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Sermon January 30, 2022
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, MSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
The Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany Year C
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi4_RCL.html
Audio: /documents/Eucharist__January_30__2022
Video: https://youtu.be/lDAC6k9W1sE
When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 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. Luke 4:28-29
Please be seated
Some of you may know that I go to see a doctor in the DC area. I have gone to see her for 16 years. My last appointment was this past Friday. For all of these 16 years, she keeps reminding me about the things I need to do to keep healthy. I have to admit I haven't and don't always follow her advice.
And probably most of my life I have had to deal with issues of weight. I don't know about you, but I often don't like to get on the scale. Now the reality is that you still weigh the same amount whether you weigh yourself and know it or not. And I just don't want to face the truth sometimes.
Are there truths that you avoid about yourself?
In our gospel today, Jesus is in Nazareth, his hometown. He has just read from the book of Isaiah. He has told the people that his mission, his calling, is based on these words from Isaiah that we heard last week:
‘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,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ Luke 4:18-19
This morning, we hear what happened next. At first, the people were amazed at what Jesus was saying. But next, we hear that that they started to question who it was that was saying these things, “isn't this Joseph’s son?” They were surprised, it seems, that Joseph's son would say he had come to fulfill this scripture.
Jesus responds with some difficult words. They are words that the people do not want to hear. The people have decided in their own minds what is an appropriate mission for Jesus. Some might have been thinking he was going to overthrow the Roman powers. Some believed his mission should be solely to his own people and not to those considered outsiders. Yet, Jesus does an outrageous thing by saying that people they consider outsiders deserve as much care as those in their group.
Jesus was telling them the truth. It was a difficult truth for them to hear. It was loving and we might say it was tough love.
But the people didn't like what they were hearing and they became angry and drove him out of town. What Jesus was telling them was uncomfortable and upended their view of things.
I think we have all had that experience of hearing a very difficult truth about ourselves or our family or maybe even our church. We don't like what we hear and we shut the truth out.
I've talked before about Bryan Stevenson and his work with the legacy museum and the memorial to people who were lynched. It is his contention that until we face the difficult and often uncomfortable truth about parts of our American history, we won't be able to heal and move on from it.
I think that's what Jesus is trying to tell us. Some truths are hard to hear. We could almost say we are seeing that with some of the banning of the books in schools. Some truths are hard to hear and hard to bear. We want to shut them out. We want to feel comfortable again. We are not happy with being challenged to think in a new and different way.
And yet Jesus calls us in great love to face those truths. Following Jesus contains those challenging moments. The things we don’t want to hear. The times we squirm in the pew. We’re going along just fine, “thank you very much.” We’ve learned new things and we’re doing our best to love God and love our neighbor.
And then there’s Jesus nudging us again or maybe not so tactfully pushing us to grow some more…to see the world in yet a different way.
Dang it!
And yet, what we can truly count on, besides the fact that these times of encouraging us to grow, we can count on the fact that God loves us. We can count on the fact that following Jesus, even when it’s hard and challenging and we want to run him out of town and off the cliff, is about our living our best life…is about our being of the best service to our families and our communities…is about building up the Kingdom of God.
So let us together, as a loving community of followers of Jesus Christ, help each other hear the hard truths Jesus gives to us.
Amen
