"Why We Can't Wait," a sermon on Luke 13:10-17, preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Detroit

 

"Why We Can't Wait"

Luke 13:10-17

The story we just heard goes straight to the heart of Jesus’ mission as proclaimed in Luke’s gospel.  Earlier in the gospel, in chapter 4, Jesus was also in a synagogue on the Sabbath when he first announced his mission, describing it in terms of human liberation and justice and abundance: “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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19).

In today’s reading, the theme of liberation resonates strongly. When Jesus sees the woman, he calls to her and says, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Later, when Jesus debates the leader of the synagogue and asks, “Should not this woman be set free from her bondage on the sabbath day?”  he is drawing directly from Deuteronomy 5, the version of the commandment that connects Sabbath rest to Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt.

The synagogue leader was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, and said, “There are six days for work. So, come and be healed on those days—not on the Sabbath.”  But Jesus remembers that the Sabbath law commemorates Israel’s liberation, so he interprets it to be a day for enacting liberation in the present.  To those who want the woman to wait, he says, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?  Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham…be set free on the Sabbath day from what has bound her?”

            In his 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr writes about 1963 as a pivotal year in the American Civil Rights movement.  He includes his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is a call for urgency. 

            Dr. King wrote the letter as a response to eight local white clergymen who had criticized his activities in Birmingham and appealed for a more patient and restrained approach to advocating for civil rights. The "Letter" expresses King's deep disappointment with "the white moderate," who "paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom."

The gospel story we heard today is not just a healing story. Luke doesn’t really include details about the healing itself. I agree with one of my colleagues that, at its core, it's a story about what God intends. It's about the urgency of seeing God's intentions brought to pass without delay.[1]

            The primary argument of Dr. King’s “Letter” still speaks to us today, which is why in 2018 the 223^rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) began a process toward amending the Book of Confessions to potentially include the letter.

The synagogue leader in today’s gospel story objects to healing this woman on the Sabbath.  Her condition isn’t life-threatening. She’s learned to live with it over almost two decades. So he doesn’t see why she couldn’t just wait a little while longer.  The synagogue leader has misunderstood the basic intention of observing the Sabbath.

            But Jesus reveals a deep logic for why the woman should be restored now. According to Deuteronomy, the Sabbath offers a weekly reminder of how much God values freedom and detests injustice:

“Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work -- you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.  Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.”[2]

The original intention of the Sabbath, according to Deuteronomy, is to provide relief, even if only temporary, from any system that would deny a person -- or any part of creation -- a share of rest, peace, wholeness, dignity, and justice.  So, when the synagogue official says, "Wait just one more day." Jesus answers, "No. The Sabbath is a good day for setting people free. In fact, the purpose behind the Sabbath -- the value God places on wholeness – makes it necessary that I do this now. We can't wait."

In Luke 13, Jesus reaffirms what his scriptures have taught him.  As Matt Skinner puts it, “to perpetuate injustice is to defile the holiness of the weekly Sabbath day that God ordained. To deny freedom is to offend the God of the Exodus. It's because of who God is that Jesus can't wait.”

            Now, the white religious leaders whom Dr. King addressed in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” reflected the views of a majority of American society at the time. One survey from 1964 found that 63% of Americans agreed that “civil rights leaders are trying to push too fast” and 58% agreed that the actions of people of color have, “on the whole, hurt their cause.”[3]

            Dr. King criticized white faith leaders and churches that perpetuate injustice by hiding behind theologies that expect God’s blessings to come only in the future.  What’s the old saying, “There’ll be pie in the sky, in the sweet by and by, after you die:

            So, why do some people have a sense of urgency about working for justice, while others just don’t?   Why are some people ready to confess and repent of what the Rev. Jim Wallis calls “America’s original sin,”[4] while others refuse to acknowledge any ways they may benefit from privilege? Why do some react with defensiveness, silence, or argumentativeness when the conversation makes them feel uncomfortable?

