Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
January 31, 2016
Scripture: Psalm 71 & Luke 4:14-30
I can almost picture Jesus, walking down an empty road, dusting himself off, after having fled the angry mob of childhood friends that just tried to throw him off the cliff. “Well, that went well… Not.” What is going ON here? Jesus has been baptized by his cousin John in the Jordan River and spent 40 days in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan (we’ll get back to that story in a couple weeks). He emerges from the wilderness ‘filled with the power of the Holy Spirit,” energized by a clear sense of vision and mission, ready to launch his ministry. Of course, Nazareth is among his first stops. Jesus grew up in Nazareth.
According to the gospel of Luke, the angel Gabriel made a house call on Mary there, back when he first announced the news that Mary would bear the son of the Most High. We have no evidence that anyone else knew about that encounter; but then there were all the angels at his birth; and the shepherds spreading news throughout the countryside. And you know how word travels. So you figure the neighbors must have gotten wind of it sooner or later: that the child of Mary and Joseph was supposed to be someone special; that God had plans for him – they might even have heard the words messiah, or anointed one.
Maybe that’s part of the problem here. Maybe Jesus had become the hometown darling; the local kid destined for big things; the one on whose coattails the whole village would ride…right into the promised kingdom – where surely they would all receive honorary appointments and special favors because of their close ties to the Messiah. Surely, God would look upon this backwater town with special favor, after all they had done to help raise the Son of God…right?
So they admire his eloquence in the synagogue, his excellent Hebrew; they applaud his pronouncements. And he disses them. It really does sound like Jesus started it, doesn’t it? Almost like he is picking a fight with his own peeps. “Doubtless you will quote the proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself,’” he says, as though he’s already heard, or expects them to say: “Who are YOU to tell us to repent? We grew up with you. We’ve seen you, warts and all. So don’t get high and mighty with us…” This crowd that is amazed and excited one minute gets a little defensive the next: they were expecting special treatment; instead, they get a scolding.
And Jesus doesn’t stop there. He goes on to recall two famous stories – one about a widow, and one about a Syrian soldier. If you didn’t grow up reading Torah and the Prophets (like most of the folks in the synagogue that day), this can get a bit confusing. So here’s the cliff notes’ version:
Story #1: Elijah was a prophet sent by God to the northern kingdom of Israel to reprimand King Ahab for failing to stay faithful to God (this was some 800 years before Jesus). To show he meant business, Elijah stopped the rain – for three years! During the ensuing famine, God sent Elijah to stay with a widow in Zarapheth . She was poor, but she welcomed him anyway, and God miraculously kept her oil and flour from running out, so that she and Elijah survived the famine. The key detail here: The widow who took in Elijah was NOT an Israelite. She was a foreigner. A Gentile.
Story #2: Elijah’s successor Elisha was famous for healing the sick. Naaman was a commander in the Syrian army – a mighty warrior who also suffered from leprosy. During a raid, he kidnapped an Israelite woman and took her home to serve in his household. She told him about the Israelite prophet who could cure his illness. So, he summoned Elisha, and eventually was healed by him. The key detail here: Naaman wasn’t an Israelite either. In fact, he was an enemy of the Israelites.
So. Back to Nazareth, and that rambling speech that Jesus delivers: Here’s his point: This ministry he is launching, it’s not just about Nazareth. It’s way bigger than that. It’s as though the locals had a map with a circle around Nazareth, and a note that says, You are here. And while they are busy congratulating themselves that they’ve got a homegrown messiah, Jesus takes the map and draws a bigger circle around the region of Galilee, and then a bigger circle around all the towns in which Jews were living, and then a bigger circle around the whole Roman Empire. Eventually, he would draw a circle around the whole world.
With the help of those two stories, Jesus declares that this new age that he’s come to usher in really is for everyone, especially for those who are oppressed or captive, poor or suffering. He has come to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, the jubilee, which (you may remember from last week’s sermon), is the year that debts are forgiven, slaves set free, and balance restored to all our relationships – it’s when the whole deck gets reshuffled.
The locals are excited about this vision, until Jesus mentions the widow and the Syrian commander. It was as though he said: “I am throwing a fantastic party, and I want you to come.” Then, just as you start to swell with pride at receiving a special invitation, he adds: “Oh, and I’ve also invited your childhood nemesis. You don’t mind if she sits next to me, do you?”
