Trouble in Nazareth

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Larry V. Smoose
Reformation, Media

Those of you who were here last week will remember that Jesus gave his Inauguration Speech in his hometown – Nazareth.  It was the beginning of his ministry, just after his baptism, and as you would expect in an Inauguration Speech or State of the Union address, Jesus outlined his vision of the future and set the pace for his ministry.

Today’s Gospel gives us the initial results of the polls – the reaction of those who heard the speech.  Initially there was polite applause and people acknowledging that this was Joseph’s son.  Like neighbors or school mates of an athlete or an actor who makes it big, I suspect they were counting their lucky stars and anticipating the ways in which they would benefit from Jesus’ growing fame.  But the problem is deeper than blind familiarity or anticipated perks for home town folk. 

What we see bubbling to the surface is resentment that Jesus has extended God’s favor to others beyond Nazareth.  That may not seem like much to get upset about, but the truth is that most of us travel in limited circles that include a lot of people like ourselves and not too many who are different. 

Pastor Barbara Brown Taylor said that she once had a couple visit her church and were thinking about joining out of sheer curiosity.  They said they knew people in the congregation who are on opposite sides of just about every political issue and they wanted to see for themselves how we keep from killing each other. (Home by another Way, p. 43) 

She said one answer was that the members didn’t ask each other too many questions and focused on what they had in common rather than one what separates them.  And it meant some people kept secrets about themselves, learning what they can tell and what they cannot tell.  I suspect a lot of congregations, Reformation included has some of those qualities.  All of us have a list of people we would rather not be associated with, we might even categorize them as people who likely are not at the top of God’s list. 

It was this sensitive issue of community that began to get the people upset.  And then Jesus aggravated it by telling a couple of stories from their own scriptures – stories they knew well.  One was about a widow in Zarephath, a foreigner, whom Elijah helped during a famine, when a lot of people in Israel were starving.  The other was about Naaman, a Syrian army officer, an enemy of Israel who was healed of leprosy by Elisha.  These were prophets of Israel who took God’s favors to non-Jews and that got the people really upset. 

They began to go after Jesus, they were going to throw him off a cliff.  I’ve seen that section of Nazareth, the steep precipice that might have been the site of this story.  It’s a reminder that anger and violence are the last defense of those who are made to face the truth of their own tradition, which they have long defended and embraced.  It’s given rise to the Ku Klux Klan in the South and whites throwing garbage and hurling insulting names of black children integrating white schools.  It is the root of terrorism, when entrenched power begins to see its control eroding.  It can occur any place where people are unable or unwilling to accept those who are different.  It will be evident wherever expected privilege is no longer reserved for a chosen few, but becomes the hope of many.

This issue of inclusive vs. exclusive community continues to be a crucial concern for us.  It underlies our attitude and concerns about immigration policy.  It stands as the backdrop behind affirmative action debates.  It fuels the growing gap between rich and poor in our country and the world and at the same time causes our growing alarm at the ability of our students to keep pace educationally with the hungry, eager learners from Asian countries as computers and technology flatten the earth.  

And it is here, in the United States, the most diverse and open society on earth, that the challenge to continue to embrace the welcoming words on the Statue of Liberty will be sorely tested in the years to come.  “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me; I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

If we are to face these challenges, here, and around the world, then the church must become better followers of Jesus.  I say that because the church also is in continual danger of following victim to those forces of comfortable similarity of members and practices that seductively erode its credibility to the world.  The reason that the couple visited Barbara Brown Taylor’s church was because of their surprise at its diversity!  The church remains the most segregated institution in America, not because it does not welcome all kinds of people, but because most of those people are in congregations with others just like them!

We know first hand, in Southeastern Pennsylvania how many of our congregations have closed because members were unwilling to welcome people in racially changing neighborhoods.  It’s the urban version of an experience that Fred Craddock had as a young rural pastor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

It was a time when Oak Ridge was booming with the atomic energy project and that little bitty town became a booming city overnight.  Hard hats everywhere, with their families, living in trailer parks and temporary housing.  His church was not far away -- Pretty little 100 year old white frame church. Fred was just out of seminary, full of energy, and he called the church leaders together and said “We need to launch a calling campaign in all those trailer parks and invite all those people to church.”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t think they’d fit in here.” One of them said.  They’re just temporary construction people, they’ll be leaving pretty soon.”  “well we ought to invite them and make them feel at home,” he said.  They argued about it and decided to take a vote the next Sunday. 

The next week, after church, one of the members said, “I move that in order to be a member of this church you must own property in the county.”  Someone else seconded it and it passed.    Years later Fred was telling that painful story to his wife.  They were back in that section of the country and so he thought he would take his wife to see the church.  The area had changed quite a bit with an Interstate going through, but finally he found it, off  a little gravel road, nestled back in the pines.  Still a shiny white building, but it was different. 

The parking lot was full—motorcycles, trucks and cars packed in like sardines.  And out front a great big sing – Barbeque –all you can eat!  They went inside and saw all kinds of people, Syrians and Galileans, Samaritan’s and some from Zarephath.  And he said to his wife, “It’s a good thing this is not still a church, otherwise these people couldn’t be here.” (Craddock stories, p. 28)

Jesus does not go to Capernaum and Samaria and to other people because he is rejected in his hometown, Jesus is rejected because he announces that he is going to those outside of Israel.  The reaction of his hometown people foreshadows Jesus’ final rejection and death and it is a reminder that when congregation’s have choices to make about being inclusive or exclusive, they may encounter resistance and even hostility. 

But the Word of the Lord which he proclaimed that day, the announcement he made in Nazareth, reminded the people that God’s embracing grace is wider than our capacity to enclose it; and God’s love is deeper and stronger than the anger and violence which fear elicits.  With God’s grace guiding him and God’s love empowering him, Jesus escapes the crowd and heads toward Galilee of the Gentiles – continuing his ministry with all who hunger and thirst for righteousness, all who long for God’s presence in their lives, and all who are grateful for the love and acceptance that Jesus brings. 

And he reminds the church of every age, when that Word is proclaimed and where that love and acceptance is evident, the church lives and thrives and grows.

Amen.