            I think much of the resistance comes from fear.  In the church, whether it’s local congregations or presbyteries or denominations, some are afraid of causing conflict…or alienating people, who may leave the church or withhold financial support. Some are afraid of change and becoming a different kind of church that they can’t yet imagine.

            Twenty years ago, when I was fairly new to the presbytery, I was part of the Presbytery’s Anti-Racism Team, which was commissioned and went through a lot of intensive training, to try to deal with structural racism in the presbytery, in response to some events of the time. Over the years, there was pushback, and eventually we no longer had a Presbytery Anti-Racism Team.   Our Presbytery is struggling again…still with racism.  It’s time to do the work that leads to liberation and healing. We can’t wait.

           

            This past week, The New York Times published “The 1619 Project” to re-examine the legacy of slavery in the United States and timed for the 400^th anniversary of the arrival in America of the first enslaved people from West Africa.[5]  The project’s essays trace links from America’s slave-owning history through the Jim Crow era and into persistent racial inequalities today. The project is an attempt to correct America’s historical ignorance about the causes of contemporary injustice, to place “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story Americans tell ourselves about who we are.”[6]

            Predictably, there has been a backlash from some people who hold onto a particular vision of patriotism that centers on the ideal of white innocence, who are angry and uncomfortable with the reporting and insist that structural racism is a myth.[7]

             

            Look around our region and our nation.  Just this week a candidate for City Council in Marysville, Michigan made national headlines with her statements about her conviction that their city needed to remain a mostly white city, and that interracial couples are breaking God’s law. Does she think she’s a racist?

            Our national government has policies and practices that dehumanize immigrants and those who seek asylum. We have elected officials who promote hatred and division for political gain. 

            Young people and others around our nation tell us they’re afraid because of gun violence…and they want to feel safe.  The list could go on and on…

Talking about injustice and racism are hard, but necessary.  We can’t wait.

We need to learn how to talk respectfully and constructively with one another.  We need to learn to listen to one another to build true understanding and empathy.

A lot of white people don’t like to think that we’ve benefitted from white privilege, or that we do or say racist things without even being conscious of it. And yet, some of us have committed ourselves to gather to discuss books like Waking Up White[8] or White Fragility[9] and have felt challenged and encouraged to continue to grow as anti-racists. We have a number of other excellent resources available that could be the basis of these conversations, like Ibram Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning and Ijeomo Oluo’s So You Want to Talk about Race.

We need to learn how to be together, to be honest and respectful and kind with one another, and find ways for the healing we need to begin, so we can all be set free from whatever has bound us.  We need to work together and live further into Beloved Community together.

We live in such a broken, hurting world. We look around our cities and the world, and it can feel overwhelming.  But we follow Jesus, in his Way of love and justice. We are called to carry out his mission of healing and liberation.

Part of the good news is that we are not alone.  We have been baptized into God’s family and are blessed to be part of congregations where we can be nurtured and encouraged and challenged to grow in love and faith. And we have resources in the presbytery. For those who are seeking learning opportunities, you might check out Table Setters groups in our presbytery or the group that’s forming under the Rev. Kevin Johnson’s leadership.

            As a diverse, multicultural congregation, Westminster Church has some unique opportunities to practice living into Beloved Community and to embody God’s love and justice in and for the world.  

            We can’t wait.  In the words of our Presbyterian “Brief Statement of Faith,” the good news is that, “in a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.…

            “With believers in every time and place, we can rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[10]

            Praise be to God!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Guest Preacher

Westminster Presbyterian Church, Detroit

August 25, 2019

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[1] Matthew L. Skinner, “Why We Can’t Wait,” from ON Scripture. http://day1.org/7456-on_scripture_why_we_cant_wait_luke_131017_by_matthew_l_skinner

[2] Deuteronomy 5:12-15

[3] https://twitter.com/NathanKalmoe/status/753250522476392448

[4] Jim Wallis, America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Brazos Press, 2016.

