeks, we will hear again a story Jesus tells that may have been his way of teaching the lesson he is living in today’s story.  It is the parable of the Prodigal Son.  You know the one – where the younger brother runs away and spends all of his father’s money, while the elder brother stays at home working and being obedient.  When the younger son returns, there is great conflict between them. 

            Most of us good Christians identify with the elder brother.  After all, we’re here in church, we live pretty good lives, we give money to Haitian relief.  We are everything that God intends us to be.  And for us there is little good news in that story, just like the people sitting in the synagogue in Nazareth. But if you have ever been the younger brother - if you have ever been passed over for a job that was given to the new hire, or seen a person across the aisle be healed of cancer while yours continues to grow, or lost a great honor to someone who did not deserve it – you know the reactions that mark us as human beings.  We want our idea of Grace to be God’s idea of Grace.  And so isn’t it good news to know that God says, “before I formed you, I knew you – I called you by name.” Isn’t it good news to know that we do not follow our idea of God, but the One who loves us better than we love ourselves, the true God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.  Amen.