The
Prophet Without Honor
“I tell you the truth,” he
continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.
Luke 4:24
When I was a young theological student, I took a clinical course that
had me doing visits in a large downtown hospital in Louisville,
Kentucky. As part of the supervised course work we were required to
write up the visit verbatim. In fact they were called "verbatiims". It
was not always easy trying to recall a visit several hours later and
writing it up word for word.
Of course it was not word for word. Close maybe, but something would
likely be missed or mis-quoted. The idea was to get the flow of the
conversation and the student's own sense of what had happened.
We have an account of an event in Jesus early ministry, written up by
Luke.
Luke could not do it verbatim because he was not physically present.
He never even met Jesus, so you wonder what were his sources.
Luke himself says the events in the life of Jesus were handed down from
those who were there and he has done his own careful investigation of
the matter.
In Luke's lifetime there were doubtless a number of people who knew
Jesus personally and who Luke could have interviewed.
And so we read Luke's version of what he learned from other sources.
I make this point only to suggest that what we read may not be the
moment to moment, word for word version.
I have no doubt what Luke says is accurate, but remembering my own
verbatims, there were things left out.
So then what we have here may be the highlights of a longer event.
I find that thought a bit reassuring.
The reason I find that reassuring is my own sense of shock at the
abruptness of Jesus' words.
He stands up in the synagogue to read from Isaiah 61.
What he reads could be classified as his own mission statement:
The
Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to
release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Then he hands back the scroll and sits.
It was the norm in a synagogue to stand when reading from scripture.
The rabbis however would sit when teaching. The rabbis would teach on
the text more often than not by
quoting from other well known scholars and teachers. This was because
it would be presumptuous for a rabbi
to presume that he alone knew what the Word of God was saying to the
people.
Jesus does not quote.
This alone would be a bit shocking. He is presuming to speak with his
own authority which would be unheard of for a humble carpenter. It
simply was not done.
On top of this he says something quite audacious.
He says "today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
What he is saying is true, we know from hindsight. We know by faith who
He is.
They did not, and that makes all the difference.
Then the situation seems to move very quickly first from words of
approval to them trying to throw him over a cliff.
This is why I wonder if there may have been a time interval or a
conversation or two missing.
What I find surprising is not they were outraged, but that they are at
first impressed.
Luke says "all spoke well of him."
Then some said "but isn't this Joseph's son, the carpenter?"
Some translations imply that they were impressed by what he says, in
the sense that they would not have thought
a carpenter could speak like someone classically educated.
Eugene Peterson's translation The
Message,1 words it this way:
All
who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he
spoke. But they also said, "Isn't this Joseph's son, the one we have
known since he was a youngster?"
What impressed them was that a carpenter could speak so well and
command such attention.
They were not at all impressed by the content however.
Throughout they were maintaining a stance of being his judge.
"Well done" may seem complementary, but it is totally misplaced.
When I was a teenager, I joined the Canadian Armed Forces reserves.
There was a program in those days that allowed high school students to
have this as a part time job on Saturdays and summers.
We were naive and a bit brash. One day an instructor was explaining
something to us. It might have been in a classroom or not. I don't
remember the person's rank, but it was sufficiently above ours that he
expected us to pay attention and do as we were told. At the end
of the explanation, I do remember one of my friends saying, "that's a
great idea" to our instructor.
I also remember the reaction he got.
The officer stood very close to him and said, "I do not care what your
opinion is of my instructions. Do you understand?
All I expect is for you to say, 'yes sir' and do as you are told."
He might have used some more colorful language than that as well. That
was not uncommon you understand.
The moment an officer allowed the ranks to have a vote on the validity
of his instructions, chaos was not far behind.
Jesus takes somewhat the same approach.
By the time he responds, you can almost hear the skepticism in their
voices. "Isn't this the carpenter's son?"
So who does he think he is?
He thinks he is better than the rabbis?
They would not even talk like this.
A carpenter just up tells us what God is saying to us?
Jesus does not apologize for the misunderstanding and try to soften the
impact.
He goes straight for the heart.
He says, right, you have no respect for me. When was a prophet ever
respected by people who know him.
You have to imagine their jaws dropping at this, or their fists
clenching.
Then he nails the issue.
Their problem was they thought that because they were children of the
covenant that they had a lock on the blessings of God.
God was their God.
They were his people.
They and no one else.
They thought they had a natural right to assume superiority in
spiritual things over everyone else.
Not only that, since they were
the heirs of God's covenant, they had a lock on God's blessings.
And there was nothing some upstart carpenter was going to tell them to
the contrary.
But Jesus says, remember what happened in the time of Elijah and
Elisha.
When there was a famine, did God send Elijah to any Hebrew women?
No, he was sent to a gentile widow only.
And of all the people in Israel with leprosy, did Elisha heal any of
them?
No, he healed a gentile named Naaman.
The implication was clear.
Your pedigree doesn't count for two cents.
All that counts is your heart. Are you open to the work of God in your
life or not?
If you are, God will find a way to work in you.
If you are not, it doesn't matter two pennies worth what group you
belong to.
And do you know, at that they had a total change of heart toward him.
In fact they tried to throw him over a cliff.
Why would Jesus be so blunt to people who initially were just trying to
be nice to him?
Because like the officer in my story, he was not interested in their
approval.
He wanted to make sure they got the point that the Key to the kingdom
of God was present and that they should listen and pay attention.
In their case being nice was not going to do the job, so he just went
to the heart of the matter.
It doesn't matter what your background or religious pedigree is, what
matters is whether or not you open your heart to the work of God in
your life. And I am here.
The same is true today.
God will work in the life of anyone who opens their heart to Him.
Pay attention to Jesus because He is the Key to the Kingdom of heaven.
Saying nice things about Jesus doesn't matter a fig if you are not
going
to listen to what he has to say and follow Him.
God will do his work in the world.
We have the choice to be a part of it or not.
As the officer who was commanding us would have said "all those under
Jesus command, atten-shun!"
Preached January 28 2007
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian
Church
Victoria, British Columbia
Notes
1. The Message, The
New Testament in Contemporary English, translated by Eugene Peterson,
Navpress, 1993
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