This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 4:21-30. The English Standard Version puts verses 16-30 under the heading “Jesus Rejected at Nazareth.”
Last week, I wrote about verses 14-21.
Those verses end with Jesus receiving a positive reception – almost a standing ovation – in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. People responded to him positively after he indicated he was the Messiah and was the fulfilment Isaiah’s prophecy of a coming liberator.
Jesus was on a high. He could’ve basked in the glory he received. He could’ve started all kinds of enterprises which would’ve drawn attention to himself and multiplied people’s praise of him. But he didn’t do that.
Instead, he did something anyone with any business, legal, media, or political training knows is daft, disastrous, doomed. He knew their hearts. He knew they expected him to give them, his clansmen, priority for healings, casting out demons, for employment. He exposed their hearts.
He never used the word “Messiah”. Because the word would’ve signalled to the Roman occupiers and their cronies that he was a threat to the government and would’ve instantly led them to crucify him. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed to complete his work before he was crucified.
But he said what he knew would provoke them to action and expose their hearts. He told them they’d got it wrong. He told them the Messiah wasn’t exclusively for Jews.[1] He put it starkly. He told them that God had in the past bypassed them and favoured others instead of them.
He cited two examples. The first was a Sidonian, a widow. The second was a Syrian, a soldier. Both were non-Israelites. In both cases, God’s prophets assisted them instead of desperately needy Israelites. It’s odd, but undeniable. God favoured the Israelites. Yet, he aided non-Israelites.
Jesus told them those examples weren’t flukes. It’s the way God is. It’s the way expressed in Jesus’ words recorded in John 3: 16-18. Words which I recounted last week. God doesn’t want anyone to perish. But he lets us make choices, make our own responses, choose our last stops.
Let’s get back to the passage. The people went berserk. They treated Jesus as a betrayer of his community. They couldn’t accept his kindness towards non-Jews, his prioritization of them over members of his own village, his saying that his clansmen were no more “chosen” than others.
They took him to the edge of a steep drop. They attempted to throw him over and kill him. He escaped. We’re not told how. Probably the angels helped him, just as the scriptures said. Just as in the promise text Satan quoted to him earlier, during the Temptation.
Luke has chosen this event as Jesus’ first public engagement in his “good news” about Jesus. Why? Why this? What does Luke want us to see?
Luke wants us to see how fickle people are. How easily they’re swayed. How people turn from friend to foe when we remind them of some bad things our ancestors did. Because that’s what happened. When they heard Jesus’ reminder, those who gave him a standing ovation tried to kill him.
You wonder why some preachers never speak about some portions of their scriptures? In this passage, you have the answer. You wonder why some groups are targeted by religious authorities? In this passage, you have the answer.
Luke wants us to see how insular, how self-centred, we can be. The majority of so-called religious people in his own village didn’t care about the wellbeing of those outside their community. They were clannish. They cared about their own at the expense of others.
Later, there’d be stories of Jews standing up for Roman military officers[2] who built synagogues for Jews. But none about Jews who did good things for others. Not because there weren’t any such stories. But because they were so rare. Because Jesus “own people,” were, on the whole, insular.
But a Nazarene would become one of the world’s best-known figures. A Nazarene who was rejected by his own, just like prophets of old were rejected by their own. A Nazarene who would turn the cross from being a symbol of shame to a mark of leadership, courage and conviction.
There’s another, bigger story in this small story which Luke deliberately put at the beginning of his story of the adult Jesus. Look at the stages in the story: Acceptance. Rejection. Attempted murder. Escape. Expansion.
Does that sound familiar?
Does that remind you of a bigger story? Welcomed in the Jerusalem Temple by prophets and scholars. Rejected by the religious establishment. Falsely charged. Found guilty of plotting to overthrow Caesar. Crucified. Resurrected. Planted churches with crosses around the world.
Do you understand why I titled this column “Luke’s pregnant fourth story of the adult Jesus?”
Peace be with you.
PS: The passage is often called Jesus’ Nazareth Manifesto. Luke’s first three stories about the adult Jesus are: Jesus’ baptism, temptation by the devil, and activities before Nazareth. For more, see my sermon “What is the Gospel? Jesus’ Nazareth manifesto,” from minute 46.
[1] Just as Simeon had said to Jesus’ parents when they brought him to offer the sacrifices for the first-born prescribed in the Mosaic Law. See Luke 2:32, where Simeon describes Jesus as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles.”
[2] Centurion.
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