Epiphany 4C, 30 January 2022. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Jeremiah 1:4-10. Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a ….
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 . The greatest of these is love.
Luke 4:21-30. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
O God of Generosity, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
In the portion of the Gospel we heard this morning, Luke tells us that a group of people in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, who had been pleased and even astonished by Jesus, got so angry with him that they threw him out of the house of worship, ran him out of town, and wanted to throw him off the cliff. That is angry! Luke says that Jesus’ reputation as a spirit-filled leader had spread around the country prior to his return to Nazareth. Last week we heard that all in Nazareth spoke well of him, when he read from, and commented on, the scripture at the religious gathering in Nazareth. So what made them turn on him? Luke tells us what Jesus said to make them so angry; but it doesn’t sound that bad, does it? So we are left to debate what provoked them so about the story of Elijah being sent to a widow (probably a Syrophoenician) at Zarephath in Sidon and about Elisha healing the leprosy of Naaman the Syrian. Jesus was reminding them of stories that were part of their own tradition, and it made them so mad that they wanted to annihilate him. It wasn’t new stuff he was telling them; it was old, and it was a main Bible theme, not an obscure part of their tradition. The reading we just heard from the prophet Jeremiah tells about how Jeremiah understood himself to be sent to proclaim that God’s message was not just for Israel but for all nations. So what is the problem?
Maybe you remember how this story started? This is the dramatic conclusion of last week’s story. Jesus read, from the scroll of Isaiah, about proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor. It’s worth noting the rest of Isaiah’s sentence that Jesus cites, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” That might have been part of the problem. It was as if, in his preaching, he led them right up to that cliff. The year of the Lord’s favor might be referring to the year of Shmita, literally release, in which debts were erased and the land rested from producing every seven years. Yesterday, Central Reform Temple’s Torah study was about the Shmita year. He may have been referring to the Jubilee, every fifty years, when slaves were freed and land was redistributed. Every trespass was to be forgiven, every IOU erased; everyone was to start over again with a clean slate. We don’t know if he was being literal or figurative in his proclamation. I think the latter because, if it were literally a Shmita or Jubilee year, his proclamation wouldn’t make anyone mad at him; it would be determined by the calendar.
Either way though, it’s worth thinking about for whom is this good news, for whom is this bad news? Well, if you hear the Jubilee proclaimed and want to jump up in celebration, it’s probably because you are in so much debt that you cannot ever repay, or because you are captive or in some kind of prison, and you’re about to be released. You are about to be let out of some kind of dungeon without having “served your whole sentence.” If you hear the Jubilee proclaimed and want to jump for joy, it’s probably because you do not have enough to eat or enough to wear, or you are utterly stuck and need to be set free.
If this news makes you mad, however, it might be because you were anticipating repayment of a loan; because you paid good money for a slave who is about to be released before you’ve gotten your money’s worth; because you have been working hard for what you have; or because you have been on the giving end and not on the receiving end of the socio-economic equations, and you want what you are owed. You have paid your dues, and you paid full price. You don’t want to have the slates erased, because then it won’t be fair. And probably you don’t feel so wealthy that you can afford to suffer these losses without suffering yourself. Probably you feel as if you are just getting by as things are, and you don’t have much cushion.
Jesus wasn’t talking to a congregation of wealthy cosmopolitans. According to Luke, Jesus was in his hometown of Nazareth, a small-time community with no more than several-hundred residents according to archeologists. Jesus was talking to a faithful group in Nazareth, people living in occupied territory, people who were overtaxed, over extended, and extremely overworked. These were the people who snapped when it became clear to them that Jesus was talking about God’s favor, God’s saving grace for other people, not for them. They were scandalized. Why was Jesus not talking about God’s saving grace for them? They were not the occupying army; they were certainly not rich. Jesus was not just talking about saving other miscellaneous people; Jesus was talking about God saving faithless people, sinful people. That the response was an attempt to stone him, is particularly telling. Stoning was a remedy for when someone was no longer deemed fit to be a member of the community – indeed, when one was a danger to the community. It could be accomplished by throwing stones at someone or by throwing someone onto the stones, like off a cliff.
