Hometown Hero -- (Randy Spleth)

Lesson: Luke 4:21-28
Given by Randall Updegraff Spleth

 

The Academy Award nominations were announced this week, fresh off the heels of the Golden Globe awards a week earlier. NBC was pleased to announce that the ratings for the Golden Globes were up. Twenty million 18-49 year olds watched the awards ceremony. I’m sure the Academy Awards will have the same results, particularly with a month of speculation about who will win. Even though movie attendance in the theaters is declining, we are still into movies and their stars and watch carefully the annual recognition of who’s hot and who’s not.

 

We have an infatuation with movie heroes and villains. A few years ago, the American Film Institute released a list of 50 of the greatest heroes and 50 of the greatest villains in film history. It is an interesting list with Hannibal Lector, Norman Bates and Darth Vader being the top three villains that we love to hate. The list also includes the Wicked Witch of the West, Cruella de Ville, and even the shark from the movie Jaws. There is a villain for just about everyone. The list of heroes was more predictable. Second and third on this list are Indiana Jones and James Bond; they are our most beloved heroes. If you are interested, they like Sean Connery’s portrayal of James Bond in Dr. No. For you old timers, Moses and Patton are on the list.

 

I found interesting the number one choice by the American film Institute. He’s not your typical superhero by any stretch of the imagination. The hero chosen as number one is Atticus Finch, the southern attorney played by Academy Award winner Gregory Peck in the 1962 movie To Kill a Mockingbird. It is based on Harper Lee’s novel about racial tensions in the South during the Great Depression. I’m sure many people in this congregation haven’t seen the movie even though it’s still a book read in our local high schools. You’ll remember that Finch defends Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. He defends him first from a lynch mob and then from a biased jury, risking his reputation and even the lives of his children in the process.

 

Finch is a different kind of hero than we’ve come to expect in our world or movies today. He starts out looking more like a villain than a hero, at least to the people in his community. For much of the film he’s portrayed as the "bad guy" but we know that he’s willing to accept that role in spite of the danger. But by the end of the book or movie, Atticus Finch is a hero, at the least to those watching the film or reading the narrative of Scout.¹

 

Jesus’ experience in his hometown in Nazareth is just the opposite of Atticus Finch. He starts out as the hometown hero only to end up as the bad guy, the villain. Our lesson today is the middle of the story, the second part of a narrative about Jesus and the first days of his preaching. Luke tells us that Jesus has just completed his testing in the wilderness, 40 days of soul searching and temptation. He returns from the wilderness "filled with the power of the Spirit, to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country." (Luke 4:14). His fame isn’t as great as an academy award nominee hero like Gregory Peck or this year’s nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, but it is certainly enough to get the attention of his hometown. When he arrives in Nazareth he’s a celebrity, the hometown boy made good. On the Sabbath, Jesus goes to the synagogue and is welcomed as a guest preacher. He reads from the prophet Isaiah, very familiar words: "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." (Luke 4:18-20) Then with all eyes on him, he sits down and from his seat….it doesn’t say he stood back up. He sits down and then, from his seat, he adds, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:20a)"

 

Two things happen. The first was good. They initially liked what he said. Luke says, "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?’" (Luke 4:22) Let me unpack that for you. Jesus did a fine job reading it. They were impressed by his gracious words which had nothing to do with grace. It implies that he was well-spoken, particularly for a carpenter’s son. It’s like a student of ours going off to college, coming home polished and well spoken. They are surprised and pleased. Jesus has grown up and is a capable speaker.

 

But then they get to thinking about what he read and how he finished his presentation. The passage that Jesus read to them was one familiar to everyone in the room. It is familiar because they heard it often. There are some passages of scripture that almost everyone knows in this congregation. It doesn’t matter how Biblically illiterate you feel, you know enough to recognize the 23rd Psalm. You probably said, in your head, as soon as I said, 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd." It is called neuro-sequencing. It’s automatic.

 

This was an automatic passage for them because they have been waiting a long time for someone to liberate them. They want a hero. After generations of occupation and oppression by foreign powers, the people of Israel were looking for Indiana Jones to come to the rescue or George Patton to come driving in on his tank or better yet, Moses to liberate them once again. So they read this passage all of the time. They had this nuero-sequencing pattern that took place whenever anyone read Isaiah 61. They immediately thought of their dream of liberation. They knew it by heart.

