Home Town Rejection—Lectionary Reflection for Epiphany 4C (Luke 4:21-30)

Jesus Preaching in the Synagogue at Nazareth, 14th-century fresco, Visoki Decani Monastery, Kosovo


Luke 4:21-30 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 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.’” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 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, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 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. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

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                The reading from Luke for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany brings to a conclusion the two-part story of Jesus’ return home after beginning his ministry in Galilee. In Part 1, Jesus returns home and gets invited to participate in the synagogue service. He was invited to read the Scripture for the day (Isaiah 61) and offer a few words of interpretation. That is what he did. The reading for the day spoke of God’s Spirit anointing the one who would bring good news to the poor, “proclaim release to the captives and release to the captives” along with “recovery of sight to the blind,” as well as setting the oppressed free and proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:16-19). After reading this passage, he rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant, and then sat down. Luke reports that “The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him” (Luke 4:20). In other words, they wanted to know what he would say about the reading from Isaiah.

                Verse 21 of Luke 4 provides the hinge linking the two readings for Epiphany 3 and 4. This is where things get interesting. I can read that passage from Isaiah and offer my take on it as a preacher, but as we’ll see, Jesus makes a rather interesting move, one that will rile the crowd. What started as a moment of pride by the home folks turned violent, as Jesus interpreted that word about the Spirit-anointed figure in reference to himself. He told the congregation that this passage, which spoke of a messianic figure, applied to him. This is not only a description of a messiah, this passage laid out his marching orders. That very day, the passage had been fulfilled. Jesus, the man from Nazareth, a small village in a backwater part of the Roman Empire, would bring good news to poor people, release prisoners and captives, set free the oppressed, and proclaim God’s Jubilee. The people had to be wondering how one of their own, a man who had been nothing more than a common laborer, could fulfill this word from Isaiah. You can almost hear the murmuring amongst the crowd. People who knew him and his family, wondering, who does this guy think he is? He almost sounds narcissistic. The home folks are always the most difficult to please. It’s one of the reasons preachers tend not to go home. So, pride in the hometown hero who had begun to make a name for himself in Galilee began to give way to revulsion.  

                Now it is true that at first, the people spoke well of him because they were amazed at his eloquence and interpretative abilities, but they also began to question his background. Isn’t this Joseph’s son? Isn’t he nothing more than a tekton (carpenter/laborer)? We know this guy and his family. They’re nobodies, and now he claims to be God’s anointed. Even as the questions percolated in their minds, Jesus decided to push their buttons a bit. Jesus might have been a good preacher, but he never read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Like an Episcopal Bishop speaking to the newly inaugurated President of the United States, Jesus spoke words that offended the crowd. He did it intentionally, or so it seems. He tells them that they will no doubt quote to him, as a healer, the proverb “Doctor, cure yourself.” Then they’ll demand that he “do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did in Capernaum.” They wanted to see Jesus demonstrate his abilities. If he healed people in Capernaum, then surely, he could do it, should do it, in Nazareth. You can sense the blood boiling among the people. They had welcomed him, and they were impressed, but did he read the room and see that the people didn’t like how he presented himself to them? While Luke doesn’t record the people asking for signs, Matthew and Mark suggest that the people wanted him to demonstrate that he had that power, but as Mark notes, “he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief” (Matt 13:54-58; Mk 6:1-6).

           Jesus went on to tell the crowd that “no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” As both Matthew and Mark suggest, the crowd knew the family. They knew his occupation. They wondered where he got all this wisdom and ability. They needed some proof that he was who he said he was. Jesus seems to have sensed their unease and dismay. So, he pushed their buttons even more by telling them that a prophet is not welcome in the prophet’s hometown.

         To prove his point, Jesus mentioned two other prophets who would have been well-known to the people, Elijah and Elisha. The stories he told reminded the people that these two famed prophets of old, people venerated by the Jewish people, had faced opposition in their homelands and ended up blessing foreigners rather than the home folks. Regarding Elijah, Jesus points to his flight to Sidon during a famine that afflicted his homeland of Israel, while there he stayed with a widow living in the village of Zarepath even though, according to Jesus there were many widows in Israel. However, it was this widow whom Elijah blessed with his presence. In the larger story in 1 Kings 17, Elijah provided bread for the widow and her son and then revived her son who had fallen ill and perhaps into a coma. “So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” The second story involved Elijah’s protégé and successor Elisha. Jesus tells the crowd that even though there were many lepers in Israel, none of these lepers were cleansed. The only leper whom God chose to cleanse through the mediation of the Prophet Elisha was Naaman, the Syrian general. Now, according to the account in 2 Kings, Naaman wasn’t thrilled with Elisha’s prescription but did as he was told and was healed (2 Kings 5:1-19).

                After the crowd heard these last two stories, they became extremely angry. It appeared that this man whom many thought might be Israel’s messiah, didn’t embrace their “Israel First” ideology. How could the God Jesus was representing embrace foreigners over God’s own people?  According to Luke, “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” Yes, they were filled with rage. Blair Monie writes about the response to Jesus’ message to the folks in Nazareth, who expected to receive certain benefits since he was born and raised in their community. He writes:

The people were “filled with rage” because Jesus proclaimed a grace that was wider and more generous than they were. Grace is more difficult to really embrace than we often assume. We are happy when the “right” people are forgiven, accepted or healed, but we’re not so sure that we want those things extended to people outside our favored circles, or that we want to extend that grace ourselves. [Connections, p. 222].

This anger that began to boil up in the people who were offended by Jesus’ words, led them to drive Jesus out of town. They pushed him toward a cliff at the edge of town, where they intended to throw him off the cliff to his death. But this didn’t happen. This wasn’t going to be the moment of his death. Instead, he somehow walked through the crowd and moved on to his next destination, which was Capernaum (Luke 4:31).

                What is interesting about this moment is that Jesus wasn’t preaching to people of power. This wasn’t a conclave of the political and religious elite. His audience was composed of common people, the very outsiders he wished to embrace. But as is so often true, they didn’t see themselves included in his message. They didn’t perceive themselves as among the poor of this world whom Jesus represented. As Blair Monie notes, “When Jesus, in reading from Isaiah, had communicated a gospel of grace for the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed, he was talking about them! This announcement, after all, was good news for those oppressed by the Roman occupiers—but we too have ways of rejecting the good news of the kingdom” [Connections, p. 222].

                This reading, along with the prior one, appears at a time of political transition and concern in the United States (my country). A new President has put forward his “America First” agenda, which both in the campaign and in early actions seems to many of us to run counter to the message of Jesus. Preaching on these passages will prove challenging as many in the pews support the new President’s agenda, especially on immigration. Whether the congregation will follow the lead of the synagogue in Nazareth and run the preacher out of town while threatening to throw the preacher off a cliff is unknown. Jesus escaped that fate for a moment, but eventually, things caught up with him, and the Roman government with the collaboration of members of the religious establishment put Jesus on a cross. It is worth noting that the piece that appears to have pushed the crowd over the line against Jesus had to do with what he said about Elijah and Elisha, whose actions favored foreigners over the home folks. That sounded rather unpatriotic to many in the room. Criticizing our own nation can appear unpatriotic, especially when that criticism addresses things like racism, sexism, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Jesus embraced the other, while many Christians reject the other.

                Things started well when Jesus arrived in Nazareth. The people welcomed him into the pulpit and invited him to speak. They were amazed at his eloquence, especially since his parentage was less than stellar.  Nevertheless, they had heard great things about him, and they wanted to check him out for themselves. The congregation reacted rather violently to his message, but in the end, he survived, at least for the moment.

                    

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