Sermon delivered by the Rev. Cristina Rathbone (over zoom)
Luke 4:21-30
Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 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.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Our Gospel story today begins once again with Jesus in the synagogue of his hometown, Nazareth. We start with a brief re-cap of the words we heard from him last week after rolling up the scroll and sitting back down – those startling words: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And then, again, we hear how these words were met with the kind of ‘amazement’ that speaks of pride and joy. He had come to give sight to the blind! To bring release to the captives and freedom to the oppressed! He had come – at last — to set them free!
But the celebrating doesn’t last long and the mood changes abruptly when Jesus starts extending the boundaries of places and people of interest to God beyond the faithful of Israel, to Sidon and Syria. He points to Elijah who cared not for the widows of his home, but only for a widow from far away Zaraphath, and to Elisha who, with all the lepers around him, chose only to heal Naaman in Syria. And all of a sudden “all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” That’s what the text we just heard says. “When they heard, this all in the synagogue were filled with rage…”
Why?
Let’s take just take a moment to imagine the scene. The people had gathered as they did each week to study and pray and listen to Holy Scripture in their local house of worship much like Crissey Farm let’s imagine. And in the middle of the service, during the sermon, the congregation suddenly became so enraged, so incensed, that they surged forward, grabbed hold of Jesus who was still in the process of preaching, forced him physically out of the building (‘they drove him out of the synagogue” the text says), and then dragged him, again forcibly, along the streets that led out of town until they came to a cliff which they ultimately tried to throw him off!
Wow! It must have taken a long time, all of this. What must it have felt like? And what must it have looked like to those who weren’t in synagogue that day? I mean, what would it look like to you, if you chose not to come to church one day and then, driving blithely down Route 7, you suddenly saw me, and Ryan and Lee and the choir, and the entire congregation hauling our guest preacher down the road by force with the kind of rage that would lead in a few short blocks to attempted murder at the hands of the mob?!
This is what happened! It’s important we don’t sentimentalize it. It was brutal.
So again… What kind of rage was this that was sustained not for seconds only, but for minutes, and even hours? Rage that fixed its sight on nothing less that snuffing out the presumed source of that rage – Jesus who is love himself, who is hope itself, who is freedom itself?
It’s one of the most chaotic and violent readings in the Gospel, I think– and we heard it today straight after one of the most beautiful readings in the entire Bible, the exquisite description from Corinthians on the nature of love. “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant5or rude. (Love) does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; … It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…”
So, again, what do you think is going on here?
And also, how and why are these two texts linked?
It’s an open question – and each one of us can only answer it adequately for ourselves, of course. But as I read and re-read both these texts this week, I came to the conclusion that the truth of the love and the promise that it brings in its wake — which is to say freedom, and wholeness, and justice, and belonging for all—well this really does sometimes provoke rage. Because it provokes fear. Fear birthed by the challenge it presents to us who already share in its promise. Fear at being yoked not to privilege or comfort, but to the practice of the kind of self-sacrificial love that bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Fear of change – and of the loss that might come with it.
Think of those who opposed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and everyone else who took part in the Civil Rights movement – their rage, wasn’t it just like this? And think of those who opposed Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. And think of those who opposed and oppose all the non-violent movements that surge up around the globe again and again and again, seeking justice and freedom and belonging for all people instead of for only the few. Isn’t it true that in each of these instances the call to love provokes rage in those who fear they might have something to lose – and with all their might, they shout No! when it is offered to them. No and no and no and no!
And yet — the love continues. And the love remains. And the love offers itself to each one of them – and to each one of us – every moment of every hour of every day, over and over and over again. And, thank God, we don’t need to live our lives on the kind of grand scale that Jesus did (or even that MLK or Desmond Tutu did) in order to enter into its transformative truth. Because we are already in it – that’s the thing; because – as we are told for the second time in two weeks – the scripture has already been fulfilled, and love is present and close and available for free to us all – today! So the more we overcome whatever fear we feel in the face of it, and then dare to say yes, however quietly, however invisibly to the outside world, well… The more of that love there will be, and the more we will find ourselves able to share it, expanding our boundaries and our notion of “we” — as in ‘who we are’ — to include people we don’t know and perhaps even don’t understand – and to be included by them at the very same time.
But you already know all this. I know you well enough now to know that every single one of you has had moments when you’ve overcome fear and allowed yourself instead to dip into the transforming truth of love and forgiveness and belonging — and have allowed yourselves to be changed – no expanded – by it. When did this last happen in your life? Can you bring it to mind?
And when did it last happen to you all communally, as a community of faith named Grace? For sure it happened when you decided you didn’t need a building to be faithful. And for sure it happened again when you decided to keep going with the Lee Food Pantry no matter what, and to make a child’s dream a reality through Gideon’s Garden. It happened when you hired Janet, and when you plunged deep to care for her and for each other when Sey died. And it happened when you welcomed Libby — and then cared for her through her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment – and of course it happened again – and happens still – through the ups and downs of the pandemic.
At any one of these junctures, you could have said No! to the promise of God that shone deep beneath the challenges they presented on the surface. You could have shouted: No No No No! and then plunged deep into rage and fear of loss. But instead – together — you found that blend of courage and humility that allowed you to say instead: Yes and then Yes and again Yes.
It’s part of what makes you such a faithful community. And it is part of what keeps Grace so vibrant and hopeful and alive as well — the love of God itself of course and for sure, but also your ability to say yes to it – even when it comes wrapped in challenge. It’s part of why I am so grateful to be with you as your new rector as well – especially today, as we approach Grace Church’s 10th Annual Meeting together.
There may well be many more challenges – for you and for me and for all of us together as we continue our journey into life with God and in God right here in the Southern Berkshires. But I know that love will carry us through. There will be times when I forget this – and then, please God, you will remind me. And there will be times when some of you forget – and then, please God, the rest of us will find ways to remind you. And in this likely lumpy way I feel certain – just certain — that we will continue growing together in courage, and in generosity, and in joy, and in the kind of life that never ends as we expand not our congregation so much as our hearts and our capacity to give, and our willingness to receive, and our ability in the end, to remain – no matter what – holders of the kind of love that Jesus makes manifest, and responders to his call.
Thank you for who and what and how you are. And thank you for who and what and how we will be together moving forward, with God’s help and in God’s light.
Let us pray: Your word is a lamp to our feet Lord and a light for our path. By night and by day you summon your people: So stir us with your voice and enlighten us with your grace that we become more and more able to give ourselves fully to Christ’s call to ministry and mission. AMEN