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

[6] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/20/20813842/1619-project-new-york-times-conservatives-slavery

[7] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/25/1879981/-The-1619-Project-The-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-racist-responses

[8] Debby Irving, Waking Up White.  Elephant Room Press, 2014. This book was commended to the Presbyterian Church (USA) by our previous Co-Moderators of the General Assembly.

[9] Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press, 2018.  For a 20-minute introduction to DiAngelo’s work, you can watch the video of her work with a Methodist Church group:  http://www.gcorr.org/video/vital-conversations-racism-dr-robin-diangelo/

[10] Presbyterian Church (USA), “Brief Statement of Faith” (1990), in Presbyterian Book of Confessions.

"Disturbingly Good News." A Sermon on Luke 4:21-30 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Mount Precipice in Nazareth

"Disturbingly Good News"

Luke 4:21-30

Today’s Gospel lesson picks up where we left off last week. Jesus has gone back to Nazareth, his hometown.  The hometown boy who’s done well has come home to preach, and the synagogue is probably packed. Luke says Jesus’ fame has spread throughout the countryside. People love a winner, and they love a spectacle. This crowd knows Jesus, and he knows them.

Jesus is asked to read the scripture at the Sabbath service at the synagogue.  He stands up to read and is handed the scroll containing the Book of Isaiah.  He reads,

            “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor…”

            When Jesus is done reading, he rolls up the scroll and sits down to preach, as was the custom. With the eyes of the crowd fixed on him, he says, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

            Today, the hopes in this passage are being realized in your hearing. Today Jesus has come to release and restore, to reach and redeem. Jesus takes this promise from the prophet Isaiah and brings it into what Cleo LaRue calls now-ness.

            As Cleo points out, “Sometimes it is dangerous to do things now. If Jesus said someday, tomorrow, after a while, by and by, or in the not-too-distant future, he could have pacified the people in their disappointment about where and to whom he has been sent to minister. But when he says today—this is my mission and my ministry—he draws a line in the sand and provokes a response.”[1]

            Martin Luther King Jr. knew the dangers inherent in doing things today. Dr. King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after southern white moderate clergy criticized his nonviolent protests as “unwise and untimely.”

            “Change,” they told Dr. King, “must come slowly.” They urged him to stop the sit-ins and marches for a while and give things time to settle down. They saw negotiation with the white power structure as the more reasonable path and advised King to be more patient in his pursuit of civil rights for all Americans.

            Dr. King explained to his critics that he had never engaged in a direct-action movement that was “well-timed.” He refused to abide by a more cautious approach, saying that waiting is too much of a burden for oppressed people to continue to bear. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”  But there has always been something unsettling about those who choose to act today.

           Everything had started out so well at the synagogue. The people had been amazed and impressed at the gracious, prophetic words that came from Jesus’ mouth and spoke well of him.  But then things had turned ugly and murderous. 

            The problem, David Jacobsen suggests, is when the prophetic grace, that divine favor Jesus preaches about, meets up with privilege.[2] Jesus sees into people’s hearts, and seems to recognize in his hometown hearers how they will react even before they realize. They go from amazement to consternation quickly. When Jesus uses a proverb from about physicians and pairs it with another about the fate of prophets in their own hometowns, he knows his words of prophetic grace will meet with rejection.  They want to throw Jesus off a cliff!

           I think another thing that was unsettling to the people in the synagogue was that when Jesus makes his declaration about the nature of the gospel, the good news doesn’t protect privilege and power for the hometown people, the people like “us.”  Jesus was proclaiming that “the Lord’s favor” was extended toward everyone.   

            For people who have a certain amount of power or privilege, for those who are afraid that if there won’t be enough for them if those other people get what they need— this is unsettling.   

            Luke begins telling about Jesus’ ministry with the story of the sermon in Nazareth because--if we are going to hear the good news Jesus brings-- the way we hear good news has to change.  We can’t hear what Jesus has to say with ears attuned to “us” and “them.”  Luke wants us to understand that the gospel is good news for anyone who will receive it as good news of God’s mercy. 

