A slap to the face. No one really likes them. They are
insulting, degrading, maddening sorts of things, but perhaps what is most
enraging about them is that we as human beings need them. We as sinful
prideful creatures need to be brought up short from time to time no matter how
much we may dislike it.
Many years ago now, there was a coworker I very much had the
displeasure of knowing. He was a belligerent sort of fellow on the best
of days. However, in addition to being highly unpleasant normally he also
just so happened to personally despise the ground I walked on. He made no
bones about not liking me, in fact once he was almost violent, threatening to
punch me despite me literally having no idea what I could have done to set this
man off.
This abuse went on for months, and as so often happens in the
workplace, I learned quickly that we receive very little help from management
in dealing with a workplace bully. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
That wasn’t the worst by far. As co-workers we of course had a job
to do. It was a job I worked hard at and had experience in though it had very
little to do what I went to school for. Well, one day I goofed up.
I made a mistake of procedure – I thought the rules said one thing when
in fact they said quite another – and Mr. Sunshine himself called me out on it.
Oh, he was gleeful. That spark that he got in his eye, that
predatory looking smile he shot at me. I was, shall we say, less than
pleased at life and God in that moment.
My mind immediately went into lawyer-mode. I started
marshalling the arguments I would use, going over everything I’d seen him do
trying to find something – anything really – to accuse him of in return.
After all those months of abuse, of me killing the man with kindness and
him returning nothing but anger and hate in my direction for it, to have to
admit that he was right and I was wrong was an indignity beyond anything I
could comprehend…but then God stopped me. God stopped me and said, “Keven
are you really going to do this?” And we argued it out there in an empty
hallway for awhile. I told God everything that had been happening, I laid
my anger and my frustrations out, and the honest injustice of it all.
That I should be handed over on platter to a man who did nothing but
insist on being my enemy was, quite frankly, galling. But, when I had
gotten all that off my chest, I said to myself, “But he’s right. I made a
mistake. He was right and I was wrong and no matter how else I choose to
slice it, no matter what arguments I want to make or how I might want to assign
blame, that was the reality.
So of course my boss got called in about the matter. He sat
me down and asked me for my side of the story. I said that one of the
other workers on site asked me for what the rule was on given thing, working
from memory I told them it was x but now I have been informed that it was
actually y. I admitted my mistake and apologized. My boss tapped
his pen on the table, looked me straight in the eye and said, “ok then.”
And that was the end of the matter. Oh Mr. Sunshine was not pleased
at all. To God’s glory he was so mad at me over this he couldn’t speak to
me for weeks. But it was hard. In that moment it was so hard to let
my ego go. To not be incensed and turn to self-righteousness in that
moment was so incredibly difficult. It was God slapping me in the face. It
was insulting, it was degrading, and it was absolutely the only way for me to
rely on my God to get through the situation rather
than my pride.
And this is what confuses many people about our gospel story for
today. They read that Jesus is in the synagogue, he reads from the scroll
of Isaiah, announcing that he is here to preach good news to the poor, he is
here to release prisoners and restore sight for the blind. The people
speak well of him and are amazed by his gracious words, but then it seems like
Jesus deliberately blows it. The words that follow next make it seem like
he is trying to enrage them, like he wants to be insulting. Oh, let me
assure you, there is no seeming about it. It looks like Jesus is slapping
his audience in the face because Jesus is, in fact, slapping his audience in
the face.
Jesus says to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me,
‘Physician heal thyself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that
you did in Capernaum.” I tell you the truth no prophet is accepted in his
hometown. There were many widows in Israel during the time of Elijah, and
yet Elijah wasn’t sent to any of them, but rather to a gentile woman living in
Sidon. There were also many with leprosy in the time of Elisha the
prophet, yet only the gentile Naaman from Syria was cleansed.” “Yes, I am
here to proclaim good news to the poor and give sight to the blind, I am here
to release prisoners and give hope to the oppressed. I am here to do all
these things, it’s just a pity that none of it will actually apply to you.”
And so the people are incensed, they are absolutely enraged.
Within moments of hearing this they as one body get up and drive Jesus
out of town in order to throw him off of a cliff. You see, ladies and
gentlemen, this story is according to Luke and according to Luke, Jesus is as
much the S-U-N as he is the S-O-N. He is indeed a purifier, healing the
sick and setting this broken world aright, but Jesus is also very much a
revealer, a light that casts away the shadows and exposes things for all the world
to see. And in this instance, the true
nature of the crowd is made very clear. Yes, when they hear something
they like they’ll praise your name all day long, but one unpleasant truth and
they go from praises and accolades to having murder on their minds just like
that. They were a people who for all the world looked Jewish, acted
Jewish, praised God in the synagogues and acted faithful when the public eye
was on them but in-truth their hearts harbored violence, and their faith was
far more about their own egos than it was about a truthful and loving
relationship with God. They thought they knew Jesus, but the truth was
that Jesus knew far more about them.
