They were Filled with Rage

Luke 4:16-30

One of the big themes in stories and novels is the small-town kid who leaves home to find himself in the big city. He then returns home and discovers that “you cannot go home again.” Something transpired within which takes one forever away from one’s roots. After WWI, people popularized the song, “How ‘ya gonna keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Pariee?” Once soldiers were indoctrinated into the delights of the city of Paris people feared there was no way to keep them on the farm in rural America. However, most GIs came home and resumed life as they left it prior to the war. Over the decades, parents have discovered that their college child changed in ways they disapprove. They were introduced to a world of ideas some of which are contrary to those with which they grew up. Church kids get to college and may learn about the critical study of the Bible and religion and have a crisis of faith. Some abandon their faith while others grow from the experience. In a similar way, people can become comfortable in churches. Some pastors preach a comfortable gospel. Some people come to see Jesus more like a plastic character some have called, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” rather than the Jesus of the Gospels. In contrast, once I heard someone characterize the task of the church and of pastors in particular, as “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” Jesus came back to his hometown of Nazareth. Did he comfort the afflicted or afflict the comfortable? A little setting the scene might be helpful. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by his cousin John. He then went into the hill country of Judea, the wilderness, for a long period of prayer, reflection and testing. After that hard experience, he went north to Galilee and called a group of men to follow him as disciples. His base of operations was in Capernaum on the north shore of Lake Galilee. He taught and healed sick people in that town. After a time, he decided to go back to his hometown, Nazareth. In the Middle East one’s identity is tied to the village or town in which one is born. The small towns and villages of Israel are like extended families where everyone knows everyone else. Nazareth, at the time, was a small village, likely of 200 people, in the hills of Galilee. Some Bible scholars believe it was made up of a small Hasidic sect called Natzoreans. The were ultra-conservative Jews who believed that the Messiah would come out of their group, and that one day their sect would become a mighty nation. Jesus grew up and was educated in the Nazareth synagogue and raised in the Natzorean sect. He obtained his education in a synagogue which taught a form of Judaism which was exclusive, conservative and inwardly focused. Today’s Christian parallel might be the small Christian groups who look for Jesus’ return tomorrow if not sooner. I know one such group in Ohio. In the 1950s, a preacher from down south came north with a group of parishioners to find work in the rubber factories. Over the years, the church has done well. They believe in a strict, legalistic Christianity that stresses the “Thou shalt nots” and they are inwardly focused. The Gospel touches part of their lives but leaves other parts unchallenged. They distrust education, and clergy with seminary educations are particularly suspect. They are cautious of outsiders but are intensely loyal to each other. Jesus grew up in a similar religious community. 1 Jesus came back home and met people who knew him since he was a child. They knew his parents and his brothers and sisters. Undoubtedly, they could remember Jesus as a toddler, a little boy, and as a man who learned his father’s trade. Jewish boys become men at age thirteen. Jesus lived in Nazareth for some thirty years before he left to become an itinerate rabbi. Something powerful was pressing him. He walked the 31 miles to the town of Capernaum and was well-received. People listened to him teach and many who had faith in him were healed from various kinds of diseases and afflictions. He then came home to Nazareth and on the Sabbath went to the synagogue. It is likely Nazareth, like Capernaum, only had one synagogue. The synagogue leaders invite him to read from the Bible and expound on it. He received the scroll of Isaiah from the attendant and rolled it open to a specific place and began to read from a Messianic section of what we identify as Isaiah 61:1-2a: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant and sat down to teach as was the custom. Everyone was watching him intently. His teaching was sort and simple: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing (Luke 4:21).” To us it might not mean much. However, to a sect of people who were looking for the Messiah to arise from their group this was a clear announcement by Jesus that he is the Messiah. In essence, he said, “Yes, I am the Messiah. Yes, you were right that the Messiah would come from our town.” Luke tells us about the reaction of the people: “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. Isn’t this Joseph’s son? they asked (Luke 4:22).” Jesus then became contentious. Luke tells us, “Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum. Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:23-27).” He was telling them that the kingdom would be ushered in, not by their conservative sect of Judaism, but by the more liberal Jews in Capernaum. The synagogue of Capernaum followed of the School of Hillel, a liberal rabbi. This was too much for the people of Nazareth and they were filled with rage. Their warm feelings turned red hot with anger. They were not only offended by what he told them; they drove him out of the synagogue to a cliff and were ready to throw him off, to kill him. Luke tells us that Jesus mysteriously “walked right through the crowd and went on his way (Luke 4:30).” He turned his back on his hometown and went back to Capernaum, his base of ministry. Jesus clearly afflicted the comfortable people of Nazareth. 2 As I reflect on this story, I feel sad. Many of us might relate to it. We have left our hometowns and know that we cannot return. Perhaps we have left beliefs—whether conservative or liberal—and cannot return to them. Yet we know it is more important to follow Jesus than stay in our hometown. It is more important to do the will of God than be bound by worldly cultural expectations. It is more important to honor the Lord than honor one’s community. Jesus once said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be members of his own household. Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it (Matthew 10:34-39).” Could this be Jesus’ use of hyperbole? I am not certain about that as Jesus lived what he taught. He had to make radical changes to carry out the work and will of God As we look at Jesus’ life, we see the truth to the statement that the church is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The Gospel is better understood by those who know their spiritual poverty. On the other hand, those who are blinded to their spiritual poverty by the comforts of life find the Gospel to be disturbing and afflicting. Sometimes they become angry as the Nazareth Jews were angry at Jesus. He afflicted the comfortable people in Nazareth and other places. He so afflicted the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem that they became so angry that they killed him. They crucified him on a terrible Roman Cross. Comfortable Christianity is easy. It makes no challenge or claims on us. It has no cross. It calls us not to the cross but to self-interest, self-deception and self-indulgence. It does not hear Jesus’ call to discipleship. It avoids the Bible and prayer. It has little reverence for God. The Holy Spirit continues to comfort the afflicted and afflict (or convict) the comfortable. Philip Yancy, author, writes about his experience preaching and teaching in developing nations, particularly Brazil and the Philippines, where the church has been experiencing amazing growth. Yancy writes: “As I travel, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God ‘moving’ geographically from the Middle East to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where he is wanted.” My experience preaching in Brazil and the Philippines mirrors his. God shows up with power when people cry out to him in prayer from the depths of their hearts. God shows up with power when the church rediscovers its first love, Christ Jesus. He commands us to proclaim the Good News throughout our communities and the world. Matthew tells us what he told the disciples on a mountain in Galilee: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28: 18-20).” May the Holy Spirit stir us up so that we live out Jesus’ commands to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ Jesus.