Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 30, 2022 – Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13; Luke 4: 21-30

I noticed during the past week that the TV station is promoting the 20^th anniversary season of American Idol. Twenty years. And you may recall, if you ever watched the series on a regular basis, that the week before the finals begin, each of the finalists go home. And the camera crews follow them to their hometown, where there’s almost always the same set of things. There’s a parade through town, if weather allows, in an open car, and they are followed to their parents’ homes, and to meet a couple of their friends here and there. It’s all very carefully rehearsed. And finally it ends with a concert, usually in their high school gym. Every now and then, people are interviewed who say nice things about the candidate. And we’ll never know if that candidate was really that beloved in the community or not. The whole thing is very carefully staged.

That’s kind of the same thing that we have in Luke’s story this morning. Very often, when we have our Sunday reading, for the sake of making it a little bit shorter, they cut out the connections. But, in ancient writings, the connections between one story and another are very important. So this is what it says in the gospel just before I began to read. “And so Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been raised. And, as was His custom, He entered a synagogue on the Sabbath day. And when He was handed the scroll of scripture to read, this is what He said.” Now, that connection is extremely important because it tells us an awful lot of things. First of all, He’s coming to His own home town. He’s been out on the road preaching and working miracles ever since He picked up the fallen mantle of John the Baptist, who had been arrested. And He is beginning to change the content of John the Baptist’s preaching. So, when He gets home, it says, on the Sabbath He went to the synagogue. Which means He got home before the Sabbath. Where did He go?

Obviously, He went to His mother’s house. And who was there besides Mary? Likely cousins of His, perhaps from among Mary’s male and female relatives, or Joseph’s male and female relatives. And, if Joseph were a widower when he married Mary, some of Jesus’ half-siblings may have been there. And so, when He goes to the synagogue, He goes with a whole bunch of people who love Him dearly. The women go to the women’s place, the men to the men’s place and sitting in the places of honor, the local rabbi and, perhaps, the rabbi or rabbis who taught Jesus everything He knows about the scripture. This is a big deal for them. Home town boy made good. And the teachers are ready to do a victory lap after everybody sees how well He’s been trained. And He chooses a classic – a classic = passage from Isaiah that everybody knew that everybody knew. And, after He reads it beautifully, He says the one thing that He should not have said. He says, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Why should He not have said that? Well, first of all, it’s clear from the remarks that take place afterwards, that everybody thought, “Who does He think He is? He put Himself above His station. We know where He came from. We know who His relatives are. Who does He think He is taking on the character of the one person prophesied by Isaiah who would save the Jewish people?” That’s the first problem.

The second problem is, for centuries now, the scholarship in Israel has been aimed at pushing off the great event. When the Jews came back from exile, the great prophets expected that they would become, literally, a light for the nations. They’d go out in missionary work and bring people to the worship and love of the one true God. Instead, after about a half a century of bickering, they circled the wagons and determined that they would be exclusive and keep all the Gentiles out forever and forever. And, during that time, they went from one hated group of Gentiles to another until pretty much the whole world was anathema to Jews. And anyone who wanted to bring the Isaiah vision of a world that’s open to Judaism and a Judaism that’s open to the world was a danger to the status quo. That sounds like ancient history. And who really cares.

But you know, in our heart of hearts, all of us fear change. Some of us more than others. But we don’t like it when the world in which we are comfortable is changed in any way. Whether it’s just that the neighborhood store was closed, or our favorite program went off the air, or if it’s something earth-shattering. We don’t like change. And neither did they. And here, Jesus, what has He done? He’s pulled the pin on a live grenade and lobbed it into the crowd. That’s why they are furious with Him.

The rest of the story is allegory. I’m not even sure that Nazareth is built on the brow of a hill. And it must have been some hill if you could toss someone over the edge of it. So it’s an allegorical hill with an allegorical cliff.  Then notice what happens. They drag Him to the brow of the hill, but He walks through their midst and goes away. That’s a description of several things. It’s a description of the crucifixion and the resurrection. They drag Jesus to the brow of Calvary’s hill where, in the end, He turned and walked away. It’s an allegory that the church at the time of St Luke, which is hesitant to face great change, to go from being a little tiny group of communities that all get together and pray, to being a world-wide church, open to the world and making the world open to it, with all the dangers that that kind of change involved. Dangers from persecution from the rest of the world. Dangers from traitors inside. Dangers from having to change your point of view about who Jesus really is in the life of the world and in your life as well. And so it’s an allegory for us as well. None of us likes change. But change is inevitable.

Each one of us is two things at the same time. We are members of the Body of Christ and, therefore, in the story, we are Jesus. The Jesus who proclaims, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The Jesus who is dragged to the brow of the hill. The Jesus who walks away and leads the way. But we’re also members of the crowd who don’t want to hear that today the scripture passage can be fulfilled in your hearing. We’re the ones in the crowd who drag Jesus away rather than listen. We’re the ones who Jesus leaves behind.

The point of the story, for all of us, is this. Each one of us holds that live grenade in our hand. The question is will we pull the pin?