I should point out that although they were mad enough to throw Jesus off a cliff, there actually was no cliff in Nazareth. (The writer of Luke evidently didn’t know the territory.) I point that out because I want to remind you that I don’t think this story is a literal historical account of what happened in a particular way. I think this is a true and powerful story of what can happen when someone crosses a line that we do not wish to have crossed, or challenges our constructed boundary, and about how quickly our acclaim can change to vilification when we feel threatened. My teacher, the late Bill Dols once wondered out loud, what would Jesus say to you that would make you want to get rid of him (not just dismiss or ignore him, but fill you with such rage that you’d want to run him out of town)?
Luke’s story is that Jesus passed through them and went on his way. The lack of support in his hometown didn’t stop Jesus, who went on to Capernaum and beyond, teaching and healing. This is the story of the day Jesus became homeless. People who had known Jesus since childhood ran him out of town that day and as far as we know, he never went home again. As far as we know, he never had a home again. According to Luke, this is the story of when Jesus, the beloved child of God, became homeless. According to Luke, all of Jesus’ ministry, in terms of healing and exorcizing demons took place while he was homeless.
Now there are some who understand Jesus as so divine that his feet barely touched the ground while he was alive on earth. That kind of Jesus might not have felt particularly bothered by being homeless. But I imagine a much-more-human Jesus, a Jesus who was profoundly changed by the experience of being homeless. Since this is the first story of Jesus’ ministry in Luke, it’s hard to know how he was changed, but I think the experience of being homeless must have made Jesus so much more radical in his ministry. I imagine he learned something more deeply about what liberation theologians call, “God’s preferential option for those who are poor.” According to our first and second testaments, the Divine favors resident aliens, outsiders, those who are treated as if they do not belong, or who feel themselves that they don’t fit, and commands faithful people to care for them, not begrudgingly or stingily, but generously, with open hands and open hearts. Again, this is not “new” news from Jesus. This is old news that he’s calling people to remember and apply.
Paul’s letter to the gathering of Jesus followers in Corinth gives us an interpretive key to make sense of how any of us (most of us citizens of a nation that is an occupying empire) might discern a way forward for ourselves and our community; and that way, of course, is the Way of Love. More important than eloquence, more important than wisdom or any other spiritual gift, if our work and our relationships are not grounded in love, they amount to nothing at all in the eyes of the Holy One. Love is the alpha and the omega of the Divine. Love must be visible, audible, and palpable in all our comings and goings. Paul didn’t mean sentimental love. (He didn’t write this passage for Christian wedding ceremonies, as fitting as it might seem.) Paul meant love of God and neighbor with distributive and restorative justice, abundant and extravagant mercy, and profound humility.
I want to highlight a movement for you that could use your attention and support, your application of this kind of love. It’s the non-partisan Poor People’s Campaign being led by The Rev. Dr. William Barber II and The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. I know many of you already know about it. Maybe you even attended their Masssachusetts branch’s open house yesterday, via Zoom? I was there, and there were many pages of participants from across the Commonwealth. Across the country more than 140 million people are impoverished or who have low income, and 10% of our Commonwealth’s 7 million residents live below the poverty line. Emmanuel Church is planted in a state and a city with savage inequalities, when it comes to household income. When asked where Emmanuel is, I often tell people that we are right at the edge of “down and out” and “up and out”, serving people who are very poor on the richest retail block in the city.
The Poor People’s Campaign is calling for a Third Reconstruction to fully address poverty and low wages from the bottom up, and to call out the immorality of keeping people poor by policy and by design. The Massachusetts branch of the Poor People’s Campaign is in the process of building working groups of people based on their gifts and interests in areas like faith and moral leadership, outreach and organizing, theo-musicology and creative arts, communications, administration, and other logistical support. There are many ways to offer support at whatever level makes sense to you. You cannot qualify for leadership unless you identify as a poor person, but you can help, whatever your resources. You can learn more by going to the Poor People’s Campaign website, or I can refer you to my colleague Paul Shoaf Kosak for a conversation about how to help.
I encourage you, loving people of Emmanuel, to continue to bear witness to the love of God in Jesus’ name, like so many who have gone before us in this parish, by helping to alleviate the moral impoverishment that makes and keeps people poor. If the people who know us best are baffled by our new or renewed zeal for righting wrongs, I’d say we are well on The Way.