This sermon is from the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany, January 30, 2022 and it was originally preached at St. David’s by the Sea Episcopal Church in Cocoa Beach, FL. where I serve as Rector.
When I was 6-years old, exactly Ellis’ age right now, I can vividly remember my first real conversation about money. Friends, it did not go well.
As most children that age, I was fascinated with coins. Dollar bills didn’t really interest me because they did not readily lend themselves to being turned into projectiles. They couldn’t do anything, the older a dollar bill the more wrinkles and crinkles it had. Coins, however, were fun because they came in all shapes, sizes, and years. Maybe you had a silver half-dollar with JFK on it or perhaps you had a quarter from the 20’s or 30’s. The best thing about coins: the sounds of jingling and jangling in your pockets.
With all 6 years of worldly wisdom, I was of the opinion that coins were better than bills. I had amassed quite the collection of coins which I kept at the bottom of my blue backpack.
Imagine my distraught and dismay when my parents attempted to trade me a $5 bill for the whole of my coin collection. (It only totalled $5)
I was irate and incensed. I remember screaming and sobbing over the idea…not that I have ever been dramatic for a day in my life. They wanted me to trade all of my coins, dozens of nice, shiny pieces of metal, for a single piece of paper…what were they not understanding about this??
The reasoning now makes sense to me: it would be easier to count and keep my money if I traded the multiple little pieces in for a single piece of currency…but I wasn’t having it that day, not at all.
I can’t tell you how that story ended…but what I can tell you is this: there are moments in life when we miss the point of a story, a comment, an illustration, an idea, or an event because we miss the forest for the trees. We get so myopically focused on one detail or lost in minutiae that we can no longer see the big picture or hear what is right in front of us…and we do it all the time.
This morning’s story from Luke’s Gospel is a continuation of last week’s pericope. Let me recap what happened last week before we dive into the text: freshly baptized in the Jordan by John and having then been led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he would defeat Satan, Jesus emerges in Galilee and begins his public ministry. Luke takes us to Nazareth where Jesus attends synagogue worship on the sabbath and he stands up to teach. He takes the scroll of Isaiah (remember, it could have been upward of 24-feet long) and turns to the 61st chapter and begins to read:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
We’re told that the people were amazed by his “gracious words.” As Jesus waxes about release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, and proclaiming the Lord’s favor, the crowd immediately believes he is talking about them. If Jesus is the explicit me who is sent by God and is performing the aforementioned actions, the crowd assumes they are the implicit us or we reaping the benefits of his saving grace.
There are at least two options as to why the crowd thinks he is talking about them. First, the crowd believes that Jesus is talking about the freedom and release they might experience from the tyranny of Rome. His words give hope because they mean that Caesar’s days are numbered and Israel will be restored.
The second option is the crowd believes Jesus’ prophetic words and ministry will bring favor upon them because he is one of them. They certainly try to lay claim to Jesus as one of them by referencing his relationship to Joseph. “Is this not Joseph’s son?” It’s a possessive statement, “Isn’t he one of us?” It seems as though the crowd is celebrating the fact that Jesus is “Joseph’s Son.”
The massive irony is, of course, the fact that Jesus ought not be identified as Joseph’s Son but the Son of God. Despite being amazed by Jesus’ words, the crowd doesn’t even fully understand the one who is amazing to them. They missed the forest of God’s son for the trees of Joseph’s son; they missed the $5 bill for the backpack full of coins.
As the first interpretive option, the restoration of Israel is broader than the second option because it is universal for the whole house of Israel. The second option is far more narrowly focused because it suggests a subset of Israel, namely Nazareth, as being the intended beneficiaries of Jesus’ work. But what the crowd does realize is that there is a third option.
In an effort to widen their understanding, broaden their horizons, and open their minds, Jesus intentionally pokes and prods his hearers so they might understand the full gravity of the Isaiah passage.