And so this begs the question, if this is what Jesus revealed in
his fellow Jews, what will Jesus reveal in us?
What will our Lord, who sees us so clearly and we so dim, what will he
unveil about us this 2016, not only personally but as a congregation. I have no doubt that it will be some really
good things. As a new pastor here I have
been nothing but impressed with you. For
November, you collected over 200 lbs of personal care products for the poor and
the needy. When you’re talking about
feminine hygiene products and bars of soap, 200 lbs is a lot. I took a picture of it all on my phone and I
still show it to people at my other job.
Their reaction? Amazement. They look at all that got collected and they
say to themselves why am I not going to church, why am I not giving to people
that need help? In seminary you hear all
sorts of horror stories, about how people treat the poor on their doorstep. You hear about people who dress up as
homeless and come to church in dirty jackets and hats. They act as someone who has trouble with
things going on upstairs and often they are treated like dirt and shown the
door. But you didn’t do that, I know you
didn’t do that because I saw it up here from this pulpit only a few weeks
ago. You welcomed such people. Maybe some of you were worried, maybe some of
you didn’t even know, but at the end of the day you passed a test that churches
5 times this size fail on a regular basis.
This building has stood here ministering to God’s children for 110 years
and I have no doubt that we will be here for at least a hundred and ten more.
But … there’s a catch. You
see, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that we aren’t remotely done yet means we
aren’t remotely done yet. And being
proven worthy of a job doesn’t mean we get to excuse ourselves from doing that
job. In fact it means we’re going to get
pruned further so we can do our job better.
I will save the majority of this information for my pastor’s report
downstairs, but I tell you this stands to be a banner year for us. 2015 had many problems, but to the surprise
of many researchers it ended up being a turning point for small congregations
in this country. Church closures were
down last year, and for the first time since I decided to go to seminary this
country saw more church starts than church closings. People are becoming interested in going to
small churches again. Small
congregations made up less than 50% of this country’s religious institutions
just five years ago. Last year it jumped
to 59%. Given all the violence America
observed in 2015, people are seeing a need in their lives that everything else
is just failing to fill, and they know they can try to find that in the
megachurch, in the most fantastic shallow Jesus that money can buy, or they can
decide to find that within community.
There are opportunities like we haven’t seen in over a decade if
not longer. If I know God at all, I
believe he’s been orchestrating all this from the start and he’s not going to
allow human pride to get in the way of bringing salvation to his children. In this environment we have the opportunity
to bring the good news in ways we couldn’t imagine just a few years ago, and if
so Jesus is going to say a lot of things to us, a number of which we aren’t
going to want to hear. Jesus is going to
point out rather unhappy things, like that we give to Starbucks far more than
we give to ministry, that when it comes to financial support we are apparently
far more concerned that McDonald’s and Arby’s be successful. He’s also going to point out that we’ll
direct far more people to a mechanic than we will to Him. If we see someone in need we’ll gladly refer
them to someone who will charge them hundreds if not thousands of dollars for a
car that’ll just break down again, but will we direct them to a place that gives
hope, peace, and joy for an eternity? And these are just things I can think of
off the top of my head, these are the challenges God has given me for this year
– more is coming. It needs to.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is my offering envelope. In this envelope is not only the rest of my
pledge for this month, there is enough in here to double it. My family and I have decided to double our
pledge for this month. That’s how much I
believe in this church and what Christ is going to do through its ministry - and
that’s how much were going to try to give going forward. As one of many ministers that this
congregation is blessed with and I am blessed to be among, I want you to know
we don’t just talk a good game, here, we walk it. We up here on this pulpit are not immune to
Jesus’ critiques anymore than anybody else, but we will tell you his critiques
are coming, and while they will always be loving they cannot always be light. The question only remains how will we react
to them? Will we reject them outright or
will we look ourselves in the mirror and say yes? Will we avoid them, will we refuse to grow,
will we respond in vitriolic anger as Jesus’ hometown did so many centuries
ago, or will we respond in repentance and in faith? The church has a glorious future ahead of
her and God can absolutely take us there. Let us not be too afraid to listen.
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