OR maybe it’s like saying: “I’m giving out free tickets for everyone to see the Super Bowl – live! It’s going to be a great day! And by the way, we’ve changed the rules, so the game will definitely end in a tie – everybody gets a trophy!” What?? We prefer a good competition, especially when the good guys win and the bad guys get their come-uppance. But Jesus isn’t interested in entitlement, and he’s definitely not interested in revenge. “Here’s the thing,” he says, “I’ve got Grace to spare, forgiveness overflowing, for any who has need, beginning with those at the very edges of society and extending to the whole world.”
We tend to see the world through the lens of our own hopes and our own fears. We assume that what we admire, God admires, and what offends us, offends God. But God is bigger than that. That’s what I said to our youth group on Wednesday evening when we met together. This has been a heart-broken week for the Staples High School community. Last weekend, one of Staple’s English teachers, Cody Thomas, died by suicide. Just a couple weeks prior, a 9th grader named Christopher Lanni also died, evidently by suicide. One thing that sets suicides apart from other deaths is the questions they leave in their wake – Why and how and what could we have done? Part of grieving is recognizing that we’ll never have all the answers to those questions.
But here’s one question we can address together, one I believe we must address, as a community of faith. The question is: Does a person who dies by suicide end up beyond the reach of Christ’s forgiveness, outside God’s embrace? Will that person be somehow condemned for all eternity? You may have heard of, or even grown up in churches where the answer to that question is a definitive ‘yes.’ But I believe, with every fiber of my being, that God is bigger than that.
And I am not alone. Rob Bell (who created the Nooma video series that some of you have seen) wrote an entire book called Love Wins, to address the question: “What kind of God would save some people and leave others to suffer forever?” In the introduction, he writes:
“A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends eternity in torment and punishment in hell with no chance of anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and that to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.”
“…misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.”
The Jesus I know was far more concerned with easing suffering than with condemning people. Far more intent on mending community than on tearing it apart. If he stirred things up, which he did, all the time, it was for the sake of those who are held down or left out. “You think you are better than they are? Better than a poor widow? More deserving than the commander of your enemy’s army? Think again.”
The truth is those who die by suicide are no less deserving of God’s love and forgiveness than the rest of us. We all have tangled lives. Some folks suffer distress so deep that they can’t find their way out. People who die by suicide don’t want to end their life, they want to end their pain. End it, because they feel imprisoned by it. When that desperate need to escape, leads to a death by suicide, does God turn Her back, close the book? On the contrary. Jesus said, “I have come to proclaim release to the captives….” That includes those who are captive to clinical depression. Jesus said, “I have come to give sight to the blind.” That includes those who can’t find their way out of the dark valley of despair. Jesus said, “I have come to let the oppressed go free.” That includes anyone who has ever felt diminished or rejected. On Easter morning, we say that death has been defeated. Not even the grave can stand in the way of Christ’s loving, healing work.
We don’t always know what to do with suicide, how to find our way through the pain, the anger, the sadness. It can feel like one big failure. Their failure, our failure.
But sisters and brothers in Christ, know this, trust this: God’s love is bigger than our every failure, wider than our widest view; deeper than our deepest pain. God’s love does not end.
Nothing in the Bible says that suicide is an unforgivable sin. But there is this: In the early years of the Jesus movement, when the convert Paul was planting new churches, he wrote a letter to the members of a young congregation in Rome. In it, he said: “I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.” (Romans 8:32)
No exceptions. None at all.
This Season of Epiphany (between Christmas and Lent) is all about re-discovering Jesus – who he was, what he was about and what he can teach us about God. That day in the synagogue, he announced that he had come to proclaim release to the captives. Bigger and bigger he drew his circles, and they continue to expand, like concentric ripples on the water, circles wide enough to include the widows and the soldiers, Jews and Greeks, Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians, Muslims who have been profiled and African-Americans who have been redlined; gay youth who have been bullied; refugees who have been sidelined, clinically depressed people who have been unfairly judged, you and me and them and us and every captive yearning to be free…
To all of us, Christ continues to say, “I’ve got Grace to spare, forgiveness overflowing, for any who has need, beginning with those at the very edges of society and extending to the whole, wide world. We are ALL embraced by God’s bigger than big, unending love. This is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God.
Scriptures
Psalm 71 – New Revised Standard Version
1In you, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame.
2In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.
3Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
4Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
5For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. 6Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
Luke 4:14-30 – New Revised Standard Version
14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18“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, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23He 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.’” 24And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25But 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; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They 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. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.