1 The Rev. Amanda Eiman 4 th Sunday after the Epiphany February 3, 2019 Jeremiah 1:4-10, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30 The story in our Gospel passage today takes place in the synagogue at Nazareth. Jesus has just read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, saying a few verses earlier, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor... release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free He then rolls up the scroll and tells the crowd in the synagogue that the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing - meaning that he, the Son of God who reading Isaiah s words, is the fulfillment of Isaiah s prophecy. Jesus is the one who has been anointed to bring good news to the poor, release to captives, healing for the blind, and freedom the oppressed. And of course, this is great news! Release, healing, the ending of oppression! So in response, as Luke says, those who heard these words spoke well of him and were amazed at his grace and fulfillment.
2 But then, almost in that same breath, Jesus words to the crowd in the synagogue get a little more challenging for ears to hear. He says, There were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah...yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." These words about Elijah, Elisha, the widow, and Naaman, might seem disconnected to the good news Jesus just proclaimed. But he mentions the widow and Naaman to make an important point about that good news. You see, the widow and Naaman were not Jewish. They were not part of the chosen group, they were not the chosen people, at least according to the Jews. But Elijah and Elisha went to them anyway. So Jesus reminds the crowd that Gods healing, release, comfort, and presence that Isaiah spoke about and that Jesus brought, was not just for the Jews, or for a certain group of people, but for everyone. But being reminded of this truth about God s grace makes the crowd in the synagogue angry. Remember, the crowd of Jewish people in the
3 synagogue understood themselves to be God s chosen, those on whom God had shown great favor. So it was difficult to be reminded of the reality and truth that foreigners, or Gentiles, people unlike themselves, with different customs, opinions, and life practices experienced God s aid and favor as well. So the crowds response to these words was a little different than to those comforting words that they had heard just moments earlier. This time, the crowd gets very angry. They are filled with rage. So full of rage that Luke says they drove Jesus out of town and tried to hurl him off of a cliff! A similar dynamic is illustrated in the reading from Jeremiah. It may not seem like a similar dynamic at first glance, but the reading opens with God calling out to Jeremiah to make and confirm Jeremiah as a prophet. God is calling Jeremiah to this vocation while Jeremiah is a young boy, a child. And we remember that children, at this time, were one of the lowest categories of persons in society. They had no status and were not respected, loved, or cared for.
4 So for God to be reaching out to him, a child, causes Jeremiah to be stunned. He, like the widow and Naaman, according to society, was the very unlikely candidate for God s grace and favor. He was the outsider. He may not have been an outsider for the same reasons as the widow and Naaman, but Jeremiah was not an adult, he didn t have eloquent speech, and he believed himself to be inadequate. A prophet, many might have said in his culture and community, is someone who is mature, experienced, eloquent, poetic even. Not an inexperienced, baffling young boy. God wouldn t ask someone like THAT to do God s prophetic work! But God does. God comes to him, an unlikely, unsuspecting child, to assign a big and powerful task. God touches his mouth and appoints him with prophetic words and power and deeds. So we see again and again in Scripture, and perhaps in our own lives and in the life of the world, that we humans make assumptions, we create divisions and boundaries. We assume, whether consciously or unconsciously, that certain people are worthy and others not.
5 Even today, and even though we may not want to admit it, sometimes it makes us uncomfortable, like that crowd in the synagogue, when we are reminded or shown by God, that those whom we think are undeserving, or outside of the norm, or far away, different or unlikely are in fact included in God s grace, and sometimes even chosen to be leaders and bearers of that grace to the world. So we see that God s vision for our world and how God acts to continually create the world is very different from the world we make and keep constructing. We divide, and separate, but God includes, unites, reconciles, and redeems. And why? Why is God s vision for our world different from our vision? Well, of course God is God and we are human and we can t compare, but our visions are different because of one primary reason the enormity of God s love. God s love is bigger and broader and wider and deeper than any division or separation we could ever create, and anything we could really imagine in this life.
6 Yes, we experience love in relationships with family and friends, in the passions and gifts and blessings of life, and in the rare or maybe not so rare transcendent moments of divine and holy grace. But as we hear in Corinthians today, love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. God s love is perfect love. And one of the ways that God shows God s love in our lives and in the world is through the work of unity, reconciliation, and bringing those who are far off into the fold. Because of God s love, our divisions and separations are only temporary - in the end unity overcomes estrangement, forgiveness heals guilt, and in the kingdom all are one in wholeness. So God s love in our lives enacted through unity, reconciliation, and the surprising inclusion of those that we would not include, might mean we are in touch with someone that we might never have imagined someone very
7 unlike us, or different from us, or maybe actually very similar to us, but we never realized those similarities before. Or maybe we, like Jeremiah, are the one who is outcast, and through God s work and love we are being brought back in touch with someone, or with a group, or maybe even God himself. Maybe we are the one being connected or reconnected after a time of separation. So maybe we don t really realize it, but when Jesus is speaking about bringing good news to the poor, release to captives, healing for the blind, and freedom the oppressed, maybe Jesus means even us, in more ways than we know. Maybe he means even you and me. The Christian life is about living a life that is different and countercultural from the life encouraged by our world. So how can you and I, in the midst of a world that promotes division, separation, and associating only with our group share God s love through the actions of unity, inclusion, reconciliation, and by reaching out to those who might be different from us, and who perhaps/(dare we say) even scare us? The next time we are surprised by God s inclusive action in our life, or when we perceive a need for inclusion, or the breaking down of a barrier,
8 may we have the courage to be empowered by God s love and to act. We might be met with anger, or surprised emotions, but in the end, love is more powerful than any temporary challenge of this life. And perhaps most importantly, living this type of Christian life helps us to know God s love and share God s love, and in turn, to know God in Jesus Christ, and make Christ known to others. Amen.