Supporting The Agenda

Luke 4:14–30

¹⁴Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. ¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸“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, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” ²³He 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.’” ²⁴And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. ²⁵But 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; ²⁶yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹They 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. ³⁰But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

            I grew up at St. Luke’s Methodist Church on the north side of La Crosse, Wisconsin. I went through Sunday school there, played my part in a number of Christmas pageants, sang in various church choirs and was confirmed into the membership when I was 14.

            I made a commitment to follow Jesus when I was 19 years old and it changed my life. I became a Sunday school teacher, a lay leader and a lay member to the Annual Conference. When I was 21 years old I was given an opportunity to serve as a student pastor in Norwalk, Wisconsin; which meant that I was expected to lead 2 small churches and preach every week.

            The week before I left St. Luke’s Church to take up my new assignment I was asked to preach for my home congregation. It was a weird kind of moment because in all of the time that I had spent in that church building I had never pictured myself standing in that particular pulpit. It was a place that belonged to someone else; someone older than I was; someone dressed in black; someone more qualified and so I accepted the invitation with some “fear and trembling.” I was going to preach to my mother and father, to my aunts and uncles, to my old choir director and my Sunday school teachers. I was going to attempt to teach people who had taught me. It was a bit surreal.

            I took a look and I found that “hand written” sermon in my files. It wasn’t too bad. Although, I apparently thought that I needed to tell them everything I knew so I went through the whole history of the church in an attempt to encourage them to let go of empty religion and invest their lives in a relationship with Jesus that would not only change their lives, but change the world we live in.

            I wasn't trying to impress them; I was trying to convert them. I wanted to start a conversation about a faith that transforms us, a faith that can’t be locked up inside the church until we decide to return. For me, this was serious. This was real preaching.

            When the service was over I stood in the back (like preachers do) and people came out and shook my hand and said what people say to preachers; “good job”, “nice message.” What I wanted was some kind of comment about what I was trying to say. I wanted someone to say something that would indicate that I had touched a nerve or got people thinking. But, what I got (along with the standard “nice sermon” comments) was, “Oh, I remember when you used to run up and down the aisle in the sanctuary.” Or “I remember when you were in my Sunday school class.” Or “I remember when you sang in the choir.” People talked about how “cute” I was or about how they remembered me as a child.

            I left with the feeling that not a single person in that congregation had heard what I was trying to say.

            Being the hometown boy is hard. But, what I realized (much later) was that people came to that service with an entirely different set of expectations. IN MY CASE THEY WEREN’T THERE TO LEARN FROM ME, THEY WERE THERE TO SUPPORT ME, TO BE PROUD OF ME, TO SEE THE LITTLE KID WHO HAD “DONE GOOD.” It was hard (maybe impossible) for them to get beyond our shared history.

            I think that’s why coming home is so hard and I also think that is at least part of the reason why Jesus’ homecoming in Nazareth went the way it did.

            After Jesus was baptized by John it says that he went into the wilderness for 40 days (where he was tempted by the devil.) Then it says, “Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee,” (vs. 14)

            As he traveled through Galilee (traveling on foot, which would have taken some time) Jesus stopped at the towns and villages along the way and taught…

“…in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” Matthew 4:23

            He was developing quite a reputation AND so when he arrived at Nazareth. He was greeted like “the hometown boy made good” and people were excited that one of their own was becoming so famous. But things changed just a bit when he showed up at the synagogue.

            He was invited to read the text during the morning worship and then expound on what he had read. It says that,

“…the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸’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, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’”

            And then he said something that really got their attention.

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

            What Jesus was saying to the hometown crowd was that he was more than just the local boy who made good. He was more than simply a gifted preacher and teacher. What Jesus was saying was that he was specifically sent by God to change the world. Jesus was claiming to be Messiah.

            The peoples response to this revelation was kind of what you would expect.

“Is not this Joseph’s son?”

            Isn’t this the little boy we used to see running through the streets? Isn’t this the little boy who used to come to synagogue with his parents? He gives a good sermon but where does he get off trying to claim he is Messiah? We know this boy. He’s like us.

            And, as confusing as Jesus comments were to those people who were listening to him, the whole thing might have ended right there and been forgotten but Jesus kept talking and now they were listening and what he said was (that if they remembered their history) God’s blessings were not reserved just for Israel.

            If they remembered their story they would have remembered that when Elijah, God’s greatest prophet, was in a battle for the soul of the nation of Israel he was directed to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon. She wasn’t a Jew but she was chosen by God to be a blessing and to be blessed.

            Then later in the story when (as Jesus said) there were plenty of lepers in Israel God sent the prophet Elisha (Elijah’s chosen successor) to heal Naaman the Syrian general who (not only was not a Jew, but) might best be described as a warrior for one of Israel’s ancient enemies.

            THIS was the message that upset the hometown crowd; not that Jesus was claiming to be Messiah but that Jesus was claiming that God cared about everyone equally. What Jesus was saying was that Messiah had come to be more than a blessing for the people of Israel. Messiah had come to bring God’s kingdom to the entire world.