            The good news is for everybody, Luke insists.  Luke begins his gospel with this conflict about “us” and “them,” but before his story is over at the end of the Acts of the Apostles, every kind of person he can think of will be brought into the embrace of the good news:  rich and poor…women and men…aristocrats and beggars…Romans and Jews, and people of every nationality under heaven.  Ethiopian eunuchs, for heaven’s sake!! 

There is no “them” in the gospel of Luke, only “us”—the family of God in Christ.  Luke underlines the point by telling us how Jesus said the most scandalous things, like “God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”[3]  Even “those people.”   Those other people.

           I think it was Fred Craddock who said we have trouble reading the gospel of Luke because “We are ‘either/or’ people in the hands of a ‘both/and’ God.” That makes a lot of people uncomfortable.  The way Luke tells it, some people get mad enough to murder Jesus.

            The movie “Ruby Bridges” is based on the true story of what happened to a six-year-old African-American child when the federal government ordered the New Orleans public schools to integrate in the 1960’s.  Ruby Bridges was one of several little girls who were picked to be the first African-Americans to attend the all-white public schools. 

            The scenes in which we see Ruby enter the school, protected by federal marshals, surrounded by a screaming crowd of protesters, are a powerful reminder of how violent and ugly people can be when their idea of how things are supposed to be is threatened. 

            Probably most of the people in that crowd went to church on Sundays.  They were parents who loved their children and thought they were doing what was best for them when they told them they shouldn’t play with African-American children.

            In one scene, set in the teacher’s lounge, a teacher said a quick grace as she prepared to eat lunch, before spewing racist comments to justify her opinion that persons of color didn’t belong in their school.

            It’s hard to deal with a Christ who confronts our settled ideas about things.  Jesus the Christ is surely the one who comforts and helps us.  But the Christ is also the one who challenges and upsets us and breaks down our dividing walls.

            We live in a broken world where we lock our doors and set our security systems, in a time when some will exaggerate and exploit our fears to turn us against other children of God. And yet those of us who are gathered here know that this is not God’s hope for us. We are invited and challenged to consider a different way to think of ourselves and our neighbors.

            “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” This “today” signals that the age of God’s reign is here…that the time of God’s redeeming purposes has arrived, the “today” that Tom Long describes as “God’s good future hurtling toward us, bringing the finished work of God to an unfinished world.”[4]

We are here because God has invited us here, out of God’s amazing, gracious love.  We are invited to live into God’s beloved community, in which we are loved and forgiven and healed and commissioned and sent out to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Favor for all the broken-hearted: us and them and everyone, until all the dividing walls of us and them are broken down and we are all beloved children of God together.

Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

February 3, 2019

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[1] Cleophus J. LaRue, in “Living By the Word,” in The Christian Century.

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/february-3-epiphany-4c-luke-421-30

[2] David Schnasa Jacobsen, Commentary on Luke 4 at Working Preacher.   https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3955

[3] Luke 6:35

[4] Thomas Long, quoted by Cleophus J. LaRue, in “Living by the Word.” https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/february-3-epiphany-4c-luke-421-30

"Jesus' Mission and Ours." A Sermon on Luke 4:14-21 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church

"Jesus' Mission and Ours"

Luke 4:14-21

We’re in the season after Epiphany.  A few weeks ago, on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, we heard how when Jesus was baptized and was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

Afterward, Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and he began to teach in the synagogues.

            When Jesus came to the synagogue in Nazareth on the sabbath, he stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He found the passage that confirmed who he was and what his mission was and read it: “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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  He began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

            In the midst of everything we see around us in our world, in the midst of a transition in pastoral leadership in this congregation, the scriptures still speak to us today.

In February, I’ll be attending a Transitional Ministry training event in Oregon. One of the books I’m required to read in preparation is Changing the Conversation: A Third Way for Congregations, by Anthony B. Robinson.  It’s quite a helpful and readable book, and I commend it to you.

