Father Riley's sermon from Christ Church, Bastrop February 3, 2019

…Mrs. Jane Barnett led us in Morning Prayer Sunday February 3rd and Father Riley will return to lead us in Holy Eucharist Sundays Feb 10, 17; 24th.  Father Gregg was in Christ Church, Bastrop this Sunday.

…The new Forward Day by Day daily devotion booklets  for February, March; April are in the church, please take one.

4 EPIPHANY - C - 19                                 LUKE 4. 21-30

We heard in last week’s gospel that Jesus had returned to his own hometown, Nazareth. That is where our gospel reading picks up today. It was his custom to attend synagogue worship. Lest we forget, Jesus was a practicing Jew.

His reputation as a teacher and healer had preceded him. For he had already made the rounds of the synagogues in the region of the Galilee. Now he was back home among those who knew him, knew his foster-father, Joseph, and had watched him grow up.

He was chosen to read the lesson for the day. He stood up and opened the sacred scroll to the prophet Isaiah. It was a passage concerning the Messiah. After reading the prophecy, he sat down and commented, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

At first those who had known him from his youth spoke well of him. That is, until Jesus alienated them by reciting two ancient parables, and in addition by the use of two illustrations from scripture that magnified the extension of God’s love and mercy beyond the boundaries of Israel to include the Gentiles.

How quickly the accolades turned into a violent action. “They got up, drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Why did Jesus chose to do that? Why did the locals react they way they did?

Part of their reaction was because Jesus did not do any miracles there. He could see that what they wanted from him was a “sign,” something like what they had heard he had done in Galilee. However, the main reason they drove him out and threatened him with violence was his use of scripture that he had learned in that very synagogue, and that they knew equally as well, that pointed to the fact that their image of God was skewed in one direction only, theirs.

In that, he was accusing them of failing in their God-given mission to be the light of the world, a light that would reflect the love and mercy of God to all nations including the Gentiles. Could it be, then, that in Jesus’ words the people finally heard what the prophet was saying, and in addition realized what God in Christ was doing?

It was not what they wanted to hear, or even to think about. Jesus’ sermon after the sermon, if you will, was not meant to alienate them, but rather to challenge the people of Israel to turn away from their self-centered approach to God and recommit themselves to carrying out the mission God had given them as His chosen people.

Thus, Jesus is rejected at Nazareth. It was a foreshadowing of his rejection by his own people that will lead to his death on the cross. As far as we know, Jesus never returned to his boyhood home. His escape, however, made possible a mission elsewhere just as his resurrection will make possible a mission to the world.

Can we see ourselves in this picture? Do we not speak well of God, and of His Son, Jesus? Do we not marvel at the things Christ said and the things he has done? Yet, are there not those times when we reject what we know God to be about because we disagree with the extent of God’s love and mercy.

Do we not dig in both heels, especially in those situations where we know God is leading us to do what we feel may take us out of our comfort zone? Jesus is all about change.

He came first to God’s chosen people, Israel to challenge them to re-commit themselves to the divine mission that was theirs. He would not let them stay the same. That is, thinking and acting as if God belonged to them and not the other way around.

Their image of God was slanted in their direction and away from all others. God’s love and mercy belonged to them, so they thought. When Messiah came, he would come to rescue Israel and not the world. They were wrong.

Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus offering his own people a new way of approaching God - as Father. He offered them a new concept of God’s kingdom, one that can be realized here on earth as it already is in heaven. He taught them a new understanding of God’s love and mercy that extends beyond the boundaries they had set to include all people.

Jesus’ call to us is always for us to come away from where he finds us, to leave behind whatever it is that keeps us from following Him. Matthew left his tax table. James and John, Peter and Andrew left their nets and the only life they had ever known and followed him.

The blind man on the road to Jerusalem got up out of the dust threw off his dirty cloak and once his eyes were opened, he saw Jesus. Although he was now free to go anywhere, instead, he chose to follow Jesus.

As there are many examples of individuals who readily answered the call of Jesus to come and follow him, there are also many examples of those who wanted to remain where they where or who made excuses why they could not readily respond. The rich young man stands out, as does the one who wished to go back and say goodbye to his family. Then there was the one who said he had to go to a funeral first before he could accept Jesus’ invitation to follow him.

If we are honest, we can see something of our self in those who crowed into the synagogue at Nazareth who thought they knew Jesus. At first attracted to him. Yet the more we know about him and why he has come into our world and into our lives, the more we reject him, whether we realize it or not, by what we say and do, because it is not what we want to hear, or the image of God we wish to see. All of which serves to point to the fact that our view of God can be narrow at times, especially when we cling to our own self-interests that keep us well within the bounds of our own comfort zones.

Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so. This is true. However, God’s love for us in Christ Jesus is a love that calls us to come up higher to a deeper knowledge and understanding of God. His love and mercy goes beyond any and all of our human boundaries real or imagined. For God’s Love knows no bounds and the Cross and the empty tomb are the proof. AMEN+