2016C 4 Epiphany Prophets Not Welcome Luke 4:21-30

The Rev. Nancy S. Streufert

31 January 2016 Christ Church

During my high school years in Davenport, Iowa, I played piccolo in the marching
band for Friday night football games. We were the Central High Blue Devils and
we were proud of our team. When I went off to college sixty miles away at the
University of Iowa, I left behind the Blue Devils and became an Iowa Hawkeye,
one of the Big Ten teams that occasionally went to the Rose Bowl on New Years
Day. Those were the days before shopping malls, and my college town of Iowa
City would virtually close down, as everyone who was anyone attended the
Saturday afternoon football games.
After our high school and college days, many of us graduate to cheering on our
favorite pro sports teams. And every two years, we look forward to the Olympic
Games. We feel the pride of being Americans when our athletes defeat the
countries of the world and we get tears in our eyes as the U.S. flag is raised to
the tune of the Star Spangled Banner.
Where do we get this sense of loyalty to our teams? There must be something
inherent in our human nature that leads so many of us to align ourselves with
what we hope will be the winning team.
Part of it is that we admire those with natural talent, and especially those who
develop their gifts through hard work and sacrifice, and who strive for
excellence. And part of it, I think, is that we are inherently competitive beings.
We want to win, either personally or vicariously through our associations with
those we admire.
And this can be OK. Friendly rivalry is exciting and adds spark to our lives. It can
create community and friendship and family time. I recall the camaraderie that
our classmates experienced at tailgate parties before the Iowa football games.
Competition gives us purpose that can be healthy. We acquire discipline and
practice teamwork, learn from our failures, and exult in our accomplishments.
But competition can become unhealthy if it becomes obsessive, if it becomes
mean-spirited, if it makes us narrow-minded, if it leads us to exclude others in a
way that compromises their dignity. And of course, now I am talking about real
life, not just sport teams.
When we get down to it, isnt competition also about us as individuals, our
identity, fitting in with our peers, seeking public respect, and even, maybe
especially, protecting our way of life?
We see this notion of unhealthy rivalry in Lukes gospel today as Jesus teaches in
the synagogue at Nazareth. At first, his colleagues marvel in wonder at Jesus
wisdom and his gracious words. They are astounded by his declaration that he
himself is at the center of Isaiahs prophecy. Is this not Josephs son, they ask?

2016C 4 Epiphany Prophets Not Welcome Luke 4:21-30

The Rev. Nancy S. Streufert
31 January 2016 Christ Church

Earlier in Luke, we learn that Jesus grew up in Nazareth, where we presume he

had played, studied, worked, and worshiped with the people who were with him
that day in the synagogue. They must have witnessed his growing wisdom over
the years. And then he went away for a few months, when he was called by God
to public ministry at his baptism in the Jordan River, followed by his forty days of
trial with the devil in the desert. After passing that test, he made his way back to
Nazareth, passing through villages like neighboring Capernaum. Stories of his
marvelous works of healing and other gracious acts had preceded his return to
his hometown.
What an amazing transformation in their friend, the people of Nazareth must
have thought! Now he would bestow his graciousness to his hometown
community, where he was already showing promise as a gifted rabbi and pastor.
Now they would benefit from the grace that God worked through Jesus. Were
not the people of Israel the oppressed that Isaiah had spoken of? Were they not
the captives and prisoners of the Roman empire?
But then, things become awkward. Jesus provokes the people by quoting the
proverb, no prophet is accepted in the prophets hometown. Then he
connects himself to two prophets of old: Elijah, who had been sent by God not to
the widows of Israel who were also starving during a drought but to a poor
Gentile widow in Sidon outside of the Jewish community. And Elisha was sent by
God to heal Naaman (nay-uh-muhn), leader of the Syrian army, one of Israels
enemies, while people of Israel suffered from leprosy unhealed.
I can imagine how well this went over with the people in the synagogue! But
these people had made a mistake. They did not understand the difference
between an authoritative figure beholden to a constituency and a prophet, who
is beholden to no worldly authority but to God.
I hope the following illustration will clarify what I mean:
The Iowa Caucus is tomorrow. Iowa is the first state every presidential election
year to hold a primary election. It is common wisdom by political pundits that a
candidates prospects in becoming the partys nominee for president depends
very much on how well he or she does at the Iowa Caucus. Every four years,
anyone who is even thinking about running for president begins the pilgrimage
to Iowa in the humid heat of summer and through the bitingly cold winter
months to attend county fairs and hang out in diners, doing their best to show
the people of Iowa that they are just regular people like they are and to assure
them that the interests of their state are paramount to our entire countrys wellbeing.
Im an Iowa gal and Iowa is a corn state through and through. Knee high by the
4th of July is the slogan Iowans use to gauge how well the corn crop is
progressing in any given year. I dont follow the primaries very closely anymore,
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2016C 4 Epiphany Prophets Not Welcome Luke 4:21-30

