Never Underestimate a Small Community with Faith in Love (February 2, 2025)

Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; Luke 4:21-30

When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove Jesus out of the town, that they might hurl him off the cliff.

I hesitate to ask this question – but have you ever been enraged by a sermon?  Speaking for myself, I’ve heard plenty of sermons that I didn’t really like – I’ve even given sermons that I didn’t really like, to be honest.  Part of the appeal of being a pastor is that when I don’t like a sermon, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

Sometimes a sermon is just boring – it doesn’t really connect the Scripture texts of the day to anything that is going on in my life or anybody else’s life.  Sometimes the preacher is afraid to take hold of the Word that’s being spoken in the Scripture and tries to water it down, smooth over the edges, and the sermon winds up falling flat.  Sometimes the preacher’s personal opinions get in the way of really hearing what the Word is saying.  I’ve probably done all of those things at times, and I know I’ve felt let down after sermons that didn’t work for all of these reasons.  But, fortunately for me at least, no one has tried to throw me off a cliff quite yet.

But there’s one thing I’ve learned from trying to offer sermons over the years, and it’s this:  Not everyone hears the sermon – any sermon – the way that I expect them to.  I always steel myself when someone tries to summarize what they heard in one of my sermons – often it’s something I didn’t realize I said or even intended to say.  And another person might have taken away something completely different.  Sometimes that’s because I’m just not being clear and not everyone follows what I’m trying to say – that’s my fault.  But sometimes it’s just that what one person needs to hear on any given Sunday is different from what another person needs to hear, and we all tend to focus on what we really need to hear, and the Spirit somehow works in all of us as we speak our human words and as we listen for God’s Word.

So I have to confess to being a bit skeptical when Luke reports that “all in the synagogue were filled with rage” at what Jesus said in his home synagogue of Nazareth on that day.  Because I have never known everyone in a faith community to have the identical opinion about anything.

On one level, we can see what might have been so offensive about the teaching of Jesus.  He begins his sermon, as we read in last week’s gospel, saying that his text from Isaiah – “The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favor” – that this text was being fulfilled, right there, right then, in their assembly that Sabbath morning.  The people of Nazareth had heard about what Jesus had been doing in the neighboring towns and villages – healing the sick, driving out demons, and so on – and they were expecting Jesus to start performing some miracles for them too.  And no doubt there were sick and hurting people right there in their congregation who could have used a miracle right then.  Jesus, who grew up in that town and in that very congregation, surely knew all these people and what they needed.

But instead Jesus says, miracles don’t come just because you expect them.  Don’t the Scriptures tell us about signs and wonders that God did for other people, don’t the Scriptures tell us to rejoice and be amazed at what God has done for other people, and not to demand that we get the same things?  Jesus points to some famous Bible stories – Elijah visiting the Canaanite woman and providing for her family (and no one else) when all Israel was suffering in a famine; Elisha healing the Syrian general, Israel’s enemy, and no one else, of leprosy.  These are stories that Jesus would have learned right there in that synagogue, from elders and teachers and rabbis who might well have been present on that morning.

Why does God provide a miracle for some and not for others?  We don’t know and we aren’t meant to know.  As Paul says, we see darkly as in a mirror – but we are called to have faith that God really is merciful and compassionate and wants the best for each of us.  We are called to have hope that God in the end will make all things right and that suffering and death will not have the last word.  We are called to love – and love means not insisting on having our own way, not being resentful, but bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things.  And in the end the important thing is the grace that allows us to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep, and in the end that’s more important than whether we are the ones rejoicing or weeping at any given moment.

Most of those who gathered to hear Jesus at the synagogue in Nazareth that day were probably disappointed that they didn’t get any of the miracles that some of them were expecting.  Some of the congregation might even have been angry about it.  But I don’t think every last person in the congregation was so angry about it that they wanted to kill Jesus for not doing any miracles for them.  If Jesus had learned something about how God acts growing up in the synagogue at Nazareth, other members of that congregation probably knew – deep down – that Jesus was right.  That God indeed loves the outcast – the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, the oppressed, the disfavored – and that our love for these outcast matters so, so much more than what we want or what we expect or what we thing we’re entitled to.

And maybe it felt like everyone in the congregation was enraged and wanted to throw Jesus off the cliff – but I’m sure there were some in the congregation who were distraught.  Maybe the mob was too strong, too powerful, too loud for them to feel that they could say anything to calm things down – but I can’t believe that there weren’t a few who didn’t approve.  Because our gospel text today tells us that this mob, intent on doing harm to Jesus, did not succeed – at least, not that day.  The passage ends: “But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”

Diana Butler Bass, in her reflections on this reading, wonders whether those few faithful members of the congregation were the ones who made it possible for Jesus to escape.  She writes:

“I suspect the unnamed heroes of this story stepped outside of the ‘all,’ not willing to be part of the totality, and made a way for the intended victim to pass safely. Did they spot one another in the angry throng? A furtive glance, seeing another hesitant face across the room? Maybe they moved toward one another, hoping to keep each other safe. Did a few others notice the two and the small band then began to multiply? The ‘all’ was furious; the few didn’t understand how it had come to this.

“It was frightening for them; it must have been hard to go against their family, friends, and neighbors. As they followed the mob to the bluff, they must have worried that if they spoke up they could be thrown off, too. But instead of submitting to the tyranny of the ‘all,’ maybe they formed a little alternative community in solidarity with each other. When Jesus was herded to the cliff, perhaps it was they who saw an opening — made an opening — and helped him escape. He passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

“That is, indeed, a miracle. The bystanders find the courage to do something.”

When everything seems chaotic, when everyone seems angry and out for revenge, when the target of the mob’s rage seems doomed, never underestimate what a small community dedicated to the gospel of mercy, compassion, and love can do.  Because, in the end, there are only three things that endure: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

 Source for quote: https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/sunday-musings-657