Call and Response
01/31/10
Luke 4:16-30; Jeremiah 1:4-10
Pastor Greg Smith
The Lectionary is an arrangement of scripture readings in a three year cycle. The readings follow the themes of the Christian year. From Christmas to Easter they follow themes from Jesus’ life and ministry. There are four readings for each Sunday and they almost always include a reading from the Old Testament and a reading from one of the four gospels.
Often the readings are connected by a theme and you can learn from the interaction. That’s true of today’s readings. Both focus on God’s calling to service.
Have you experienced a call from God? If you are a Christian, God has called you even if you wouldn’t describe it that way.
Some calls are particular, more unique callings from God.
• Jerry and Bunny were called by God to be missionaries to the Kipseges people of Kenya.
• Howard Dewsnap is called to be a missionary to men behind bars.
But not all callings are specifically about leading people to Christ.
• It may be as a schoolteacher like Marie.
• Teaching children to ride horses like Lauren.
And it may nothing to do with a paid job.
• A parent
• A grandparent
• A person of integrity wherever you are.
You are known and called by God— and you have a purpose. There is the call to all Christians, the whole church.
• The Great Commission: go and make disciples.
• The Great Commandment: love God and love your neighbor.
• Your spiritual gifts— your SHAPE: 1 Corinthians 12:12:7 says, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
God’s calling is always significant, but it may not be easy or comfortable.
The Old Testament reading is in Jeremiah 1. It’s on page 1125. Look at verses 4-8.
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
6 “Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
7 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
God calls Jeremiah but his initial response is not positive. Prophecy was not a particularly desirable occupation. In the Old Testament, real prophets often resisted at first. The calling was not sought. It was pushed away. We give Jonah a hard time, but one of the primary measures of genuine prophecy is that it is taken up only reluctantly. In fact, a sense of inadequacy and inability to take up such an awesome task are signs of a genuine prophet proclaiming the trustworthy word of God.
God addressed Jeremiah’s fears in many ways. First, God made clear that he hadn’t come to the wrong address!
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
No mistake here. And no last minute decision about Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s call was at God’s initiative. God was fulfilling a plan that he put into place long ago.
God addressed Jeremiah’s fears that he was too immature and inadequate.
8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah was given awesome authority by God.
9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Jeremiah’s word would affect nations! He would be God’s tool to carry out his plans on an international scale. What a tremendous responsibility!
But Jeremiah’s authority would not be automatically recognized by others. Throughout Jeremiah’s story other prophets are proclaiming the exact opposite message, also in the Lord’s name. Who would the people believe? The reassuring word that all would be well because of God’s special protection for the people of Israel? Or Jeremiah’s thundering word that God’s judgment would soon arrive and bring destruction?
Even in his call to Jeremiah, God gives a preview of his message.
13 The word of the LORD came to me again: “What do you see?”
“I see a pot that is boiling,” I answered. “It is tilting toward us from the north.”
14 The LORD said to me, “From the north disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land. 15 I am about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdoms,” declares the LORD.
“Their kings will come and set up their thrones
in the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem;
they will come against all her surrounding walls
and against all the towns of Judah.
16 I will pronounce my judgments on my people
because of their wickedness in forsaking me,
in burning incense to other gods
and in worshiping what their hands have made.
Even though God had called Jeremiah, his message would not be well received.
17 “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them. 18 Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
God promises protection— but not protection from resistance, difficulty, or seeming lack of success. Jeremiah would have to “stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land.” God was clear that his message would be resisted and rejected. But Jeremiah would have to go on faithfully.
Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.
It takes tremendous courage to serve God faithfully, even when we don’t have the success, the popularity, the approval, the adulation we might crave. When you serve the Lord, you always have to be clear that it’s the Lord that you serve! We are called, with God’s help, to have the courage to serve God.
We are like soldiers assigned to a post. We don’t always understand the larger picture, the bigger strategy. But we are called to serve faithfully.
God’s calling is always significant, but it may not be easy or comfortable.
Now let’s turn to the story where Jesus makes public his call to service. Look in Luke 4, back on page 1530. We began exploring this story last Sunday.
The atmosphere was electric when Jesus’ visited to his hometown of Nazareth. They had heard great things about Jesus, their “native son.” So the people of the village went to the synagogue with great expectation and hope to hear from Jesus.
Jesus was invited to read from the scriptures. Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah. Look at the words Jesus quoted in Luke 4:18-19.
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Powerful words of hope! But what really got the hearts pumping in the synagogue that Sabbath was what Jesus added:
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
What did he say? What did he mean? The end of spiritual drought has come. God was finally going to act! It was time for freedom! What a thrilling word that must have been!
