2022.01.30 | Hometown Prophet
“Hometown Prophet”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ
Hayward, California
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
January 30, 2022
Luke 4:14-30 (NRSV)
Today’s gospel lesson is set in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown. Here he went up to the bema, rolled open the scroll, and read that hopeful passage from the prophet Isaiah about a messiah coming to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed.
Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. While all eyes were still fixed on him, Jesus looked his people straight in the eye, and said: “I’m the man. I’m the Messiah.” Then, mic drop. Folks were speechless.
Rather than giving Jesus a standing “O,” as would have been fitting for a guy who they purportedly had been awaiting for 600 years, the congregation marched Jesus out of the synagogue, right through the city gate, and stopped at the edge of a cliff where, they might have just shoved him into the abyss, but they did not. Why?
Luke never answers that question directly, so we are left to wonder. Maybe Jesus’ friends and family thought that he had lost his mind, and they did not want a mentally unstable person in their community. But had mercy on him, on account of his perceived infirmity, so they did not push him off the cliff.
Or maybe they were afraid that Jesus was the real deal. Maybe they thought for at least a hot second that he might really be THE messiah, and they got scared, and they were afraid that if they did give him a shove, they might suffer some retaliation. We don’t know.
All that we know is what Luke describes in his gospel, and according to Luke, Jesus walked away from the edge of that cliff. He marched directly through the crowd, and he moved on to another town.
III don’t know about you, but I am more than just a little bit curious about why the hometown crowd didn’t embrace Jesus with open arms, put on a party, or parade him around town like any other hometown hero.
To discern why Jesus wasn’t embraced by his own people, we have to look at the big picture--which is to say--we have to look at the overarching narrative of Luke’s gospel and compare it with the other three. When we do, we see that Jesus was most likely rejected by his own people because he was too inclusive.
Consider this: Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels emerged out of Jewish-Christian communities who saw Jesus as the savior of Israel. According to them, Jesus came to save the Jews, not the Gentiles, not the goyim—not even a mensch.
In a variation on that theme, John, who wrote several decades later, saw Jesus as offering salvation to everyone, but only granting it to those who confessed their faith in him. Salvation, for John, was not for the great “unwashed,” or the unconfessed. It was solely intended for true believers.
Again, Luke’s Jesus embraced everyone, but Mathew, Mark, and John present Jesus as a more selective messiah than Luke.
III
When I was a senior in high school, a popular outerwear clothing company called Chief Apparel designed and sold coats and jackets under the brand name of “Members Only.”
If you’re old enough to remember those jackets, you may also recall that Anthony Geary, the actor who played Luke Spencer on the popular soap opera General Hospital helped promote the Members Only brand in TV commercials. Anthony, who played the heartthrob of soap opera fans--mostly housewives who shopped for the men in their families--slipped on the racer jacket and said, “When you put it on…something happens.”
The “something” was that the wearer of the jacket supposedly became superior to those who didn’t wear the jacket, and could now enjoy personal and social benefits that others would not.
According to Mental Floss, a website featuring annotated “fun facts,” Chief Apparel increased their sales revenue by $100M within two years of hiring Geary to promote their brand. By the mid-1980s, over 15 million men (and scores of women) were wearing Members Only jackets.
In the following decade (the 1990s) a certain credit card company built its ad campaign and market share on a similar theme of exclusivity using the tag line, “Membership has its privileges.” It, too, lost its popularity, ironically, as it increased its customer base, and became less and less exclusive.
I suspect that we all recognize the products, the marketing gimmicks, and the human longings that contributed to the success of this brandname jacket and ubiquitous credit card.
But eventually, we, like others, who bought and wore the jacket and used the credit card, found out that we were still the same people after we purchased those products, and that those who judged our worth based on whether we owned one of those popular jackets or used one of those exclusive credit cards tended to be “fair weather” friends, and inclusion in an exclusive group wasn’t ultimately very meaningful or helpful for us.
IV
Now flash back to first century Palestine. Here comes Jesus, who isn’t selling anything, and who is actually giving away his intangible “product,” which is love, and he is offering it for free.
And this product, this gift, sounds like the best thing in the world--if you are down and out--but it seems scandalous, if you think you’ve earned this gift, or that you are already part of an exclusive group--and you don’t feel special anymore, if everyone is given this same free gift. So you pass on his offer, and you send this fly-by-night salesman on to another town.
That, my friends, is why Jesus' people marched him out of the synagogue and almost pushed him off of the cliff near the city gate. They could not shake their “scarcity world view.” They could not love themselves as they loved their neighbors, and they could not love themselves as Jesus loved them. So they began believing that the only way that they could be saved was if others were damned.
Super sad, and true.
Fortunately, for Jesus’ friends and family, he did not return evil for evil. Instead, he offered an alternative to the “Members Only Jesus” that we encounter in the other gospels. Let’s call Luke’s understanding of Jesus as the “One-For-All Jesus.”
Luke’s Jesus sought the least, the last, and the lost. He taught that no one was ever outside the scope of God’s grace, and that Jesus offered universal salvation--as an act of mercy and a gift of grace, not as a birthright for a particular religious or ethnic group, not because someone paid a membership fee, or swore an oath--but because he loved them.
Like the Hebrew prophets who preceded him, Luke’s Jesus knew that God wanted everyone to be fed, healed, clothed, housed, visited, freed, and welcomed--regardless of their ethnic or religious identity.
Like the ancient prophets, Luke’s Jesus envisioned a global social service and health care system for ALL.
Jesus reminded his friends and family that Elijah fed the widow in Sidon, and Elisha healed the Syrian General Naaman—even though they were not members of a synagogue. Luke’s Jesus did not parse out God’s blessings according to race, creed, class, or other demographic groups. He did not sort the washed from the unwashed. Nor did he require a membership fee from anyone.
V
What this means for us, then, is that we should not expect to be any more popular in our hometowns than Jesus was in his.
This also means that when we refuse to play “Mean Girl” games, put up “Members Only” signs, or put a price on God’s grace, then we should not be surprised to find ourselves marched out of town and sent on our way.
To be sure, the Christian life is not for the faint of heart, but at least we find ourselves in good company. Amen.