Sermon at Nazareth—Luke 4:14-30

Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power. Reports about him spread quickly through the whole region. He taught regularly in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!” Everyone spoke well of him and was amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips. “How can this be?” they asked. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Then he said, “You will undoubtedly quote me this proverb: ‘Physician, heal yourself’—meaning, ‘Do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum.’ But I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown. “Certainly there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the heavens were closed for three and a half years, and a severe famine devastated the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them. He was sent instead to a foreigner—a widow of Zarephath in the land of Sidon. And many in Israel had leprosy in the time of the prophet Elisha, but the only one healed was Naaman, a Syrian.” When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious. Jumping up, they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built. They intended to push him over the cliff, but he passed right through the crowd and went on his way.

Here in Luke 4, we stumble upon Jesus’ first public teaching, as he returns home proclaiming his mission to bring good news to the poor, release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. And in the aftermath, everybody is amazed. They say “Isn’t this the carpenter’s kid? Who knew that he could speak with such authority?” And it seems like this messianic ministry that Jesus has begun might not be so difficult after all. But then the text continues, and things begin to turn.

Jesus tells the crowd that he’s returned home to announce God’s blessing— but he also says that he won’t be performing any miracles among them. He recalls Elijah and Elisha, the great prophets of old, whose miraculous acts weren’t performed for the expected people, but were given to those who did not know Israel’s God. And as he points to the widow of Sidon and Naaman the Syrian, they realize Jesus isn’t going to do what they want, and suddenly the crowd is furious. In their anger, they form a mob, and push Jesus to a cliff at the end of town where they hope to throw him over the edge. Because this crowd doesn’t want a messiah who refuses to meet their demands.

And if Jesus were nothing more than a wise teacher or an ordinary prophet, perhaps this attempt to force his hand would have worked. But we know he’s something more. So even as they try to push Jesus off the cliff, he manages to walk right through that mob to continue on the path his Father has laid out. Because the crowd can reject Jesus all they want, they can try to force their will or manipulate the outcome, but that won’t stop God’s plan.

And it’s easy to judge that crowd for rejecting the Lord. For trying to corner him and demand he operate differently. But I think we do the same thing (though perhaps in different ways). So maybe this week’s sermon can be a reminder to our people (and to ourselves), that when we’re tempted to force the Lord’s hand, we’d have much better luck turning in a new direction and following where he leads.

I’ve spent my share of time trying to box God in, thinking my prayers or good works would earn me some measure of reprieve, or hoping I could bargain for the outcome I desired. But those simple manipulations never seem to work. And in the end, that’s good news. Because a God that you could steer at every moment wouldn’t be God at all. His ways wouldn’t be any greater than your own. And he couldn’t offer you anything that you didn’t already have. But a God who walks off in another direction and invites you to follow, that God can lead you somewhere new. That God can offer healing in unexpected ways and he can help you grow beyond your expectations. And that God can set you free from the things you can’t escape on your own.

So when God is up to things we cannot see or he’s operating in ways we just can’t understand, that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned us. Sometimes he’s refusing the obvious miracle or easy healing in order to accomplish the mysterious and unseen work of changing our spirit. As Lesslie Newbigin says, “Growth is a slow, secret, unspectacular affair.” And sometimes it requires the long and winding road that God demands.

So even if it feels miserable, sometimes it’s a good thing that God doesn’t do what we would like. Because the difficult road ahead, the one that takes a little longer, or has a few more stops along the way, can be the best thing for us, or for the ones that we love, or for our neighbors who are in desperate need. And perhaps that’s what your congregation needs to hear this Sunday.

We can’t pretend that kind of surrender is easy. Because it isn’t. When Jesus leads in a different direction than we wanted or he moves much slower than we hoped he would, it’s tempting to fight against God’s will, manipulating our own lives or the lives of others. But Jesus says, “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”

We can usually see the truth of those words when we look back at the past. I can see now the ways God used some of those difficult moments and frustrating detours for my good and for the good of those I love. But at the time, I wasted all kinds of time and energy trying to force something else to happen.

So I look at this text and wonder how our experience of life would change if we were able to trust that God will work that way again, turning everything for our good, even as we walk into new challenges. I wonder if our prayers might provide more comfort, or if we would face those difficult stretches with a greater peace, or more patience, or a greater willingness to be surprised at the unexpected joy that is found in the process of becoming who we’d like to be or arriving where we hope to land, if we just stopped trying to force our will and we started trusting in the Lord’s.

We can either have faith in the way that Jesus is leading, in his promise to walk beside us and to lead us somewhere good. Or we can try to take control, making demands of the Lord as we corner him on the cliffs. But in the end, Jesus walked right through that crowd… and he’ll do the same to us. So grasping for control won’t work. But I think the good news is that there is a freedom available to us, and a promise for something better if we can abandon our attempts to force God’s hand, turn away from the cliff’s edge, and follow Jesus wherever he’s going.

After all, Jesus was born into this world, the fullness of God wrapped in humility and marked for the cross, for a reason. To bring Good News to the poor. To proclaim to the captives that they will be released. To ensure that the blind will see, the oppressed will go free, and the time of the Lord’s favor will be announced to all.

Many blessings as you preach this week,

Alex

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P.S. In case anyone’s interested, my first book released at the start of the year. Here’s a link to check it out.

https://www.amazon.com/Abandon-Orderly-House-Skeptics-Believers/dp/B0DMKQ8V1Z/