In this book, Robinson tells how management guru Peter Drucker was known for asking two simple but revealing questions of his clients: “What business are you in?” and “How’s business?” 

Robinson was interviewing with a pastor search committee when he asked a similar question of them: “What do you believe this church is trying to accomplish for God?”  The question caught some members of the committee by surprise and left them groping for words. One man looked slightly troubled by the question. He said, “Well, we’re trying to do what we’ve always done, of course.”

            This response, Robinson wrote, shows a lack of clarity about purpose.

Over time, organizations tend to lose sight of whatever purpose called them into existence in the first place    or they may drift away from it.  When they’re not centered on their purpose, they devote a lot of their energy and resources to their own survival or maintenance.

            When congregations aren’t centered in a clear and compelling purpose, they tend to become reactive. “They try to respond to every need, itch, hurt, and crisis that comes along. And that is a recipe for burnout, because people’s needs, itches, and hurts are limitless and endless.” 

Also, when there’s a lack of shared purpose, congregations and pastoral leaders tend to become too focused on trying to keep everybody happy and together.  You might hear people saying things like, “We can’t do that—so and so says if we do, they’ll leave the church… or withhold their giving…” or whatever. When there’s a lack of a strong sense of shared purpose, a few people can hold the congregation hostage and keep the leaders and the congregation from moving forward in new directions.  It is indeed a recipe for burnout.

            As disciples of Jesus Christ, we have a mission to fulfill.  When we listen carefully and prayerfully to the scriptures-- we discover that God's Word speaks directly to us.  It suddenly can become very exciting...and very energizing.

            As Anthony Robinson puts it, “vital congregations have a compelling, biblically shaped, theologically informed purpose or reason for being that marshals their energies and resources and directs their use.”

            Littlefield Church has gone through a lot of changes over the years. The community and the world around the church have changed.

            When this congregation was planted, it was going to be a neighborhood church. The way they envisioned things in the beginning, they weren’t going to need a parking lot, because people were going to walk to church from their homes in the nearby neighborhoods in Dearborn or Detroit, or drive a short distance.  That worked well for several decades. There was a time when there were two Sunday services, with people sitting in the balcony and an overflow room, when Littlefield had assistant pastors and Christian Education directors. In 1960, Littlefield’s membership peaked at 1,250.

            That was a pivotal time in local churches and on a national level, as church denominations lost anywhere from a quarter to a third of their members, and baby boomers deserted their childhood churches in large numbers.

            This was the beginning of some challenging times for Littlefield Church. The Rev. Harry Geissinger was called to serve as senior pastor in 1961, bringing the strong visionary leadership the congregation needed.

            The 1960’s and 1970’s were tumultuous times in our society, in the world, and in the church. The civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, changing attitudes toward institutions, and many complex and divisive issues all had their impact on the church.

            Life in the metropolitan Detroit area was marked by social upheaval and a series of crises in the 1960’s, including block-busting, cross-district busing for schools, and the 1967 race rebellion. Beginning in the late 1960’s, Littlefield struggled with the impact of “white flight” out of its nearby Detroit neighborhoods and significant growth in the number of Arab-Americans of Muslim and Eastern Orthodox faiths in its Dearborn neighborhoods.

            The Civil War in Lebanon, beginning in 1974, resulted in a rise of Lebanese immigrants into Dearborn and dramatic changes in the demographics of the neighborhoods near the church. Then, in 1978, the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon sent waves of Southern Lebanese Shia Muslims into Dearborn. You can read more about this in the history booklet we wrote for the 75^th anniversary of the church. (A lot of it is included on the Facebook page we posted for the 85^th anniversary.)[1]

            As the Littlefield history document states, these changes in the community had the result of reducing the size of the Littlefield congregation and expanding the mission.

Looking back on this time, a mission study observed, “In the face of tremendous social changes going on all around it, Littlefield Presbyterian Church did not split apart or turn in on itself, it didn’t close down or lose faith, thanks in large measure to the commitment and talents of Rev.Geissinger. The church was blessed with strong clergy and lay leaders and a congregation committed to new ideas and approaches. With these assets, the church survived the turmoil of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.”

