January 28, 2007, 4th Sunday of Epiphany, All
Souls' Episcopal Church
“They were astonished at his
doctrine: for his word was with power.”
Luke 4:32
In the Gospel appointed for today, our Lord Jesus, assisting
in a service of worship, reads a passage from the Bible and
preaches on the text only to find His angry congregation
trying to throw him off a cliff. For any Rector, preaching
on the Sunday of the Parish Annual meeting can be a daunting
task, but it is especially so after reading this Gospel
lesson. A perfectly understandable and utterly human
impulse would be to try and determine precisely where Jesus
went wrong in His sermon. However, the fact of the matter
is that our Lord knew exactly what He was saying and doing
and knew what the reaction to His sermon would be. You see,
the people from His home town thought they knew the Lord
Jesus. The truth is that He knew them.
What caused the congregational tumult, and what got
all the trouble started, is that the local congregation in
Nazareth had heard about miracles that Jesus had performed
elsewhere and they were expecting similar such things to
occur for them. First, our Lord tells the congregation (and
these are the people He had grown up with) that a prophet is
seldom without honor, except in His home town. That did not
go over well. He then gave them two examples of His point.
He mentions how Elijah, considered the greatest of the
prophets, did not perform miracles for his own kindred, but
did help a poor widow in the foreign city of Sidon. He also
mentioned how Elijah’s successor, Elisha, did not do
miracles where he was from but instead healed, of all
people, a Syrian. This was the point when things turned
violent.
The people in the synagogue that day came to worship with
all sorts of expectations. They would have known that
Jesus, already being called a prophet, would be among them.
Many would have been skeptical and many simply curious.
They would have seen Jesus growing up. They would have
remembered Him as a small boy. They knew His family. Most
of the congregation, having heard of His miracles, hoped to
see something for themselves – with their own two eyes.
Some wanted proof. Others hoped to see a miracle and then
immediately begin talking about how they always knew that
this young man was something special, basking as it were in
His reflected glory. One thing which was a certainty in
their minds was that if He had done great things elsewhere,
then He would surely do them in His own hometown, especially
if He knew what was good for Him.
What the people in Nazareth that day didn’t seem to
understand, and what many today still do not understand, is
that miracles do not occur in order to cause us to have
faith. This would make our faith subject to our senses.
Neither did Jesus perform miracles to prove anything to
anyone. Miracles are manifestation of God’s glory.
Miracles are signs pointing to a reality far greater than
that experienced by our senses. The people who came to
church that day came with their own set of expectations.
They had their own notions of the way events should unfold
that day. This was there own city and their own synagogue
and they had their own ideas of what they wanted to see and
hear. As usual, the Lord Jesus has a better way, and as
usual, a sinful humanity rejects Him and His ways and favors
their own.
As we prepare for our Parish Annual meeting, let us
learn from today’s Gospel reading. The people who heard and
rejected Jesus on that day may have been full of notions,
ideas, and expectations, but they lacked faith. They lacked
the one thing they needed most. As a Parish, we must be
good stewards of all that God has given us, and this means
we must act with sound judgment and all due discretion as we
examine all the practical aspects which go into the
operation of a church. And yet, beyond all that, and
indeed, informing all that, is our faithfulness to God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. All the success in the world
is worth nothing unless we are faithful. All the growth in
the world is worth nothing unless we have grown in spiritual
things. All the progress we can measure is of little value
if we have not progressed together in our pilgrimage of
faith.
The angry reaction of the congregation in Nazareth
gives us much to think about on this day. They felt
insulted. They felt like they weren’t getting the
recognition they were due. They reacted impulsively and
violently. What likely started with a few unhappy voices
soon turned into an angry mob. If anyone was counseling
patience on that day, we are not told about it. Indeed, if
anyone had counseled patience on that day, they might well
have been thrown off the cliff themselves. And yet, just
such patient circumspection was what was needed on that day.
What may we learn from all this? We learn that as a
parish, we must be faithful and we must also be wise.
Wisdom is a virtue every bit as precious as it is rare. In
a rapidly changing and uncertain world, we must pray for
God’s guidance and seek His wisdom. In a rapidly declining
and confused church, we must pray for God’s guidance and
seek His wisdom. When young Solomon was told by God that he
would be King to his people, he did not ask for riches to
insure the royal treasury or for an army to secure the
kingdom. Instead, he asked for one thing – a wise and
understanding heart. This gift is one we need now more than
ever. May God grant it to us as individuals and as a church
as we seek to do His will; may we be attentive to His word
for it is His word and His word alone which has power to
save, and save eternally.