The Rev. Nancy S. Streufert
31 January 2016 Christ Church

but Im pretty sure that support for government subsidies for ethanol made from
corn is still practically a litmus test for any candidate who wants to place well in
the Iowa Caucus. Unlike previous caucuses, it seems that two of the thirteen
candidates still in the race, both Republicans, have broken ranks with all the
others by calling for the end of ethanol subsidies.
Now I havent studied the issue, which Im sure is complex, nor do I have an
informed opinion on the matter. But I would be surprised if more candidates
dont secretly question the economic viability not to mention the ethics of our
government paying farmers to grow more of a basic food crop not to feed more
people but for the purpose of fueling our cars.
The point I am making here is that political candidates are elected to serve their
constituents, whose special interests may or may not further Gods interest. An
congresswoman who hopes to be elected or re-elected is going to do what her
constituents want, even if she personally has doubts that so doing is best for all.
But a prophet! A prophet, ancient or modern, answers to no one but God. A
prophet wont be popular in his or her home town because, as the mouthpiece
of God, she or he is under divine compulsion to proclaim things that will often go
against worldly values, often at great personal hardship. Here is an example from
Jeremiah:
If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,"
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. {Jer 20:9 RSV}
Such was the dilemma for a prophet like Jesus and Jeremiah and Isaiah and
Elijah and Elisha and Paul, for that matter. A prophet is going to proclaim Gods
will, come hell or high water, what will further Gods mission on earth, which is
to reconcile all people to himself and to one another.
Jesus friends and neighbors in the synagogue made the mistake of thinking that
the blessings that God had brought upon Jesus would accrue to them. See, they
had misunderstood the ancient Scriptures to mean that as Gods chosen people,
the nation of Israel was to receive special favor at the expense of others. They
had been blind to the other part of the story, what God meant when he told
Abraham that his descendants would be a blessing to the nations. Being
descendants of the original chosen people, the twelve tribes of Israel, did not
mean that the Gentile peoples of other tribes and nations would not also be
blessed.
At the heart of this passage from Luke is Gods grace. God works through
human beings to further his will for the world. This could mean Elishas healing
of the leper Naaman of Syria, Israels enemy. What might this gracious act of
Elisha have accomplished? From the second book of Kings we know that in their
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2016C 4 Epiphany Prophets Not Welcome Luke 4:21-30

The Rev. Nancy S. Streufert
31 January 2016 Christ Church

conquest, the Syrians captured a Jewish woman who was made a servant to
Naamans wife. It was she who urged Naaman to visit Elisha who she believed
could heal him. And indeed, when Naaman was healed, he acknowledged the
gracious power of the Jewish God. Would he have kept it a secret? I dont think
so. We cant know why God chooses certain people and not others to accomplish
his purpose. As Paul says, we see in a mirror, dimly Now I know only in part;
then I will know fully.
In this 4th Sunday in the season of Epiphany, Jesus manifests his true nature to
his surprised colleagues in the synagogue in Nazareth. He reveals to them that
he himself is the long-awaited Messiah of whom the prophet Isaiah and others
foretold.
But he was not the Messiah that they had in mind. As the popular author Anne
Lamott, quips: You can safely assume that you've created God in your own
image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
Jesus became shunned not only by his hometown community, but by his people,
the nation of Israel. Jesus would go to the cross for speaking the truth,
proclaiming Gods words that all nations would be blessed in Jesus whom God
had anointed Messiah. Spread the word.
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the
cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So
clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those
who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your
Name. Amen.