Rev. Richard Hogue Jr.
St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego
1/30/2022
‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’
When I try to put my feet into the shoes of someone listening to Jesus when he said this at the synagogue, I imagine it is an utterly baffling statement. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus is a known quantity in his hometown, a strong and wise teacher who they knew as a child. They likely knew and retold stories in only the ways a small town can about Jesus getting lost at the Temple in Jerusalem as a young boy, among other morsels of Jesus’ youth long lost to us now. From that incident on, the Gospel of Luke tells us that ‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.’ Josh, as they likely knew him, was a standup guy from an interesting family.
Everyone there likes and respects him, even after he proclaims something that would have come off as blasphemous. But the Jesus who uttered that blasphemous sentence is not the exact same youth they remember admiring. This Jesus has been radicalized in the River Jordan by John the Baptizer, and was isolated for forty days with little sustenance, and since then has gone on a preaching tour. Luke’s gospel is sure to tell us again, that ‘Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in the synagogues and was praised by everyone.’
What happens next seems a fiery flash from the self-proclaimed fulfillment of Scripture. After those present say ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’ Jesus goes ballistic. Then, we are told, everyone in the synagogue flew into a rage and sent Jesus packing, and according to the gospel, they tried to push him off a cliff. Somehow, Jesus slips through the furor, and heads to Capernaum.
Depending on how we view Jesus’ words and the crowds reactions, we could end up in some dangerous and antisemitic theological places. For instance, many have concluded that those in the synagogue are mad at Jesus for being having good news from God for non-Jews. That’s why I want to slow down here and pay close attention to what Luke records of Jesus’ words to the crowd that anger them and incorporate some historical facts of that moment.
He’s read from the book of the Prophet Isaiah, proclaiming that:
‘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 favour.’
After they marvel at Jesus openly, instead of manifesting what he’s just read right there and then, Jesus goes on the offensive. Side note, this is the only evidence in any of the gospels that Jesus can read. He exclaims that doubtless, they will tell him to cure himself, and then says, ‘And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.”’ Whatever these events in Capernaum were, Luke’s gospel says nothing of them, but we can presume that they were miracles or some act of great power, especially based on what Jesus says next.
He goes on to say that prophets aren’t accepted in their hometowns, and references a story about the two greatest prophets in Hebrew Scriptures after Moses, Elijah and Elisha. The young adult Bible Study, which takes place 2nd and 4th Wednesday evenings over Zoom, has been reading through these very stories over the last few months. Both involve healing and non-Jewish people being recipients of the healing. Elijah calls a drought to punish the wicked reign of King Ahab of Israel for his idolatry and devious ways. Elijah traveled to Zarapheth, a city of coastal Lebanon, where he encountered a widow gathering wood for a fire and asks for water, and as she’s setting out to get it, asked her additionally for some bread. She told him:
‘“As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.’
Following this, her son ceased to breath such that no breath was left in him, and she asks Elijah what he as a man of God has against her, Elijah takes the boy, cries out to God, and miraculously resuscitates the child. ‘So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”’ It’s Elijah’s success as a wonder worker that convinces her that he’s a prophet of God. God’s abundance and care become known to nameless foreigner through the prophet Elijah.
Elisha, the successor of Elijah, mirrors the power of God’s prophets to provide healing in the story Jesus quotes. Naaman, a great warrior of the kingdom of Aram, modern day Damascus, has a skin disease that he needs healed. Naaman happens to have in his household a servant girl for his wife they captured on a raid from Israel, and the girl knows of Elisha’s power, and tells Naaman that if anyone can cure his disease, it is that prophet of God. Naaman’s king of Aram sends gifts and a letter to the king of Israel requesting entrance into Israel for Naaman’s healing. The king of Israel is unaware of Elisha’s powers and is so distressed that this is a pretext for invasion that words reaches Elisha who writes to the king specifically to tell him to calm down and send Naaman his way. Naaman goes to Elisha, requests healing, and Elisha tells him to bathe seven times in the River Jordan. Naaman is baffled that he must bathe seven times in such a muddy river, but his unnamed servants encourage him to do the bafflingly simple task. Naaman finally does the simple thing, and once he sees he is completely healed, exclaims that there is no God but the one Elisha serves.
Both stories offer characters from outside of Israel who come to know God’s power through amazing works of healing and through feeding starving people, though that story occurs elsewhere for Elisha. Both stories show how people at the lowest in their societies, widows with children, captured and enslaved people, and other nameless people trust and know God’s power and who God works through, while the powerful and mighty are angry and scared until they too see God’s revelations through these prophets.
The people in the synagogue know these same stories backwards and forwards, and they know what Jesus is telling them, and they are not upset about foreigners receiving revelation. After all, the Temple in Jerusalem has a court for Gentiles, and you wouldn’t build a place for them in the most sacred place on the planet if you didn’t think they belonged. They are upset that Jesus will not perform such miracles for them like the ones of Elijah and Elisha, which he apparently already has in Capernaum. Jesus is telling them that he will not be an amusement for them, that he’s not going to perform wild miracles to convince them of the power of his ensuing ministry. They want and perhaps demand his messianic blessings, and Jesus will not give it, and so they are enraged.
How often do I expect God to deliver miracles where my prayers of supplication ought to also be prayers of intention that lead to action. How often do I hope for God to intervene when really the work is for me to do? How often do I want God to solve problems that I simply want to ignore?
It all comes down to the desire for at least the illusion of control, if not the hope for the reality of it. And what a fool I am if I think I can control much of anything in life, let alone the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s the subversiveness of Scripture and what Jesus is saying to those in his hometown, and it is has upset princes and principalities since Jesus started his earthly ministry to this moment: The lowly and nameless show us the power of God at work in the world to inspire faith, hope and love for all people. Love overcomes the boundaries of empires and castes, death and all manner of division and disconnection. We can participate by living a life that follows Jesus. We must live lives of love, remembering these words of our patron St. Paul:
‘Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’
May we rejoice in God’s love and pour it out into the world around us so that we may see where God may be calling us. Amen.