            Then, in the mid- to late-seventies, a need emerged and was identified: to develop a relationship with our Arab-American neighbors, to bridge cultural differences and overcome misunderstandings among Christians and Muslims. Since that time, Littlefield Presbyterian Church has taken a leadership in carrying out a ministry of reconciliation.

            Dr. William Gepford arrived in 1979 to begin his work as Director of Arab-American Relations in Dearborn and Assistant Pastor of Littlefield. This was a result of “a strong sense of mission and faith in the future,” following months of discussion, careful planning, and broad-based fund-raising….”[2]

            Over those decades, the membership numbers of Littlefield and other churches were declining. But Littlefield was doing important work building bridges, promoting understanding between Christians and Muslims and members were reflecting the light of Christ as they served the needs of the new neighbors.

            In 1994, after the resignation of the Rev. Del Meester, the church did another mission study. This is what they declared about the church: “Outreach to the community is at the heart of Littlefield Church’s ministry….Our primary challenge is the one that has always faced Christians: to discern what God is calling us to do, and to reflect and model God’s love, justice, and peace….The members of Littlefield believe that the work of the Holy Spirit among us gives us energy and mission and that we are called by God to reinvent and reorient ourselves with regard to who we are and what we do as God’s people.”

           

            It was after this mission study and an interim period that I was called to serve as your pastor. Over the 22 years that have followed, we’ve worshiped and studied and learned and grown and served God and our neighbors and witnessed to God’s love and justice and peace together.  

            Now, you’re entering a new time of transition. Though, truth be told, we’ve been on a journey of transformation over these past few decades. We’ve been learning and growing and studying. Within the past few years, we’ve worked together to come up with a brief statement of purpose:

“Why we exist: To love God, one another, and all people. To show God’s love in our work for peace and justice.” Two short sentences to summarize why you exist as a congregation. You also worked on a list of your CORE VALUES.

           

We worked on the statement of purpose because mission can't be an optional activity for the church.  The church exists for mission.

            If a congregation desires to be a vital, growing community of believers, with a faithful future, they need to resist the temptation of quick, simple answers, follow Jesus’ example, and spend time in the wilderness to discern God’s will.  They need to open themselves to the leading of the Spirit, so they can discover more fully the calling God has for them in this particular time.

            The good news is that we can trust in God the Holy Spirit, “everywhere the giver and renewer of life." We can trust that, in a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.…

            “With believers in every time and place, we can rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[3]

            Praise be to God!

            Amen!

             

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

January 27, 2019

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[1] Littlefield Presbyterian: 85 Years of Mission on Facebook.

[2] Littlefield Presbyterian Church: Celebrating 75 Years of Mission and Ministry, 1930-2005, page 4.

[3] Quote from “Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), 1990.

"Disturbingly Good News". A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 4:21-31, preached on January 31, 2016

"Disturbingly Good News"
Luke 4:21-31

Today’s Gospel lesson picks up where we left off last week. Jesus has gone back to Nazareth, his hometown.  He’s been asked to read the scripture at the Friday night service at the synagogue.  He stands up to read and is handed the scroll containing the Book of Isaiah.  He reads,

            “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor…

            So far, so good.   The people in the synagogue of Nazareth were amazed at the gracious words that came from Jesus’ mouth and spoke well of him. 

            Luke’s story of Jesus preaching in his hometown synagogue is perplexing.   Everything starts out so well.  Then worship erupts in a brawl.  They want to throw Jesus off a cliff!

            You’ve heard it before:  I have good news and I have bad news.   How you hear it, and whether you hear it as good news or bad news depends on where you stand.  For some people, it’s good news.  For others, it’s bad news.

            Every preacher has bad days and sermons that don’t go over well.   We like to forget days like that.  But Luke wants us to remember this sermon that evoked such violent reaction.  Why did they want to kill Jesus? 