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
But it wasn’t long before the mood in the synagogue service changed dramatically! Look beginning at verse 28.
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
What a surprising reaction Jesus received! What made the people so angry? What could have caused Jesus’ hometown folks, the people that knew his family, to move from admiration to contempt and even murder?
1. First, they were scandalized by Jesus’ ordinariness. Wasn’t he just a simple hometown family guy?
Even if the people were at first filled with admiration and pride that a hometown boy had such ambition, they quickly began to think, “Who is this Jesus to be making these wild claims about himself? He grew up in the same town as us, drank the same water, ate the same food, went to the same Sabbath schools. How could this Jesus be God’s promised deliverer?”
It’s in this story that we get a glimpse of Jesus’ home life that we get nowhere else. In fact, the story is told in Matthew and Mark as well. If you put the details of all three together, this is what we learn:
• Jesus’ father, Joseph, was a carpenter (Matthew)
• Jesus was a carpenter as well (the Mark 6 version of this story is the only place this is mentioned in the Bible)
• In both Matthew and Mark: “Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?”
• This was a big family!
The crowd was scandalized by Jesus’ sheer humanness. Jesus could sense the attitude of the crowd. He quotes a proverb.
23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “prophets are not accepted in their hometowns.
Jesus could sense what they were saying, ”You talk big! Well, do something big to prove it.“
2. That wasn’t all that changed the attitude of the crowd. They were scandalized about the way that Jesus dealt with scripture.
First there was in the reading from Isaiah. What disturbed the people at Nazareth may have been what Jesus didn’t read! Turn to Isaiah 61.
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,a
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.
This is where Jesus stops, but there is more to the sentence:
… and the day of vengeance of our God.
Jesus stops mid-sentence of Isaiah 61:2: “…to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,” and he leaves out these important words, “and the day of vengeance of our God.”
He offended his audience at a crucial point: he left out the message about God’s anger and punishment for Israel’s enemies. The people of Israel in Jesus’ time expected that the Holy Spirit empowered deliverer to come would bring victory over their enemies and freedom from their oppressors. It was to be God’s day of vengeance on Israel’s enemies! Finally justice would come. Finally they would be out from under the hard rule of Rome and be free again. Finally, God would provide, Isaiah continues in 61:2,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
You can imagine the people in the crowd at the Nazareth synagogue begin to say, “How dare this Jesus misinterpret scripture! How dare he leave out part of God’s word! Who does he think he is?”
3. Then Jesus said something else that really changed the attitude of the crowd, that inflamed them to the point that they were ready to throw him over a cliff. Jesus implied God’s coming deliverance would include Gentiles, those outside Israel.
Jesus made this clear by his choice of Old Testament examples.
25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
The widow at Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian had something in common: both were Gentiles!
• In the prophet Elijah’s time, there were many needy widows in Israel, but God sent his prophet to help a Gentile widow.
• In the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many lepers in Israel, but God led the prophet Elisha to heal only one, a Gentile man from Syria.
It was as if Jesus in one breath was claiming to be God’s promised deliverer and at the same time seeming to betray God’s people by promising comfort to the enemy! No wonder they were ready to throw him off a cliff!
This story is a picture in miniature of Jesus’ entire ministry. Like John 1:11 says,
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
Jesus came with a message that was there in the Old Testament scriptures all along but the people had forgotten it.
• The people of Israel, Abraham and Sarah’s descendants, were blessed to bless the world.
• God’s love comes to friend and foe alike.
Like God says in Isaiah 49:6,
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
We remember that Luke tells the story of Jesus for people who are continuing the ministry of Jesus. We, too, will face opposition. We, too, will find resistance to ministry that empowered by the Holy Spirit. But, in my experience, the greatest resistance doesn’t come from out there in the world. It is in my own heart and mind! My struggle is on here— my heart, my attitudes.
This story illustrates two important principles that we need to learn.
1. No matter what other voices may say, you really are empowered to continue Jesus’ ministry of freedom.
• Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit; we are invited to ministry in the Spirit’s power.
• Jesus came to set the oppressed free; we are invited join in this ministry— to be freedom fighters in the power of the Holy Spirit.
But whenever you begin to seriously see yourself as gifted and empowered by the Holy Spirit, there will be other voices:
• Aren’t you just Ken and Carolyn Smith’s son? Don’t you live in a house like anyone else, struggle to pay the bills, and fight with as many temptations as anyone else?
• Who are you to think that you have something to share: Heal yourself first!
