Our Gospel passage today ends with Jesus telling the people that the prophecy the he read from Isaiah was fulfilled in front of them. Now, this passage is a well-known Messianic passage, and for Jesus to say that the passage was fulfilled in their presence is to say that he is the Messiah. And if we stopped there, it would certainly be interesting in unpacking the story, but it is much more interesting if we take this entire story in context.
The scripture that follows is this:
Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
The people went from being amazed at his gracious words to wanting to kill him. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, they took offense, and became enraged. What exactly happened?
Jesus had read the scripture associated with the Messiah, and had told them that in their very midst these words had been fulfilled. And the words he used were that he was anointed to preach the good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and those who are oppressed, and to return sight to the blind.
And at first, people sat and contemplated those words until someone realized that Jesus was not the strong man, the mighty warrior king that they had expected as the Messiah, but instead that Jesus was asking them to stand in solidarity with the captives, rather than the captors, to stand alongside the poor, rather than the rich, to comfort those who were brokenhearted, and to be an ally to those who are oppressed, rather than to join hands with the oppressors. In short, Jesus was telling them that as the messiah, he wanted them to love mercy, to seek justice, and to walk humbly with God.
Obviously, those in leadership in the synagogues and in Nazareth couldn’t have that. Because they loved the power they had, and wanted to maintain that power at any cost. They wanted to stand in the place of the mighty, to stand at the side of the rich, and be the oppressors, rather than those oppressed.
And so they begin to question him. They ask, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” This isn’t just saying, “Hey, we grew up with this fellow. Does he all of a sudden have delusions of grandeur?” No. Instead, it is more than that. Notice they didn’t say, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whom we have known all our lives?” Instead, they only referred to him by Joseph’s name, which was an insult, because they wanted to indicate that he himself, as an individual, was worth nothing. Second, the elders of Nazareth would have known the rumors surrounding his birth, and so what they were really insinuating was that Jesus was not a legitimate child, and the Law of Israel said that anyone who was born illegitimately was incapable of being a leader of the people, let alone a prophet. In other words, “You say that you are a prophet, a man of God, the Messiah, but we know better, and given our rules of who is in and who is out, who is important, and who is not, you don’t qualify.” The people heard the message Jesus was sending loud and clear, and instead of believing what he was telling them, they rejected him – and the message that could lead to their salvation.
Of course, Jesus picks up on their rejection, and warns them not to reject his message. He responds with a story from 1 Kings, about the prophet Elijah, who, during the time of King Ahab, declared a drought among the people because they were worshipping idols, and seeking power and alliances among those who did not believe in the God of Israel. In fact, it says that Ahab, “did more to provoke the Lord God to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.” Now, Elijah too was affected by the drought, so God sent Elijah to a widow, a Gentile, who cared for him, and the blessing of God poured out upon this woman. Her oil did not run dry, nor her jar of flour run empty until the day that God allowed rain to come to the land again. God poured out blessings upon a gentile woman, because his people had forsaken him.
The second story that Jesus brings up is of the prophet Elijah, who healed a leper, a soldier who commanded the armies of the King of Syria. Naaman was a great and powerful man, and so when Elisha didn’t meet him in person, but told him through a servant that he would be healed by washing himself in the Jordan seven times, he was, at first, offended. Surely, the Prophet should come and speak to him in person. But Naaman’s servant tells him, “Master, you are indeed a great man, and if the prophet had commanded you to do something great and mighty, you would have done it. So why not do something as simple as wash yourself in the river, like he asked?” And Naaman humbled himself, and washed himself in the Jordan as he was told, and he was healed, his skin becoming as soft as that of a child. This man Naaman, a gentile, humbled himself in the sight of God and received the blessing of God.
These stories from Jesus infuriated them, and filled the people with rage. Why? Because Jesus was saying, your ancestors rejected the prophets, and the blessing that was intended for them was passed along to those who believed, even to those outside the promise and covenant of God. The blessing went to the Gentiles. And so, Jesus was saying, if you reject my message because of your pride and arrogance, if you reject my message because you seek power over mercy, if you reject my message because you see yourselves as more important than a prophet of God, then you will lose the blessing that was intended for you. Do not miss out. Instead, believe the message that God is giving you: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God so that you might receive the blessing.