            If the first point of Jesus’ sermon was that this is “the year of the Lord’s favor,” the second point of the sermon was that “the Lord’s favor” was extended toward everyone—absolutely everyone. 

            This passage is a declaration of the nature of the gospel.   The good news isn’t about protecting privilege and power, but rather being part of the fulfillment of God’s vision of justice and peace.  “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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”                           

            Jesus is preaching a God whose favor falls upon the just and the unjust… the righteous and the unrighteous…the faithful and the unfaithful.  That hardly seems fair.  It offends our sense of fairness.

            Jesus is proclaiming a gospel of freedom and healing for those on the margins:  those who are among the working poor and the poorest of the poor… those who long to live in safety and freedom… those who struggle against addiction and their families… those who need various kinds of healing. 

            And Jesus’ illustrations!  They grated against the peoples’ expectations.  As Jesus told the people in his hometown, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah—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, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.

            Sidon, of course, is in modern-day Lebanon; and Syria is still Syria.  This isn’t what the people of Nazareth expected.   It doesn’t sound like good news to them. 

            The good news / bad news is that Jesus doesn’t appear in history in order to give people what they want and expect.   He came to transform human life.  He comes to change things.  He comes to change us.

            Luke begins telling about Jesus’ ministry with the story of the sermon in Nazareth because if we are going to hear the good news Jesus brings, the way we hear good news has to change.  We can’t hear what Jesus has to say with ears attuned to “us” and “them.”  Luke wants us to understand that the gospel is good news for anyone who will receive it as good news of God’s mercy. 

            The good news is for everybody, Luke insists.  Luke begins his gospel with this conflict about us and them, but before his story is over at the end of the Acts of the Apostles, every kind of person he can think of will be brought into the embrace of the good news:  rich and poor…women and men…aristocrats and beggars…Romans and Jews, and people of every nationality under heaven.  Ethiopian eunuchs, for heaven’s sake!!  There is no “them” in the gospel of Luke, only “us”—the family of God in Christ.  Luke underlines the point by telling us how Jesus said the most scandalous things, like “God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”[1]  Even “those people.”   Those other people.

            As Peter Gomes wrote, “the people take offense, not so much with what Jesus claims about himself, as with the claims that he makes about a God who is more than their own tribal deity.”[2] 

            The eyes of everyone in the synagogue are fixed on Jesus, and he’s turning their expectations on their head.

            Fred Craddock describes our difficulty in reading the gospel of Luke by saying that “We are ‘either/or’ people in the hands of a ‘both/and’ God.[3]

            Throughout the gospel of Luke, we see Jesus demonstrating the intentions of this “both/and” God.  It’s in Luke’s gospel that we find the parable of the prodigal son.  The younger son takes his inheritance, goes away and blows it, comes back broke and beaten.  The dutiful, obedient older son who never left home wants nothing to do with him.  The loving father goes out to both sons, the younger one and the older one, the irresponsible one and the responsible one.  The father reaches out to both/and. 

            “We are ‘either/or’ people in the hands of a ‘both/and’ God.”  That makes a lot of people uncomfortable.  The way Luke tells it, some people get mad enough to murder Jesus.

            The movie “Ruby Bridges” is based on the true story of what happened to a six-year-old African-American child when the federal government ordered the New Orleans public schools to integrate in the 1960’s.  Ruby Bridges was one of several little girls who were picked to be the first African-Americans to attend the all white public schools. 

            The scenes in which Ruby entered the school, protected by federal marshals, surrounded by a screaming crowd of protesters, was a powerful reminder of how violent and ugly people can be when their idea of how things are supposed to be is threatened. 

            Probably most of the people in that crowd went to church on Sundays.  They were parents who loved their children and thought they were doing what was best for them when they told them they shouldn’t play with African-American children.

            In one scene, set in the teacher’s lounge, a teacher said a quick grace as she prepared to eat lunch, before spewing racist comments to justify her opinion that persons of color didn’t belong in their school.