We might feel like Moses: send someone else, “I can’t even speak clearly.” Or Jeremiah, “I’m too young and inexperienced to do this!”
But remember:
• We do not serve in our power, but God’s power.
• We don’t free captives; God brings freedom through us.
• We may be limited, but God’s power is limitless.
Anyone who can pray, trusting in the power of God, is in touch with the boundless power and majesty of God! I’m not just Ken and Carolyn Smith’s son. I’m a child of the mighty God!
2. If you want to experience God’s deliverance and blessing, you have to be willing to share it with others.
The fulfillment of the hopes of Israel was in their midst. Jesus was present in their place and time of worship. But they missed the blessing that they could have received. Why? They were unwilling to share that blessing with others.
The people read their Bible as promises of God’s exclusive covenant with them, a covenant that involved deliverance from their oppressors, not deliverance for the oppressors. Jesus came announcing deliverance, but it was not just a national deliverance but God’s promise of liberation for all the poor, for all the oppressed regardless of nationality, gender, or race.
For the people of Nazareth, their commitment to their own community boundaries more important to them than the fact that God had sent his Deliverer among them.
The homogeneous unit principle of church growth: people like to be with people like themselves. But what may be good sociology is bad theology. It tells us what is but not what should be.
The Holy Spirit is pushes us beyond ourselves into servant ministry outside our comfort zone. We have to remember that God is always leading us beyond ourselves.
In fact: you cannot share in the full bounty of God’s deliverance unless you are willing to share it with others.
You see, those who exclude others exclude themselves. The paradox of the gospel is that the unlimited grace it offers is so scandalous that some are unable to receive it. Jesus could not do more for his hometown because they were not open to him. How much more might God be able to do with us if we were ready to transcend the boundaries of community and limits of love that we ourselves have erected?
Paradox: the best way to grow a church might be through the “homogeneous unit principle.” But then that would not be a Jesus kind of church. Sometimes what the world calls success may not be success at all. Jesus said, “Go and preach the gospel— my gospel that is radically gracious.”
But the resistance to this mercy is in my own heart:
• My prejudice
• My fear
• My need for recognition
• My comfort
What did Jesus constantly get in trouble for: too much mercy on those that knew their need. He was constantly opening the door of God’s mercy to the outsider, to the weak, to the sinner. A friend of sinners— that was Jesus.
God’s calling is always significant, but it may not be easy or comfortable.
Pastor Greg Smith
The Lectionary is an arrangement of scripture readings in a three year cycle. The readings follow the themes of the Christian year. From Christmas to Easter they follow themes from Jesus’ life and ministry. There are four readings for each Sunday and they almost always include a reading from the Old Testament and a reading from one of the four gospels.
Often the readings are connected by a theme and you can learn from the interaction. That’s true of today’s readings. Both focus on God’s calling to service.
Have you experienced a call from God? If you are a Christian, God has called you even if you wouldn’t describe it that way.
Some calls are particular, more unique callings from God.
• Jerry and Bunny were called by God to be missionaries to the Kipseges people of Kenya.
• Howard Dewsnap is called to be a missionary to men behind bars.
But not all callings are specifically about leading people to Christ.
• It may be as a schoolteacher like Marie.
• Teaching children to ride horses like Lauren.
And it may nothing to do with a paid job.
• A parent
• A grandparent
• A person of integrity wherever you are.
You are known and called by God— and you have a purpose. There is the call to all Christians, the whole church.
• The Great Commission: go and make disciples.
• The Great Commandment: love God and love your neighbor.
• Your spiritual gifts— your SHAPE: 1 Corinthians 12:12:7 says, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
God’s calling is always significant, but it may not be easy or comfortable.
The Old Testament reading is in Jeremiah 1. It’s on page 1125. Look at verses 4-8.
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
6 “Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
7 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
God calls Jeremiah but his initial response is not positive. Prophecy was not a particularly desirable occupation. In the Old Testament, real prophets often resisted at first. The calling was not sought. It was pushed away. We give Jonah a hard time, but one of the primary measures of genuine prophecy is that it is taken up only reluctantly. In fact, a sense of inadequacy and inability to take up such an awesome task are signs of a genuine prophet proclaiming the trustworthy word of God.
God addressed Jeremiah’s fears in many ways. First, God made clear that he hadn’t come to the wrong address!
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
No mistake here. And no last minute decision about Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s call was at God’s initiative. God was fulfilling a plan that he put into place long ago.
God addressed Jeremiah’s fears that he was too immature and inadequate.
8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah was given awesome authority by God.
9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Jeremiah’s word would affect nations! He would be God’s tool to carry out his plans on an international scale. What a tremendous responsibility!
