Today!

[This message based on Luke 4:21-30 was delivered at the Fellowship of Faith (South Presbyterian Church), Rochester NY on 2.2.25. It was not recorded.]

Today he is back! A regular at worship has been away for six Sundays. This is someone who was raised in our congregation. We watched him go through Sunday school and memorize scripture verses by the dozen. We watched him be confirmed, becoming a full member of the congregation. We watched him active in youth group, growing in his faith in God and sharing his faith. When his father died too early, we watched him take the family business and make it thrive. We saw and touched the excellent furniture that shop produced. We have some of that furniture here in our sanctuary. We watched him care for his widowed mother and model how to do that for his siblings. We watched him be baptized in the Jordan by his cousin John. Then he went missing for six consecutive Sundays. We are concerned. We miss him. Where did he go? Will he every come back to this little town?

And today he is back. There is rejoicing. Jesus, the son of Mary is back. Some say exclaim rhetorically, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” What a day this is. This is how it unfolds in Luke’s gospel. Luke tells is more about Jesus’ birth than anyone else. Then his cousin John appears and Jesus willingly submits to his baptism for repentance, even though Jesus had done nothing to repent of. Then the Holy Spirit thrusts him into the wilderness for 40 days, including six sabbath days. Synagogue life goes on in Nazareth, but Jesus is missing for six Sabbaths. We are concerned. We miss him. Where did he go? Will he every come back to this little town?

Now he is back, seated there with James and his other brothers. An attendant brings the scroll to him. He is a good reader and even a better interpreter. The scroll is opened to Isaiah 61:1-2:

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor …”

He begins his commentary in a stunning way: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That is dramatic. I like it when sermons begin with some drama and command my attention. Today! What a powerful first word. Did you notice the first word in this message? Luke likes to use this word. Of the four gospels, Luke uses “today” more than any other. Two moments stand out to me.

• When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” …Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:5, 9-10)
• Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43)

There is an immediacy to the call of Jesus. He doesn’t call us follow him yesterday or tomorrow; he calls us to follow him today, the only day we have. I have plans for tomorrow, but that is all they are–plans. I only have today to live and follow Jesus and love my neighbors.

At this point, his first sermon in his home base of worship is going well. “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” (verse 22). Then the tone changes and the tide turns. Jesus makes two references to stories from the Hebrew scriptures. One would think that would play well in the First Synagogue of Nazareth, especially coming from a hometown hero. First, he refers to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon, to whom the prophet Elijah ministered in a time of severe famine in the land. That widow mattered to God and to the prophet Elijah. Second, he mentions a leper named Naaman, a Syrian, to whom the prophet Elisha ministered. The Syrian leper mattered to God and to the prophet Elisha. Both the widow and the leper received God’s gracious favor. But here’s the rub: both were gentiles, outsiders to the Jewish insiders, perceived adversaries, even enemies.

“When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” (verse 28) What brought on this rage? Two stories about God’s prophets ministering to non-Israelites, gentiles, outsiders? Unfortunately, Israel had forgotten that from its beginning, from the initial calling of Abraham and Sarah, Israel was to be a blessing to all the nations. The faithful synagogue goers of Nazareth missed the point of God sending Jonah to the foreign power of Nineveh to call them, outsiders, to receive God’s gracious good news. Jesus tells two stories from the Hebrew scriptures and suddenly he is not the hometown hero, the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary, always faithful to her synagogue. Instead he is perceived to be a threat to the status quo, a troubler of the superficially calm waters.

This is the first sermon Jesus preached. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is a compilation of many teachings of Jesus, some of them scattered in Luke. Matthew liked to do that. But here in Nazareth, right after Jesus comes back from his 40 days of fasting and being tempted in the wilderness, before he launches full bore into his Galilean ministry, Jesus speaks from Isaiah 61:1-2 about the nature of his calling and that of his followers: “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And that sermon stirs up a hornet’s nest in his home synagogue in Nazareth.

A sermon preached January 21 in the National Cathedral had a similar response. Being a preacher my whole adult life and a professor of preaching in my retirement, I take note when a sermon stirs up things. (Have my sermons stirred up things enough?) The sermon of which I speak was biblically based and graciously delivered. The sermon was based on a passage from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. While the final two minutes have gotten the most attention, I watched the entire sermon and the final two minutes several times. With the new president of the United States in the front row, Bishop Mariann Budde called for a unity based on recognizing the inherent dignity of every person, honest communication in public life, and personal humility. Who could question the biblical validity of those values? Then she spoke directly to the president, not commanding him, but pleading with him to recognize that millions of Americans are scared now of what the government might do to them. She mentioned four groups specifically: transgendered young people, entry level workers, children fearing their parents being separated from them, and strangers fleeing from places of hardship and oppression. The quality she pleaded for is mercy. To treat people mercifully. I thought immediately of one of my favorite teachings in the Hebrew scriptures, a glorious summary of following God, much memorized and quoted: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) Calling us to be merciful is thoroughly biblical.

Jesus begins his first hometown sermon memorably and to enthusiastic response: “’Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Then he tells how God’s mercy extends even to gentiles, to outsiders, to the unlikely, to a gentile widow in Sidon, to a diseased Syrian soldier, and the congregation is enraged. Such is the nature of proclaiming God’s good news made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth: it can both amaze and enrage people. God’s embrace is ever surprising us who think we know the bounds of that circle. God grace is ever widening the circle of mercy and welcome.