Jesus first uses two aphorisms against them: “Doctor, cure yourself” and “Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” Jesus cuts to the heart of how the crowd interpreted his use of Isaiah 61. Jesus knows the crowd wants him to do for them what he has done elsewhere. Jesus rebukes their narrow-minded and self-absorbed interpretation of the prophet’s words. Their possession of Jesus becomes unhealthy and sick because they actually believe they are owed something by him for being his hometown crowd.
Jesus begins shifting the crowd’s view of him away from their identification as a Galilean and Nazarene because of Joseph to a prophetic role in the mold of Elijah and Elisha. Out of all the stories in the Old Testament about Elijah and Elisha, there are more than a few, but he opts for these two because they are proving his point. These stories would have been easily understood and readily called to mind by the listening crowd; for us Episcopalians who haven’t read 1 Kings 17 or 2 Kings 5 recently, perhaps a brief refresher will help.
Let’s begin with the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. Elijah is prophesying in Israel during the reign of evil king Ahab and his evil wife, Jezebel. Elijah receives a word from the LORD that a drought is coming to the land. This drought will affect everything: livestock, harvesting, food for eating, etc. Elijah is ministered to by ravens who bring bread and meat, morning and night, and he had a water source there…until it dried up.
So God sends Elijah to Sidon. Sidon was a Gentile city along the coast of the Mediterranean in Syria. In fact, Jezebel was the daughter of the Sidonian king. God is sending Elijah behind enemy lines. He enters Sidon and a widow approaches him. A foreign woman in a foreign land…Elijah should have run for the hills but instead he engages. He discovers that this woman and her son are near death from starvation and do you know what he has the gall to do? He asks her for food! You have to love it! Her oil and meal did not run out as expected; miraculously God continues to provide the means to make food and the three individuals are sustained “for many days.”
The point of the story? God could have sent Elijah to any of the gin joints in all the towns in Israel to help saving starving, famished, and dying people but God sends Elijah to a foreign country to the aid of a foreign, unwed woman. Elijah could have gone to any of the numerous widows in Israel, but God uses Elijah to show that the blessing of God’s grace, mercy, and provision is intended for people outside of Israel, as well as those inside.
Jesus then turns to Eisha to further drive the point home. In 2 Kings 5, we read about Elisha and Naaman. Elisha is Israel’s prophet, the heir to Elijah’s mantle, and Naaman is a commander of the army of the king of Aram. The Arameans were a semitic people who spoke Aramaic and who were enemies of Israel. One King of Aram attacked King David’s Israel but was defeated. Another Aramean became King of Babylon. As a whole, the Arameans did not worship the God of Israel but had their own pantheon of gods, goddesses, and deities.
In the story, Naaman, the commander of the enemy army, suffers from leprosy. Naaman’s wife had a servant girl who was captured from Israel and it is this enslaved Israelite who suggests that Naaman be healed by Elisha. The story is outlandish, shocking, perhaps even scandalous: the King of Aram sends a letter with Naaman to the King of Israel seeking permission for one of Israel’s prophets to heal the commander of the enemy army. Can you imagine it??? The King of Israel tears his clothes because he feels like it’s a trap, but Elisha is fully onboard with the idea.
Elisha gives Naaman instructions to wash and cleanse in the Jordan. Naaman is angry because he wanted something more spectacular, more extraordinary. The command to wash in a river is so pedestrian and mundane that he initially misses the forest for the trees. Quick side note: how often do we get angry with God for not showing us signs and wonders in extraordinary and over the top ways when he does give us our daily bread? We know from another story with Elijah that God was not in the earthquake, wind, or fire but in the sound of silence. God often ministers to us through the ordinary, the mundane, the pedestrian, the “normal” and we miss it because we want the pomp and circumstance of grandiose and over-the-top.
Naaman does eventually wash and is fully cleansed of his leprosy.
Same result as the first story: there were plenty of lepers in Israel who could have benefited from God’s healing and cleansing touch, but instead God sends Elisha to Naaman the Syrian. The healing in this story is not reserved for the house or people of Israel, but for the unclean commander of the enemy army. Again, the “us” as the recipients of God’s blessings is not limited to Israel but is in fact far more expansive than originally understood.