But Jeremiah’s authority would not be automatically recognized by others. Throughout Jeremiah’s story other prophets are proclaiming the exact opposite message, also in the Lord’s name. Who would the people believe? The reassuring word that all would be well because of God’s special protection for the people of Israel? Or Jeremiah’s thundering word that God’s judgment would soon arrive and bring destruction?
Even in his call to Jeremiah, God gives a preview of his message.
13 The word of the LORD came to me again: “What do you see?”
“I see a pot that is boiling,” I answered. “It is tilting toward us from the north.”
14 The LORD said to me, “From the north disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land. 15 I am about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdoms,” declares the LORD.
“Their kings will come and set up their thrones
in the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem;
they will come against all her surrounding walls
and against all the towns of Judah.
16 I will pronounce my judgments on my people
because of their wickedness in forsaking me,
in burning incense to other gods
and in worshiping what their hands have made.
Even though God had called Jeremiah, his message would not be well received.
17 “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them. 18 Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
God promises protection— but not protection from resistance, difficulty, or seeming lack of success. Jeremiah would have to “stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land.” God was clear that his message would be resisted and rejected. But Jeremiah would have to go on faithfully.
Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.
It takes tremendous courage to serve God faithfully, even when we don’t have the success, the popularity, the approval, the adulation we might crave. When you serve the Lord, you always have to be clear that it’s the Lord that you serve! We are called, with God’s help, to have the courage to serve God.
We are like soldiers assigned to a post. We don’t always understand the larger picture, the bigger strategy. But we are called to serve faithfully.
God’s calling is always significant, but it may not be easy or comfortable.
Now let’s turn to the story where Jesus makes public his call to service. Look in Luke 4, back on page 1530. We began exploring this story last Sunday.
The atmosphere was electric when Jesus’ visited to his hometown of Nazareth. They had heard great things about Jesus, their “native son.” So the people of the village went to the synagogue with great expectation and hope to hear from Jesus.
Jesus was invited to read from the scriptures. Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah. Look at the words Jesus quoted in Luke 4:18-19.
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Powerful words of hope! But what really got the hearts pumping in the synagogue that Sabbath was what Jesus added:
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
What did he say? What did he mean? The end of spiritual drought has come. God was finally going to act! It was time for freedom! What a thrilling word that must have been!
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
But it wasn’t long before the mood in the synagogue service changed dramatically! Look beginning at verse 28.
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
What a surprising reaction Jesus received! What made the people so angry? What could have caused Jesus’ hometown folks, the people that knew his family, to move from admiration to contempt and even murder?
1. First, they were scandalized by Jesus’ ordinariness. Wasn’t he just a simple hometown family guy?
Even if the people were at first filled with admiration and pride that a hometown boy had such ambition, they quickly began to think, “Who is this Jesus to be making these wild claims about himself? He grew up in the same town as us, drank the same water, ate the same food, went to the same Sabbath schools. How could this Jesus be God’s promised deliverer?”
It’s in this story that we get a glimpse of Jesus’ home life that we get nowhere else. In fact, the story is told in Matthew and Mark as well. If you put the details of all three together, this is what we learn:
• Jesus’ father, Joseph, was a carpenter (Matthew)
• Jesus was a carpenter as well (the Mark 6 version of this story is the only place this is mentioned in the Bible)
• In both Matthew and Mark: “Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?”
• This was a big family!
The crowd was scandalized by Jesus’ sheer humanness. Jesus could sense the attitude of the crowd. He quotes a proverb.
23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “prophets are not accepted in their hometowns.
Jesus could sense what they were saying, ”You talk big! Well, do something big to prove it.“
2. That wasn’t all that changed the attitude of the crowd. They were scandalized about the way that Jesus dealt with scripture.
First there was in the reading from Isaiah. What disturbed the people at Nazareth may have been what Jesus didn’t read! Turn to Isaiah 61.
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,a
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.
This is where Jesus stops, but there is more to the sentence:
… and the day of vengeance of our God.
Jesus stops mid-sentence of Isaiah 61:2: “…to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,” and he leaves out these important words, “and the day of vengeance of our God.”
He offended his audience at a crucial point: he left out the message about God’s anger and punishment for Israel’s enemies. The people of Israel in Jesus’ time expected that the Holy Spirit empowered deliverer to come would bring victory over their enemies and freedom from their oppressors. It was to be God’s day of vengeance on Israel’s enemies! Finally justice would come. Finally they would be out from under the hard rule of Rome and be free again. Finally, God would provide, Isaiah continues in 61:2,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
You can imagine the people in the crowd at the Nazareth synagogue begin to say, “How dare this Jesus misinterpret scripture! How dare he leave out part of God’s word! Who does he think he is?”
