The Things We Do for Love
“The Things We Do for Love” – Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30
“When they heard [what Jesus had said], all in the synagogue were filled with rage.”
Some of you know of Nadia Bolz-Weber, a well-known Lutheran pastor in Colorado. She tells a wonderful story about being asked by a very earnest young seminarian, “’Pastor Nadia, what do you do personally to get closer to God?’ Before I even realized I was saying it, I replied, “What? Nothing. Sounds like a horrible idea to me, trying to get closer to God.’ Half the time, I wish God would leave me alone. Getting closer to God might mean getting told to love someone I don’t even like, or to give away even more of my money. It might mean letting some idea or dream that is dear to me get ripped away.” Why would I go looking for that? (Accidental Saints, at 8-9)
I love this story because – once you get past the shock of a pastor being against getting closer to God – it reflects a profound truth. That the gospel, the good news of Jesus, the good news of God’s love for us, the good news of grace and mercy and life that overcomes death – this good news is astonishingly good news and yet at the same time it stirs up something within us that we resist, no matter how good the news is.
Jesus begins his ministry by announcing good news – the reign of God is like a joyful wedding feast with plenty of good wine. The reign of God is like the year of jubilee, when the captives are released and the weight of past debts is lifted from the poor and everyone is set free. This is the good news that Jesus announces to the synagogue at Nazareth and, as Luke tells us in today’s reading, “all spoke well of [Jesus] and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
The good news is that the reign of God is at hand and that God is present right here, right now, setting people free. We heard about that that wedding in Cana where the presence of the reign of God meant good wine and a great party. We heard about those sick and blind and lame people in Capernaum where the presence of the reign of God meant they could stand up and see and walk. What’s the presence of the reign of God in Jesus going to do for us, here in Nazareth, here in his own home town, among his own people! This is going to be so amazing!
And then Jesus says – My friends, I know how well you know the Scriptures. I grew up here in this synagogue, you taught the Scriptures to me. And so you know that prophets are never welcomed by their own people. You know that God always blesses the outsider, the undeserving, the foreigner. Oh, Mrs. Cohen! I remember, in Sabbath school you taught us the story of Elijah who did miracles not for any of the many poor widows in Israel but for the widow of Zarephath, in the land of wicked Queen Jezebel. And Rabbi Eliezar, who can forget that time in youth group when you told us how Elisha healed the leprosy of Naaman the Syrian, the enemy general who had Hebrew girls captured in battle as personal household slaves – yes, that’s who Elisha chose to heal. All us kids were so shocked, but you taught us – this is how God works, God heals but never in the way we expect, and this is how we know that it’s God who does it and not us, this is how we know it’s grace. You taught us that, Rabbi, and I’m eternally grateful for it.
You all know God so well, here in this synagogue. You taught me, you raised me, you know that when the reign of God breaks into our world, it’s about God, it’s never about us. Yes, God loves us all, and yes, God loves you here in Nazareth, more than you can possibly know. God is a God of love, and love “does not insist on its own way, love is not irritable or resentful, love rejoices in the truth.” So I know that you have heard the signs that God is working in Cana, and in Capernaum, and in so many other towns here in Galilee. I know that you don’t need another miracle here in Nazareth in order to recognize that God is active and at work, that the reign of God is at hand. You know this is how God works, you taught it to me.
And when the people of Nazareth heard – No miracles for you! – they got angry. Really angry. Kill the preacher angry. You have miracles for Cana and Capernaum and no miracles for your kin and neighbors? Those rumors you weren’t really Joseph’s son must have been true after all, you son of a b-----! Get out of here!
Pastor Nadia warned us, when God gets close to us, God asks us to do things we would really rather not do. When Jesus came back home to Nazareth, he asked the people of Nazareth to do something they really didn’t want to do – to recognize and celebrate the hand of God in the miracles done for other people, without needing any miracle for themselves. Should they have been surprised God asked them for something like this? Of course not; it’s right there in the Bible stories that Jesus learned in that very synagogue. But is it surprising that they were disappointed and hurt and angry? Not really.
But here’s the thing. When Jesus told the people of Nazareth they weren’t going to get their own miracles, they heard that as: Jesus doesn’t love us. Jesus doesn’t want good things for us. Jesus will provide for strangers but he doesn’t care about us – after all we did for him! But I think this is wrong. It’s precisely because Jesus loves the congregation at Nazareth that he acts the way he does towards them.
Jesus wants the congregation at Nazareth to know what love really means. To know, as Paul would later write, that love “does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, that love rejoices in the truth.” That if we really love our neighbors as ourselves, then we rejoice just as much in their blessings as we do in our own. That if we really love God we do not demand God do exactly what we want when we want it. Jesus knows full well that the congregation at Nazareth does not, in fact, love God as much as it thinks it does, that the congregation at Nazareth in reality does not love its neighbors as itself. But Jesus wants them to know what love and grace really means. And until we know we don’t deserve grace, it’s not really grace.
And so Jesus provokes them, and provokes them, and provokes them, until they explode in violent rage. Until the good and pious churchgoing people of Nazareth drop the façade and reveal just how self-centered and afraid to love they really are. Pastor Nadia is right – we really don’t want to get close to God, we really don’t want to know what love demands of us, not if we’re honest.
And having provoked this crisis in his hometown, what does Jesus do? He does not fight back, he does not argue with them. He rises above it and goes on his way. He leaves the synagogue of Nazareth, who thought they were so blessed and beloved by God, having shown them that in fact they are God’s enemies. And what a wonderful thing to know, to know that you are God’s enemy, because guess what? God loves enemies! God’s love does not depend on us earning or deserving that love. The people of Nazareth knew that in their heads, they read about it in the Scriptures, they taught it to their children – that’s where Jesus learned it. But they didn’t know it, not really. Jesus made them just uncomfortable enough to maybe come to really see it for the first time. And that, my friends, may not seem like it, but that is an act of love.
At the end of the second reading today, reflecting on the mysterious and paradoxical love/hate relationship we have with the love of God, Paul writes: 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 am fully known.”
We know so little about love, really. We think we do, but when confronted with what love demands of us, we shrink from it. We fear getting closer to God and getting closer to love. We know little, Paul says, but we are already fully known by God. We see as if through a dusty fun-house mirror, but God sees us completely as we are, and one day we are promised that we will see God face to face. Between now and then we have a lot to learn about love, all of us, and sometimes the learning comes as disappointing or scary news. Being forced to look at our lack of love might even provoke us to anger. But it is then that we understand how amazing is the love that God has for us despite our lack of love. It is precisely when we feel that the last thing we want is to get closer to God that we discover that God is already closer to us than we ever imagined. And that is good news indeed.