February 2 -- 4th Sunday after Epiphany

Let us pray…

So they want to throw Jesus off the cliff!  What’s that about?
I think at first glance/first read, these hometown Nazarenes seem like foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics.  They need to calm down, it may seem to us.  They need to pay attention to what Jesus was saying.  Surely we could and would never want to do the same.  But let’s dig a little deeper:

One of the most striking things about this text is the drastic transformation the crowd goes through in only a matter of verses.  In verse 22, it says “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But 7 verses later, they “got up, drove him out of town…so that they might hurl him off a cliff.”  (not just banish him, but already ready to kill him — obviously a foreshadowing of what comes later and the drastic change of the crowd in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday...from ‘Hosannas’ to ‘Crucify him!’)

At first glance, these hometown Nazarenes seem like foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics. But we dig deeper:

Jesus continues both to root himself and to show his mastery of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Last week, remember, he unrolled the scroll and read from the prophet Isaiah.  Now just a few verses later he cites events from the time of Elijah and Elisha.  And this is where things start to get dicey.

Jesus has just proclaimed that today good news goes to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed and the wiping out of debts.  Sounds pretty good, right?  Sounds really pretty and idealistic and heavenly and out of this world, right?  That’s a nice message to reflect on, to dream about.
But now Jesus starts to “flesh it out.”  That’s what Jesus is all about: fleshing it out.  And this is where things start to get dicey.

“The truth is,” Jesus says, “when there was a famine, there were many widows, but Elijah was sent to none of them but a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.”  Do you know what the widow at Zarephath in Sidon represents?  She is no doubt nameless.  She represents the absolute most ignored, invisible, tiniest, powerless, voiceless, nameless member of God’s entire creation — deemed by all others as totally worthless and meaningless.  She’s not a threat.  She’s nothing to the world.

But she is the first and only one that God reaches for.

And if that’s not upsetting enough, Jesus fires it up even more, inciting the crowd by citing Elisha and Naaman the Syrian leper.  Do you know what Naaman the Syrian leper represents?  Far more invasive than a nameless, invisible widow.  A Syrian leper represents the most hated, most ugly, most despicable, most dangerous with his disease.  He is an absolute threat—sickest of the sick, the meanest of the mean, ugliest of the ugly, the most dangerous of the dangerous, the“foreignest” of the foreigners.  He is the enemy of the world, your enemy and my enemy, our worst nightmare.  As far from God as we can imagine and the last one we’d ever want to be around!

But he is the first and only one that God cures.

So is this crowd really that crazy?  This is upsetting news, this is news that turns the comfortable hometown of Fairfax, I mean Nazareth, on its head.  And they want nothing to do with being turned on their head — how dare he! — so...
they try to turn Jesus on his head—they discredit him (“Isn’t this just Joseph’s kid?”) and then they try to kill him.

But here’s the thing:  Jesus passes through them and goes on his way.  We don’t know exactly what that means, except that he goes on despite all their anxiety and rage.  He longs to have them on board, but he goes on with or without their participation—and ultimately that’s the really Good News for us.  It means that we have no say and no power in who and how and when God’s love touches and heals the edges of this world.  God’s embrace is so cosmic, it even stretches to the widow-est of the widows and the leper-est of the lepers.

If you really want to flesh this text out this week...imagine who for you is the widow-est of the widows and the leper-est of the lepers.  Who for you is so invisible you can hardly even think of right now:  The 10-yr orphan in Indonesia—don’t ask me what his name is—who lost his parents in a tsunami in 2004, and now all the aid and media attention has dried up, and he’s trying to raise himself.  Or what about beyond even our own species: what about the yellow spotted tree frog which is critically endangered?  Or the hundreds of thousand of other voiceless, nameless (to us) plant and animal species that are not threatening us, but are certainly being threatened by extinction.  This Gospel text tells us that these are where God goes, where God sends the prophets: to the very edges.

But none of those really threaten us at the moment.

If you really want to flesh this text out, then imagine who the real lepers are for you.  Who do you despise?  Who disgusts you?  Who makes you want to run in the other direction?  Who would you be content to live the rest of your days and never have to deal with ever again?  Could be a sick person, could be a dangerous person, could be someone who’s way of life absolutely disgusts you, could be someone who in fact makes a threat upon your security or the security of your family.  Could be a Democrat, could be a Republican, could be a Muslim, could be a Christian, could be gay, could be straight, could be a member of your family member, could be someone who has wronged you in the past, could be a pastor or a member of the church, or a colleague at work.  That’s who Naaman the Syrian leper stands for, sisters and brothers in Christ.  And this text tells us that this leper is who God comforts and cleanses first.  

Now we know why they want to kill Jesus: because for him, “faith, hope & love abide...and the greatest of these is love.”

I don’t care who you are: This is really tough stuff — because if we’re willing to do the work, we’ve all got a widow and a leper who are very real to us.  We’ve all got anxieties and anger like that crowd long ago...

...And we’ve also got a God moving through us, mysteriously.

A Christ who with or with out our consent so loves this world and the farthest reaches of it.  Jesus has made his mission clear; and Jesus has made his invitation to us into that mission clear.  He passes through here now.  Today!  Help us, God, not to want to throw him off the cliff so that we can keep on our way.  Help us, God, to get on board with him.  The Gospel train is leaving the station!  Scripture has been fleshed out in our hearing and will be fleshed out in our tasting.

The living Christ in and through our midst longs to have us on board, but goes on with or without our participation.  And ultimately, that’s the best news of all.  AMEN.