31 January 2010

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30

I read this week that the moral of this Gospel Lesson is a warning:  “If you are invited somewhere to preach, make sure the pulpit is not in a building located near a cliff.”  This image of the members of the Nazareth Synagogue being filled with so much rage at what Jesus had to say that they gave him the “bums rush” out the door to the brow of a hill threatening to throw him off, should give pause to any of us who have the audacity to climb up a pulpits where we have the audacity to believe that we are authorized to speak a word on behalf of God -- especially if it turns out to be a word people don’t want to hear.

I think that the only church where I have preached that is perched at the edge of a cliff is the small Lutheran Church high above Idaho Springs, which has a large sign you can see from I-70 that simply says “Lutheran Church” in big, block letters.  I was reminiscing about that church last week at coffee hour with Judy Marxhausen, whose husband, Don, is the current interim pastor there, and she told me that although the congregation would like to add information about service times and the fact that it is an ELCA congregation, the cost of getting equipment able to reach that high makes that impossible.  My pathetic attempts at sermons I gave there years ago when I was in college just beginning to learning the craft of preaching were more likely to evoke sleep than anger, but I hope whatever Don says in Idaho Springs this a.m. will not only keep the folks awake....but not ready to give him a push off the cliff.

Today’s Gospel Lesson is a continuation of the one that read a week ago and when the two parts are put together, what see is a classic story about how easily people can move happy praise to righteous anger, for initially the people in his home town appear to have been quite complimentary of what he had to say but in the end he said things that made them rise up in anger seeking do him in. Preachers and politicians know what that is like.  They know how sometimes the early months in office or in a congregation are a “honeymoon” where their approval ratings are high and everyone is on the same page.  But preachers and politicians know that eventually the honeymoon ends; the approval ratings goes down and the smooth waters of the early days are replaced by the choppy waters of criticism and second-guessing.

President Obama certainly knows this experience.  This week’s cover of The New Yorker Magazine captures it a four-panel cartoon depicting his first year in office.   In the first three, he comes closer and closer to us,  “walking on water” and bathed in a bright light.  But by the last panel, the light has disappeared, and he is sinking into the ocean.  The euphoria that surrounded his election has been replaced with distrust and criticism.  His approval ratings have dropped as more and people second-guess the decisions he has made.  The honeymoon is over, and his supporters and his critics are now watching to see if he will sink or swim.

In Jesus’ case in Nazareth, the time between adulation and rejection comes in a span of minutes, and seems to be an example of the old story of what happens when a preacher goes from “preachin’ to meddlin’” -- from saying things people expect and want to hear to saying things that turn them off. In last weeks portion of the story, we were told that the initial reaction to Jesus’ appearance in his hometown synagogue was very positive.  They had heard the wonderful reports about what he had been doing and saying in synagogues around Galilee, where “he was praised by everyone” who met him.   Given that advance publicity, there was every reason to believe that warm and fuzzy feelings would be the order of the day when he shows up in Nazareth.

We are not told if he was the “pulpit supply” that day, filling in for someone who was on vacation or on sabbatical as I am doing here at St. Paul, or if he had been specifically invited to come on this day.   All we are told is that he was there and at some point he stood up and read portions of a scroll containing words 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, and to proclaim the day of the Lord’s favor.”  Having said these words, he rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant and sat down.  The custom in a synagogue was to read from a scroll standing up; commentary or preaching about what had been read took place when the reader sat down.  So, as Jesus sat down, Luke tells us that “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him” -- waiting in anticipation for what this young man they thought they knew was going to say.

Jesus then gives what has to be one of the shortest and most astounding sermons imaginable, saying: “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  Imagine that you heard Jesus claiming that he and what he will now be doing is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words -- that he is the “anointed one” -- the long awaited Messiah, filled with the Spirit to be able to do things only God could do:  heal, bring freedom from oppression, bring good news to the poor.