            It’s hard to deal with a Christ who confronts our settled ideas about things.  The Christ is surely the one who comforts and helps us.  But the Christ is also the one who challenges and upsets us.

            What made the hometown folk in Nazareth want to kill Jesus?  All were speaking well of him and are amazed at the gracious words that come out of his mouth--  until he begins to attack their sense of community and their ideas about how things are supposed to be. 

            The people of Nazareth want Jesus to do what he did in Capernaum.  They are his own kin, after all, not a bunch of strangers like the people in Capernaum.  He belongs to them.  They have a special claim on him which they expect him to honor by doing his best for them.

            As far as we know, Jesus did nothing for the people of Nazareth--  except remind them that God’s sense of community is bigger then theirs was.  He offended them by telling them not one but two stories about how God had passed over them and their kind in order to minister to strangers--  first the widow from the wrong side of the tracks in Zarephath   and then Naaman the Syrian, who was an officer in the army of Israel’s enemies.                      Can you imagine? 

            Now, Jesus wasn’t telling them anything new.   He was telling them things that were in their own scriptures--  but that wasn’t how they used scripture.         We don’t like to hear that our enemies are God’s friends.   We don’t like it when someone suggests that God loves the people we don’t want to sit next to--  the people who disturb or offend us.  The people who belong to God just as surely as we do.

            No matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to get God to respect our boundaries.  God keeps breaking down our barriers or plowing right through them.

            The gospel of Jesus Christ dares us to believe that it is God who makes us a community.  We are here because God has invited us here, out of God’s amazing, gracious love.  We are dared to believe that our differences are God’s best tools for opening us up to the truth that is bigger than we are.  The truth is always more than any one of us can grasp all by ourselves. 

            The epistle lessons we’ve been hearing over the past few weeks from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians remind us that “there are varieties of gifts, varieties of services, varieties of activities, which all come from the same God.  In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, which has many parts.  Every one of the parts of the body is important, and none is more important than the others.  We are all part of this body of Christ together.  We belong together, in this community, through our baptism, because God wants us to be here together.

            It’s hard for us to comprehend this.  We only have a partial understanding now, because we aren’t fully mature in the faith yet.  We think like a child, and reason like a child.  We can only see dimly, like looking into an old polished metal mirror.

            In the meantime, we are called to work at living together with one another in community.  We are called to remember:  Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  Love does not insist on its own way.  It is not irritable or resentful.  It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends....

            Words to live by--  with our friends, and with God’s friends.

            The truth is always more than any one of us can grasp all by ourselves.   It takes a world full of strangers and friends to tell us the parts we can’t see yet,   and sometimes we want to kill them for it.  Jesus’ own people tried to kill him, more than once.  They drove him out of town and wanted to hurl him off the cliff.  But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

            We need the gifts of those who are still strangers to us.  God keeps sending strangers to us challenge our ideas when we get too settled in our little ideas about who belongs in God’s community and who doesn’t--   and open ourselves to bigger and more inclusive and gracious ideas about community.  Jesus won’t force us to listen   or to change our minds.  But he will keep calling us to care about those he loves, including refugees and immigrants… and the people of Flint… and anyone who lives on the margins… anyone who needs healing or longs to live in safety and freedom.  His teachings challenge us to see people through the eyes of love… and to see the face of Christ in the face of those we see as “the least of these.”

            God in Christ keeps passing right through our midst and go on the way of self-giving love, bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to captives and recovery of sight to those who are unable to see, freeing those who are oppressed, and proclaiming the year of God’s favor.  

            Jesus calls us to follow, but we have to choose.

            How will we respond?           

                                                                                      

           

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[1] Luke 6:35

[2] Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good about the Good News? (New York: HarperOne, 2007), p. 39, cited in Feasting on the Word.

[3] Fred Craddock, in a lecture at Columbia Theological Seminary, January 1983, quoted by Patrick Willson, in his sermon “Mission as a motive for murder,” at www.sermonmall.com