CEpiphany4-2010

Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; I Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

January 31, 2010

The crowd in the synagogue who has just heard Jesus read from the scroll.

They have heard a prophetic word from him and Luke says

they are amazed at the gracious words that come from him mouth. [4:21]

And they’ve heard reports about him from other villages.

Now here he is in the synagogue with them in his hometown…

Is this Joseph’s son? How can this be?

That a carpenter’s son from our own neighborhood

is becoming before our eyes a prophet to our people.

This crowd who watched Jesus grow up, assumes it knows who Jesus is.

And based on what they are finding out about him,

they assume what can be expected of him.

Jesus is from us, from Nazareth.

Jesus becoming a great prophet will reflect upon us.

What do we think of when we hear

Plains, Georgia - Jimmy Carter

Memphis, Tennessee - Elvis Presley

Liverpool, England - the Beatles

Nazareth - Jesus

But Jesus dashes their claims upon him.

Jesus says twice – I say to you – here is the real truth about me and about you…

He recounts two stories earlier prophets of Israel: Elijah and Elisha

During a famine that afflicted all of Israel, Elijah was sent,

not to Israel, but to dwell with an outsider, a widow in Sidon.

She generously shared her last morsels of food with him.

While many Israelites died in the famine,

she and her household were saved from starvation.

Though there were many lepers in Israel,

when a Syrian man with leprosy was sent to the prophet Elisha,

this outsider was healed.

I dare say that if Pat Robertson had been among the crowd who

heard this prophet Jesus say that God’s healing and saving love

is a favor that rests upon everyone

he would have been right with that crowd who drove Jesus out of town.

Let Pat Robertson’s judgment on the people of Haiti be a reminder to us

of our propensity to use God to validate ourselves over and against others.

Most of our life is lived in knowing ourselves over and against someone else.

My father’s expectations of me tell me who I am supposed to be.

My brother or sister’s role in the family tells me what my place in the family is.

What I think of other countries, other races, other religions,

is something I compare myself to and set myself over and against.

The people in the synagogue that day in Nazareth

wanted Jesus to be a certain way

that would say something about who they were.

We hold our self, our identity, as something we have to hold on to

to claim and test against others.

And when Jesus suggests that favor would rest upon the other, it undid them.

He had taken down the mirror they wanted to look into.

And they tried to chase him out of town and off a cliff.

This prophet they were so ready to boast of as their own.

We see ourselves in a mirror dimly.

Now I know only in part,

then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

James Alison writes:

Of faith, hope, and love, love is the greatest

because it is the coming towards us of our being fully known.

Faith and hope are a relaxing into our being

uncovered, discovered, as someone loved.

The love, the agape love, the self-giving love, that Paul writes so beautifully about

is the love that flows from someone who is so fully known

that he or she has the capacity to fully know.

Because when we are loved and can love in this way,

we have no need of our expectations of others being fulfilled

or that we have to hold onto who we are lest we lose ourselves.

We find a love we can relax into.

Say these words slowly.

Pray these words slowly.

For whoever is on your mind.

For yourself.

A paraphrase of I Corinthians 13:

I am known and loved.

As God is patient with me, so I can be patient.

As God is kind to me, so I can be kind.

Because God knows me and loves me still,

I need not hold myself over and against another.

I don’t need to build up myself or tear another down.

Because God has my best interest at heart

I need not insist that others be interested in me.

Because I am more than others’ expectations of me and disappointments in me,

I can be larger than my expectations of and disappointments in others.

Love bears all things for me.

Love believes all things for me.

Love hopes all things for me.

Love endures all things for me.

Love for me never ends.

Why would we ever want to tighten our grip on such a love?

Why would we squelch it and drive it away?

We do it and we don’t know that we do it.

Perhaps Paul has it well put:

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then

We will see face to face.

Now I know only in part;

Then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

For this Jesus came.

                  Jesus, thou are all compassion. Pure unbounded love thou art.

And yet, he still gets driven out of town.

You are known and loved by an unbounded Love.

Accept it. Rest in it through faith and hope.

And let us never drive such love away.