            This same message is supposed to be part of the impetus for our outreach into the world we live in today. JESUS came to be MESSIAH for everyone. John was quoting Jesus when wrote these words,

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

            Jesus came because there was a universal brokenness that needed to be addressed. Jesus came to offer anyone who would respond with the opportunity to find forgiveness and healing and a relationship with the living God that carries us through the storms of life and shines light into the darkness of our lives.

            We are being called to live as if we believe what Jesus has said! God loves everyone and wants them all to come home. God has been working overtime to get people’s attention and in order to accomplish his mission he selected a group of people (we might call them “chosen people”) to make this message real; to be God’s hands and voices in the world. We are those chosen people.

            I’m not going to try to “soft sell” this to you. The work we’ve been given to do as God’s representatives is more difficult than ever before. There was a time (not too long ago) when the Christian faith was considered to be the bedrock upon which our country was built. There was a time when the cultural expectation was that everyone should belong to a Church and that everyone should attend his or her Church on a regular basis. In that time (not so long ago) evangelism was simply opening up the doors and turning on the lights. We didn’t have to coerce anyone or challenge anyone or try to entertain anyone; people would come, they would gather with the community and they would learn about the faith but things have changed.

            Today, many people who study the sociology of religion describe our culture as “post-Christian.” They believe that we have come to a place where the majority of people see the Church (at best) as optional. In fact, the word that is used by many people to describe the Church today is “irrelevant.”  What this means is that people who used to come because it was expected no longer feel the need to be here and what that means is if we want them to hear the Good News of forgiveness and hope then we have to be willing to take our message out to where they live.

            Our faith in Jesus (and our religious programming) isn’t just for Sunday mornings any more. As a Church community we have to find ways to support, nurture, teach and inspire people who will never step through those doors. The future is out there. WE NEED TO TAKE JESUS OUT INTO OUR WORLD.

            We need to make the faith more personal again. We need to talk about how we can set up relational communities; places where our friends can come and talk about their struggles, their dreams and their relationship to God.

            One of the ways that we can do that is to adopt a strategy that is as old as the church and a process that was foundational to the beginnings of Methodism.

            In the beginning, when being a follower of Jesus was against the law and Christians regularly put their lives and their families at risk in order to gather together for worship and prayer, the church met in people’s homes. They gathered in small groups to worship, pray and grow in their faith. These “Church” gatherings were highly relational and filled with the kind of support and caring that people needed to face the challenges of life.

            When Methodism was first starting, and people were beginning to understand that there is something wonderful and powerful about a relationship with the living Jesus these people called Methodists met in each other’s homes to confess their sin to each other, prayer for each other and work together to care for people who were less fortunate than they were.

            I would like to suggest that it is time again for us to open our homes and gather with our friends to explore what it means to be children of God. It is that time in history when we need to provide a safe place for people we know (people who would never darken the door of a Church) to come and explore their spiritual questions and find people who will care about them. We need to find a space where we can introduce people to the Messiah; the one who changes people’s lives.

            There are lots of different ways that we can facilitate this process. I can teach people who would teach the same material in their homes so, in effect, I would mentor you and you would mentor others. OR we can provide DVD studies where an “expert” would provide most of the content and the host or hostess would simply facilitate the conversation. OR we can create a group that focuses mostly on prayer and becomes a support group for people who have to live in the real world every day. OR we can create a group that would plan to reach out into the community and use their time together to serve people and in so doing model the love of Jesus. OR your group could be some combination of all of these things. The possibilities are almost endless but the goal is to make the faith REAL and PERSONAL and SACRIFICIAL once again.

            I ALMOST talked myself out of having this discussion. I assumed that most of you will have already dismissed the idea because you don’t think you have the time or you don’t want to be inconvenienced or you are intimidated by the whole idea AND I can’t fix those things for you.

            It will be inconvenient. Somebody has to be inconvenienced in order to make it convenient for someone else. It has to do with how much you care and that’s generally how life works. Taking a leadership role in any kind of setting will be intimidating (even frightening) but someone has to be willing to lead if you want to have any hope of arriving somewhere AND like I said, we can help with that.

            I am hoping that you might see small group ministry (at best) as an opportunity to make a difference in someone else’s life. I am hoping that you will see small group ministry (at the very least) as a program that you need to be involved in because you are grateful for all that God has done in your life.

            Think of it as “one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.” Think of this as an opportunity to be thankful. Think of this as an opportunity to be helpful. OR think of all the people who are searching, who are living lost and alone, who are trying to face the storms and challenges of life without support; without Jesus. THEN decide to be part of the solution. As the sign says, “Relationships: A Mess Worth Making.”

            We have included a flyer in the bulletin for the last 5 weeks that asks you to indicate a willingness to explore the possibility of small group ministry. I want you to look at the flyer again AND pray about what God is calling you to do. I’m not asking you to sign away the next 20 years of your life, I am asking you to consider being a part of this life-changing ministry. Don’t dismiss it without taking time to pray and seek God’s will. I want you to pray that God will speak to your heart. I want you to care enough to pray.