JESUS’ STATE OF THE HUMAN HEART SPEECH

SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 4:21-30

We’ve just heard the President’s State of the Union speech, and then in this morning’s gospel reading we heard Jesus’ State of the Human Heart speech.

He had just read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah where the prophet says, “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 sat down and said to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Then those gathered in the synagogue were reported to have spoken “well of him and were amazed at the words that came from his mouth.”

Everything seemed to be going so well, there in his hometown. People were amazed that someone so eloquent and learned and worth listening too had come from Nazareth. Nazareth had earned a reputation as having nothing to commend itself to the outside world. There was a saying on everyone’s lips, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” People were proud of this hometown boy who had put them on the map in a positive way. Their collective chest was swelled with pride. What, then, caused that adulation, that praise to fade from their throats and made them want to throw him off a cliff?

He overheard someone in the crowd say, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” Then he launched himself into comment on that. “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

Now I can resonate with that saying personally. A few years ago out of the blue an invitation came to me to consider returning to my home church to be their minister. I immediately thought of Jesus’ encounter in his hometown. I was not considering a move at that time, but I knew that if I did it wouldn’t be to my hometown. I could just hear all of my childhood buddies who were in that church saying, “Who does he think he is. I remember him when…” You fill in the blank. I just knew that would happen, even though it was a fine church and there were fine people there. I was certain that what would happen to someone so bold as to undertake to return to his or her hometown to be a minister would be what happened to Jesus; the equivalent of being thrown off a cliff.

What caused this sudden shift from community pride to outright hostility? “He went on to say to them, ‘But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over the land; 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 none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’”

That sent them into an uproar. Here he was saying that God is impartial. God spreads love everywhere, even to those outside the community of those who thought they had a lock on God’s love, those who were specially chosen. Jesus was saying that God’s love is not locked up. It is the property of all, and God’s servants, the prophets, spread it around to all liberally and lavishly.

That was what got him into trouble in his hometown. They wanted him to assure them that they were special and that they deserved his full attention, healing and concern. He was intent on responding to God’s love and spreading it around. Salvation was for all was his message.

He knew the state of the human heart, how it is not big enough to admit that the longing for God’s love is not the exclusive property of one town or one country, but that it belongs to all.

Just when we think we know Jesus, he surprises us. We are always looking for someone in our image, but he moves beyond our ability to comprehend how much love he embodies for us, not just for us in particular, but for us universally.

Paul boldly speaks to us of such love when he writes to the Church in Corinth. He tells us what love is. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

He got all that from Jesus. He knew that came from the cross. That is where Christ most vividly portrayed the depth and breadth of God’s love. There on the hill in the sight of world he proclaimed that we were worth dying for even though we are imperfect. Jesus’ death proclaims that if we say that often enough to enough people we will soon think that all of us are worthy of salvation, and then that love that Paul talks about will become real in our lives and we won’t worry about where people come from, or the color of their skin, or their background. We will be glad that they are the recipients of God’s love.

Sermon preached by Reverend Jake Close at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on January 28, 2007.