But the people were having none of that. And so they tried to kill Jesus by throwing him off a cliff. They reacted to a call for mercy with anger, with violence, and with murderous intent. But the Spirit of God allowed him to walk through the middle of them, and go on his way.
Eventually, of course, we know that those in power caught up with him, and finally managed to kill him. They finally rejected him entirely, and had him nailed to a cross. But it is that sacrifice that made those outside the promise – the gentiles – you, and me, able to receive the blessing. To become adopted children of God, to be made joint heirs with Jesus. To become members in the Body of Christ.
Our New Testament passage today comes from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Now, Corinth was a city in the middle of trade routes, and which made it a place of trade, of military might, and of cultural importance. People from all walks of life, and from all nations gathered in this city. And it was this smorgasbord of classes, this mixture of cultures and this chaos of diversity that prompted Paul to write to the Corinthians. He wrote to them because they were in the middle of a culture war. The rich were neglecting the needs of the poor, the rich were getting preferential treatment, and the people were stratifying themselves and separating themselves. The Jews were at odds with the Greeks, the rich with the poor, and any other way to separate themselves from one another based on their own rules and regulations.
But Paul was writing to them to tell them that he would have none of that. When he tells them that each of them has received the spirit of God, what he is saying to them is that every one of you has received the holy spirit so that you might continue the work of Christ in this world. Each of them had been given a task to do, and none of those tasks were any more or less important than another. Each member of the Body of Christ is given a gift to continue the work of Christ in this world, which is to reconcile the world to God.
The same spirit of God that came upon Jesus while he read the scripture in the synagogue in Nazareth is also the Spirit that is upon you, Paul says. And if the spirit of God is upon you, then you have been made a child of God. And if you are a child of God, then you are no better – and no worse – than anyone else. Instead, in the eyes of God, you are all equally beloved. And if you are all equally beloved, then there shall be no favoritism among you. You are all one body, diverse and different, yet moving toward a common goal. No one part of the body of Christ is any more important than another, and if you do not recognize this, then you have not learned to walk in mercy, to seek justice, and to walk humbly with your god. If you are becoming offended by those in power being asked to have mercy on those who are powerless, rather than allowing them to lord it over the weak, then you are rejecting the message of Christ himself.
In other words, Paul was saying, be united as the body of christ. Be one in the spirit, because if you are not unified you are rejecting the message of God.
And when you reject the message of God, the blessing that comes with it will pass you by.
I can only imagine that those in Corinth would have reacted equally as strongly to Paul’s message as the leaders of the Synagogue in Nazareth did to Jesus’ declaration that the messianic scripture had been fulfilled in their presence.
Imagine a wealthy leader of Corinth being asked to sit next to a poor, destitute homeless man with only three teeth in his mouth, and being told that each of them is equally beloved in the sight of God because the Spirit of God is upon each of them, and that both of them have been given the Spirit in order to do God’s work in the world. Imagine, the humility it would take to not be outraged at being told to have mercy on the powerless in the city of Corinth.
But imagine also the beauty of lifting up those that society deems powerless, of celebrating those who society considers less-than, of working alongside those that society deems a burden. Imagine the work of God that could be accomplished in this world if we quit allowing divisions to separate us, and instead focused on the work of God in this world.
This is why Paul ends his train of thought about the gifts of the Spirit with the passage in Corinthians that gets used at almost every wedding you have ever been to. That passage, from 1 Corinthians 13, says that if you have the most wonderful gifts, and if God has poured out the most fantastic of gifts upon you – but you lack Love – then you are nothing more than a clanging cymbal. It’s as if every time you open your mouth, a car alarm goes off, and people cannot hear, or understand what you may be trying to say or do, because all they see is apathy, or hatred.
So where does that leave us?
Quite simply, really. To follow in the footsteps of Christ, who declared his intent when he read:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.”
In short: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.
And if we do, then the blessing of God will most surely never pass us by.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on January 26, 2025.]
