Luke 4:21-30
Have
you ever returned to your hometown, the place you grew up in, after being away
for some time? If your hometown was
small, like mine was, it is likely that you go back and pick up right where you
left off. People still remember you and
they are excited to hear about your life, or maybe they have been kept up to
date about your life by another family member living in the area. Often you can quickly catch up on all the
gossip and local happenings. But have
you ever tried to be a prophet in your hometown? Have you mentioned that the schools should
consolidate? Have you mentioned that the
local pizza joint seems quiet these days?
Have you suggested that new mayor is needed? Have you ever tried to speak a word that the
locals were maybe not ready to hear?
Today Jesus heads to his hometown.
The lesson he proclaims, after being asked to do in Nazareth
what he had done in Capernaum,
is that “No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”
This
is the exact reason I used, in not so eloquent terms, when someone asked me if
I wanted to come back to my home church and be their pastor someday. I remember saying, you all know me and I know
you. I can’t possibly be your
pastor. Now, I have been back to my home
church to preach and lead worship. They
are a very loving group of people and are always very affirmative in my call to
ministry. The day I was ordained, a
first for them, was likely one of the proudest moments in their over 120 year
history. Yet, I know there are words
that they need to hear that I cannot say to them, because I know them. There are words they may need to say to me
that I cannot hear, because they know me.
There are realities that lie ahead of them that they are not prepared to
receive. There are likely critiques I
need to hear that they are not able to tell me.
On
a second occasion, after a few years in seminary, the parent of one of my high
school classmates and a member of another church in town stopped me in a
restaurant to ask if I would come back and be their pastor. Again, I said no, I would not be a good
pastor of the local town church. I knew
those people and they knew me, too. They
knew about who I was as a kid. They knew
about my family. They knew the car I
drove. They knew about all the choices I
had made growing up. Some of them were
even related to me. Besides it not typically
being a good practice to be a pastor in your home church, I knew that I would
not be a good pastor for these people. I
knew it would be difficult to be a prophet in my hometown.
Part
of the difficulty of being a prophet in your own hometown is that the listeners
or the audience know you. I came here as
someone you did not know. But really the
difficulty of being a prophet in your own hometown is two-fold. The other factor is that you know the other
people. I came here as someone who did
not know you. In my hometown people knew
me and I knew them. I knew about
relationships gone bad. I knew about the
personalities they had in school. I knew
who had money and who didn’t. I knew how
they treated other people. I knew them
just as well as they knew me.
The
same was true of Jesus. He knew
everything about the people in Nazareth. In fact, he knew more than the average person
would know. After all, he was God. So, Jesus shows up in his own hometown and
speaks prophetic words. Just before our
text today, Jesus, while in the synagogue, stood up and read this text from the
prophet Isaiah, “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.” After hearing that the locals expected to
perform, to be a prophet, to be the person he is in other places. His response seems to be filled with some
reservations. And I think some of his
reservation about this is that he knows these people and they know him. He doesn’t just know these people; he knows
them! He knows the good, the bad, and
even the ugly. Yet, because the locals
know Jesus as their hometown hero they feel entitled. They feel like they deserve to have Jesus’
care, concern, healing hand, and prophetic nature, because of who they are in
relation to Jesus. They fill entitled to
his divine power because they knew him from when he was a kid. We know that is not how God works
though. God doesn’t work out of
requirement or entitlement. God works
where God needs to work, regardless of where we think God should place God’s
divine energy and time.
If
we look back to the Old Testament, Jeremiah is in a similar situation. He is being appointed to go and be a prophet,
not only in Judah,
but to all the nations. Jeremiah uses
his age, his youth, as an excuse to God to use someone else, someone more fit
for the job. He is appointed “over
nations and kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to
overthrow, to build and to plant.” That
is a big job. He is to be a prophet in
his hometown. He is to proclaim a
message to people he knows and people that know him. He is to speak a word that people may not be
ready to hear, let alone to receive. And
Jeremiah is filled with reservations.
We,
too, are often filled with reservations when it comes to being prophets in our
own town, our own schools, our own church, We are filled with reservations when
it comes to speaking a word that people might not be ready to hear in our own
neighborhoods, our own jobs, and our own families. We know the people whom we are called to
speak to and they know us. Despite the
odds we may feel we are against, we are surrounded by a promise of
protection. In Jeremiah, we hear the
words, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I
consecrated you.” And in Luke as the
townspeople drove Jesus out of town in hopes to “hurl him off the cliff,” he
was protected as “he passed through the midst of them.” I firmly believe if God protects these two
prophets, Jesus and Jeremiah, then God will protect us, too. Specifically, I find these words of
protection are very comforting. Before
we were formed God knew us. Before we
took our first breath on earth God knew us.
Before we spoke words of wisdom and intellect God knew us. So, I would challenge us to speak that word
that others might not be ready to hear and trust that God will protect us. I would challenge us to be prophets in this
town and know that God will not let us be hurled off the cliff. If God protected the speakers of prophetic
words in the past then God will protect us as we speak prophetic words in today’s
world. Amen.
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