Now do you see why the synagogue crowd turns on Jesus? Can you see how their first interpretation of Jesus’ “gracious words” is radically different from their final understanding?
Jesus has just told the gathered faithful, the chosen people of God, that God’s blessings were not exclusively meant for them. He tells them that the promise of Isaiah 61 is not solely for the benefit of Nazarenes or Galileeans or even Jews but for the whole world. As I said last week, the gracious good news of Jesus Christ is offered universally to all people. That kind of grace is scandalous because it reminds us that
In fairness to Jesus–does he need us to be fair to him?–he is simply reminding the people by way of illustration what they should have already known from the book of Genesis: God blessed Abraham and his family that they might bless the world. Nothing new here!
The crowd quickly turns from amazement to rage in a foreshadowing of what will happen chapters later in Jerusalem. Again, though, the crowd misses the forest for the trees. They are enraged because they think they are getting the short end of the stick from Jesus. Like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, they feel like the fattened calf, the ring, the robe, and the party should be for them and not for unclean foreigners. They want to punish and silence Jesus but instead he walks right through them, also foreshadowing what will happen on the cross.
The murderous mob in Nazareth could neither silence nor stop Jesus.
The murderous mob in Jerusalem would neither silence nor stop Jesus.
In both instances, Jesus continues on his way to do ministry in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
The crowd in Nazareth forgot one detail from the stories of Elijah and Elisha: both the widow and Naaman profess belief in the God of Israel because of the miracles they had seen.
After bringing her son back from death to life, the widow exclaims, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” After being cleansed from leprosy, Naaman says, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”
Blessing and belief. Miraculous ministry and the making of disciples.
What we are learning from Jesus this morning is that the eschatological banquet table–the wedding feast shared between Jesus, the bridegroom, and his people, the bride–will require us to put leaves in the table rather than take them out. You know what I mean! Think back to Christmas or Thanksgiving feasts of years past when you had to extend and expand your table because you had children, spouses, grandchildren, and more in attendance. Jesus tells the gathered crowd that Syrians, Sidonians, enemies of Israel, lepers, widows, and more will all be at the table. Scandalous! What does this mean for us?
First, we are invited into a shared Ministry of the Word. All of our lessons today included the primacy and power of God’s words. The anointing of Jeremiah as a prophet includes God touching his mouth and saying, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” 1 Corinthians 13 is about speaking words in and of love. Luke 4 is about Jesus’ “gracious words” which are actually infinitely more gracious than the crowd believed. We know from Isaiah 55 that God’s ways and words are higher than ours; we know that God sends forth his word and it does not return to him empty but accomplishes precisely what it was meant to. As disciples of Jesus, you have been invited to join that Ministry of the Word by telling others about the scandalous grace, unrelenting love, and abundant goodness of God!
Second, we have been blessed that we might bless others. The two OT stories demonstrate Blessing and Belief. The widow and Naaman believed after they had been blessed by God through God’s chosen messengers. There is a world outside the four walls of our church which is waiting to be blessed by God’s chosen messengers and I have news for you: you are those messengers! God has been in the blessing business from the beginning of time and creation; he told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply; he told Noah to be fruitful and multiply; and he told Abraham that the world would be blessed through his blessing. You are here today as part of that exponential blessing and the charge before you is to “pay it forward,” “pass it on,” “give it away to keep it,” by blessing the world with the Good News of God in Christ.
Third, we are NOT sellers of fire insurance. The goal of Christianity is not praying the sinner’s prayer but living into Jesus’ abundant life, now. This means that salvation has always been toward the making of Disciples. Episcopalians have long been known for our hatch, match, and dispatch approach, cradle-to-grave and everywhere in between, but our real calling is to make and raise disciples. We do this by knowing Christ and making him known in word, deed, teaching and baptizing, Christian education, outreach ministry, and so much more.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees, friends. The point of our faith is to grow it and share it with others; to make disciples by blessing and belief through a ministry of word, sacrament, and deed in order that the table might be expanded. The harvest is plentiful…are you ready to put leaves in the table?
Porter C. Taylor 