3. Then Jesus said something else that really changed the attitude of the crowd, that inflamed them to the point that they were ready to throw him over a cliff. Jesus implied God’s coming deliverance would include Gentiles, those outside Israel.
Jesus made this clear by his choice of Old Testament examples.
25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
The widow at Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian had something in common: both were Gentiles!
• In the prophet Elijah’s time, there were many needy widows in Israel, but God sent his prophet to help a Gentile widow.
• In the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many lepers in Israel, but God led the prophet Elisha to heal only one, a Gentile man from Syria.
It was as if Jesus in one breath was claiming to be God’s promised deliverer and at the same time seeming to betray God’s people by promising comfort to the enemy! No wonder they were ready to throw him off a cliff!
This story is a picture in miniature of Jesus’ entire ministry. Like John 1:11 says,
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
Jesus came with a message that was there in the Old Testament scriptures all along but the people had forgotten it.
• The people of Israel, Abraham and Sarah’s descendants, were blessed to bless the world.
• God’s love comes to friend and foe alike.
Like God says in Isaiah 49:6,
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
We remember that Luke tells the story of Jesus for people who are continuing the ministry of Jesus. We, too, will face opposition. We, too, will find resistance to ministry that empowered by the Holy Spirit. But, in my experience, the greatest resistance doesn’t come from out there in the world. It is in my own heart and mind! My struggle is on here— my heart, my attitudes.
This story illustrates two important principles that we need to learn.
1. No matter what other voices may say, you really are empowered to continue Jesus’ ministry of freedom.
• Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit; we are invited to ministry in the Spirit’s power.
• Jesus came to set the oppressed free; we are invited join in this ministry— to be freedom fighters in the power of the Holy Spirit.
But whenever you begin to seriously see yourself as gifted and empowered by the Holy Spirit, there will be other voices:
• Aren’t you just Ken and Carolyn Smith’s son? Don’t you live in a house like anyone else, struggle to pay the bills, and fight with as many temptations as anyone else?
• Who are you to think that you have something to share: Heal yourself first!
We might feel like Moses: send someone else, “I can’t even speak clearly.” Or Jeremiah, “I’m too young and inexperienced to do this!”
But remember:
• We do not serve in our power, but God’s power.
• We don’t free captives; God brings freedom through us.
• We may be limited, but God’s power is limitless.
Anyone who can pray, trusting in the power of God, is in touch with the boundless power and majesty of God! I’m not just Ken and Carolyn Smith’s son. I’m a child of the mighty God!
2. If you want to experience God’s deliverance and blessing, you have to be willing to share it with others.
The fulfillment of the hopes of Israel was in their midst. Jesus was present in their place and time of worship. But they missed the blessing that they could have received. Why? They were unwilling to share that blessing with others.
The people read their Bible as promises of God’s exclusive covenant with them, a covenant that involved deliverance from their oppressors, not deliverance for the oppressors. Jesus came announcing deliverance, but it was not just a national deliverance but God’s promise of liberation for all the poor, for all the oppressed regardless of nationality, gender, or race.
For the people of Nazareth, their commitment to their own community boundaries more important to them than the fact that God had sent his Deliverer among them.
The homogeneous unit principle of church growth: people like to be with people like themselves. But what may be good sociology is bad theology. It tells us what is but not what should be.
The Holy Spirit is pushes us beyond ourselves into servant ministry outside our comfort zone. We have to remember that God is always leading us beyond ourselves.
In fact: you cannot share in the full bounty of God’s deliverance unless you are willing to share it with others.
You see, those who exclude others exclude themselves. The paradox of the gospel is that the unlimited grace it offers is so scandalous that some are unable to receive it. Jesus could not do more for his hometown because they were not open to him. How much more might God be able to do with us if we were ready to transcend the boundaries of community and limits of love that we ourselves have erected?
Paradox: the best way to grow a church might be through the “homogeneous unit principle.” But then that would not be a Jesus kind of church. Sometimes what the world calls success may not be success at all. Jesus said, “Go and preach the gospel— my gospel that is radically gracious.”
But the resistance to this mercy is in my own heart:
• My prejudice
• My fear
• My need for recognition
• My comfort
What did Jesus constantly get in trouble for: too much mercy on those that knew their need. He was constantly opening the door of God’s mercy to the outsider, to the weak, to the sinner. A friend of sinners— that was Jesus.
God’s calling is always significant, but it may not be easy or comfortable.