+Luke 4:21–30
How have you been feeling this week, aside from the Bears, big win last weekend? Are you feeling a little glum? Are you aching for a blue sky? Are you feeling depressed because of the realization that there’s no way in the world that you’ll be able to make it to the gym four days each week, switch to decaf, get in touch with old friends, finally write those Christmas cards, or adopt a diet of whole grains, antioxidants with copious fruits and veggies? Has your entire week been a succession of Mondays? Well, you’re not alone; and it’s not just you. Dr. Cliff Arnall, a health psychologist at Cardiff University in Wales, has come up with an arithmetic formula that accounts for all of these factors an more, and has determined that last Monday, January 22, was the saddest day of the year! He has also calculated that Saturday, June 23rd will be the happiest day of the year for 2007. Perhaps we ought to consider rescheduling our Annual Meeting to that day this year….
Even our Lectionary text is right along with the trend. Maybe Dr. Arnall’s formulary applied even to Jesus! Maybe that would explain his burning words to his hometown crowd. Maybe that’s why his kith and kin were so cranky at the ominous words of their hometown boy returned.
Not to be construed as being too crass or irreverent, there is something telling in the reaction of the synagogue to the words of Jesus, that boy whom they knew and of whose family they knew equally well. The problem that arose for the synagogue was not that they were unwilling to change, but that the call to change came from an unwelcome source.
So I ask you, where are we being called by familiar voices, who is being used by God to summon us to hear with new ears familiar words of Holy Scripture? How can we change when we doubt the credentials of the messenger, or better put, how can we change when we’d like nothing more than to have the messenger driven off of a cliff?
When I first climbed these stairs over six months ago, the Gospel appointed for that day was Mark’s very same Lesson that we have heard today (in your spare time I commend you to look at the two passages and draw your own comparisons). This morning I, in effect, have the task of making old words new. It’s funny how the vicissitudes and supposed randomness of our Lectionary and preaching schedule allow for an interesting order to occur, giving an opportunity for time, word, and Christ’s presence to collapse and allow for revelation.
I suppose that’s what it is all about. Walking along our faith journey with just enough wakefulness to be able to encounter those revelations, those repeated manifestations of God’s grace and glory. While walking along, we have a responsibility to stay mindful of our own tasks at-hand, but we must keep our mind free to await our next ministry. In our faith’s collective story, it happens all the time. It happened to St. Peter on the banks of the Sea of Galilee in his ability to recognize the resurrected Jesus, following the grim reality of his Leader’s death. It happened to St. Paul who on the road to Damascus, in pursuit of religious zealotry and religious purity, was blinded by the manifestation of Jesus; and in our Passage today, Jesus reminds the people of Nazareth that the manifestation of God’s love can be revealed in many ways, even to a foreign widow woman of Sidon, and again to a leprous General of Syria, Israel’s oppressor and sworn enemy. The sheer plausibility for God to ‘enter-in’ to break through to our reality is often beyond human understanding and can be as mystifying as the very statements of our Creeds. The wideness of God’s mercy, to us, often produces doubt first, and realization only later; frustration first and then peace after careful contemplation.
Yet this is where we are called to enter-in. This is where you and I are called to go further in our action…to jump feet first into the seeming chasm of implausibility of God’s mystery. We are to jump feet-first into the chasm that we can make a difference in this community. We are to jump feet-first into the chasm that our Islamic brothers and sisters will respond with charity and love, we are to jump feet-first into the implausibility that our actions on behalf of Christ’s church will provide hope to the marginalized. We are to jump feet-first into the realization that we can heal a broken planet fraught with grim forecasts and diminishing resources. Finally and most important, we are to jump feet-first into the living body of Christ and to stand up and say to all that God is Love even when all things rational say no!
But while we jump, God is there. Paul Tillich, the mid-20th century theologian who finished his career down the road at the University of Chicago, in his book The New Being writes:
Not only is he who is in sin but also he who is in doubt is justified through faith [in God]. The situation of doubt, even doubt about God, need not separate us from God. There is faith in every serious doubt, namely, the faith in the truth as such, even if the only truth we can express is our lack of truth.
While we labor for Christ’s Church, God is there. And while we struggle with belief, God is there. Even when in all certainty of reason, doubt, skepticism, and crippling incapacitation; God is there. Even when Christ is screaming in our ears we ignore the call; God is there.
Our Psalm this morning recalls that we ‘have been a portent to many’ (Ps. 71:7).* Christ is calling us to go further with God, we are a portent to many. We are a living revelation of God’s Truth. May this be our mission, and may this be the fire that fuels us to bring Good news to the poor, the sick, the widowed, and the orphans living fully in the knowledge of our service as Christ’s ambassadors. Christ is continually calling us, even through familiar voices; even on the saddest day of the year.
*From The Psalms from Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching by James L. Mays.
