Luke 4:16-30
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
January 26, 2025
We who follow Jesus believe He is God Almighty.
That means there is nothing He can’t do.
When He walked the earth, He remained God Almighty who with infinite strength calmed a fierce storm at sea, cast out a legion of demons bedeviling a mentally ill man, and walked out of the clutches of an enraged mob intent on hurling Him off a cliff.
Yet, He often refrained from exerting His strength. He restrained Himself even while He was being tortured and executed by Roman soldiers whom He could have easily overcome with His great power.
He also restrained Himself so as to respect and preserve every human being’s self-sovereignty and freedom of choice with respect to Him. Jesus refused to force Himself on anyone. Though it broke His heart, He let that rich young ruler walk away from Him and His disciples forsake Him.
Yes, when love called for it, Jesus could be rough and tough – witness His violent cleansing of the temple and His sharp dressing down of Peter. But almost always His application of strength was gentle. He coerced no one. He’d just offer people possibilities, invite them to give them a try, and then leave it to them to decide whether they would.
We see all this in today’s scripture about Jesus’ return to Nazareth, His hometown.
Jesus goes to synagogue on the Sabbath. It was common in those days to honor a visiting rabbi by giving him a leadership role in the service, an honor the people of Nazareth are no doubt eager to extend to someone whom they’d helped raise and whom they’d heard was working mighty miracles elsewhere.
So, Jesus that day reads from Isaiah 61 and claims to be its fulfillment. Isaiah 61 speaks in the voice of a person who asserts that the Spirit has come upon them, anointed them and sent them to proclaim four things: good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberation to the oppressed. It’s all a part of “the year of the Lord’s favor”, the Messianic age when what Leviticus 25 commanded to occur every 50 years – a Jubilee in which all would be freed from debt and enslavement, would be fully and forever realized. There would then be riches for all those impoverished (whether economically or spiritually), forgiveness for all those with crushing obligations (whether financial or moral), vision for all those blinded (whether to material realities or to higher ones), realities, and liberty for all those in bondage (whether to Roman overlords or to their own sin). In presenting Himself as the One “anointed” by God’s Spirit to usher in this golden age, Jesus evokes for himself the name “Messiah”, which literally means “anointed one”.
At this point, the people of Nazareth love what they’re hearing. The text says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” When they exclaim, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”, they’re not expressing any doubt about Him, but rather delighted wonder over a hometown boy who turns out to be the key Person in the arrival of this glory.
A problem arises, however, because of their history with Jesus. From it they presume a preferential prioritization, if not an exclusive one, for the blessings He brings. They haven’t yet taken in how Jesus plays no favorites or how broadly He means for His grace to reach.
Jesus has to set them straight, even though He knows it will set them off. He cites the proverb He intuits is on their mind: “Doctor, cure yourself”. He gets it that they they’re not thinking of His making Himself better, but of His making them, His first neighbors, better. He gets it that they’ve heard of the wonders He performed over in Capernaum, and want Him to do the same for them in His hometown.
He doesn’t say He won’t, but He focuses on making it clear it’s not all about them, for His mission is broad and fully inclusive. While they might want to hog and hug to themselves His miraculous powers, thinking by their mistaken theology that to let others in on such grace would amount to subtracting some of it from themselves, Jesus strives to open their eyes to see that His blessings are meant for everyone and plentiful enough to go around to all. Their insisting on special privileges and first dibs is rooted in their mistaken theology: not a theology of abundance in trust of God’s unlimited goodness, but a theology of scarcity in the worry that to share God’s grace is to end up with a smaller share of it oneself. They underestimate God!
Picking up on their growing disenchantment and displeasure with Him because of their own jealousy and His inclusive concern for all, Jesus laments, “No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” Those who think they’re the privileged tend to think they’re to have it all, and they don’t take kindly to even the most righteous prophets who don’t cater to the home team but call their own people to a world-wide concern.
Jesus only throws gas on the fire of their ire by citing how in a severe famine God sent the prophet Elijah not to an Israelite insider but to a Lebanese outsider, and the prophet Elisha to a Syrian outsider. How did that go over? “When they heard it, all in the synagogue were filled with rage”.
Now, Nazareth is situated in a hollow in the foothills of the mountains. So, its people “escort” Jesus to the edge of a cliff to throw Him off it to His death. Now, why would such a strong Messiah allow them to take things that far? I can’t think of any reason except that He means to keep the conversation going in hopes of bringing them around. But when things reach the point of no return, Jesus stops their murderous plan in its tracks. He does that, not by pounding on them verbally, nor striking them with lightening, nor bulling His way through them like Saquon Barkley running through a second-string high school defensive line, but by a calm, quiet, gentle exit. The text says he simply “passed through the midst of them and went on his way”.
We who follow Jesus walk in the steps of a God of gentle strength. His way is strength because it takes courage and boldness to live out His all-inclusive and unlimited love, because it takes toughness and self-sacrificial vulnerability to dare to care and to keep trying, and because it takes self-discipline and humility to refrain from answering anger with anger and condemnation with condemnation.
And Jesus’ way is gentle strength as well because in sharing His good news in His way is to repudiate all bullying and steamrolling, to honor everyone’s right to say they’re not interested, to trust God to do the heavy-lifting, and to aim no higher than duplicating Jesus’ wild, wide-open love.
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