The problem wasn’t in what he read. It was what he didn’t read and what he says when he sits down. Jesus stops halfway through the second verse. They all knew it by heart but he left out an important line. Luke makes a big deal of saying that Jesus abruptly stopped reading, rolled up the scroll, handed it to the attendant and sat down. What he left out was important, if you expected to one day be liberated. He left out the phrase, "and the day of vengeance of our God"². (Isaiah 61:2 b)

 

Go back to the example of the 23rd Psalm. What if I was to say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, he makes me lie down…."and then I stop. You’d finish the verse. You know this so well that your brain simply has to finish it and then, you ask yourself, "Why did he leave that out? Where’s my ‘besides green pastures?’"

He left out the phrase, "and the day of vengeance of our God". (Isaiah 61:2 b)

That’s what a true hero is supposed to be about, vengeance. He is to bring about justice, power, the destruction of infidels and enemies. The only hero they wanted was someone like James Bond who had a license to kill. They wanted a warrior who was going to liberate them. By deleting the line about vengeance and adding, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus is saying, "It starts today. It starts now, peacefully. This is who I am. The kingdom of God isn’t going to come with brute force. It’s going to come with kindness and compassion and love and justice for all people."

 

For the next three years, people would struggle with this concept, even up to the day he rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Some thought it was a military parade and Jesus was finally going to be the kind of hero they wanted. Since his death and resurrection people have struggled with this. Throughout the centuries followers of Jesus have wrongly believed that force brings the kingdom. The crusaders went to war to force Christ upon followers of Mohammed. Spanish conquistadors wiped out entire populations of Native Americans because they were "heathens". Hitler exterminated the Jews to purify the Christian race. Even the struggle with terrorism we face today is partly because of our historic and continued inability to express compassion and love and kindness to all God’s children. "Our way or the highway" doesn’t lead to the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus was saying. They didn’t like it and we don’t either.

 

But Jesus doesn’t just end there. In their eyes, Jesus makes it worse. Sensing their indignation, Jesus expands his understanding of the kingdom, reminding the people of two times in their history where God extended mercy to outsiders. He reminded them of a time when God helped the widow of Zarephath, a Gentile woman and a second occasion when God had compassion on an enemy of Israel, Naaman the Syrian. They knew these stories and they were troubled by them. Jesus is putting them on notice that this is the way he’s going to do business. This hometown hero, the Messiah in the making, God’s chosen One, was about to embark on a mission to bring grace to those who most desperately needed it, regardless of their race or status. Jesus was enlarging the kingdom of God to include everyone.

 

Our lesson ends with their response. Luke tells us "When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of 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." (Luke 4:28-30) For the people of Nazareth, the hometown hero is really the antihero, offering the opposite of what they thought God had promised them.

 

Here at the onset of Jesus’ ministry, we start to understand what the gospel really is. The gospel makes the world larger, not smaller. It is a hard concept for us to grasp. When we start our journey of faith, it is all about us. We are asked for a personal commitment to Jesus. When I take professions of faith, I ask, "Do you accept him as your personal Savior?" The starting place is you. But the gospel isn’t just for you or for me. It is for the world.

 

One of the great preachers of the last century, George Buttrick put this very succinctly, "Christianity begins personally; but if it stays personal, it ends." We occasionally forget this. We come to church to have our needs met. We come to church for spiritual education for the children. We come to church to enjoy great music or be prayed for or to experience fellowship. But if that is all it is, we lose the core message of the Gospel.

 

So let me get personal about making it personal. It sounds odd but you can ruin the gospel by taking it too personally. That’s ultimately what this story is about. Jesus is saying to the people of Nazareth and he is saying to us, "I’m going to expand your world. That’s what following me is ultimately about." Jesus isn’t just for you, even though he died for you. Jesus isn’t just for us, even though he died for us. He’s brought Good News for the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed. Ultimately that’s Good News for everyone which is the point for us tonight. Everyone.

If we read this passage right, if we let it in our hearts, then we have to change the way we act. We have to be more involved inviting others into this place and we have to be more involved in reaching out to the poor, the captive and the oppressed. We can’t be character actors playing the role of a dutiful Christian. This isn’t just about meeting your needs. It is about reaching others. We have to grow, embrace the new and bigger roles for our acting. That’s the challenge for you today. I hope you’ll own it. Start expanding your acting repertoire. Go for an academy award performance. You may not get the recognition that you want. You likely won’t be nominated for an academy award and like Jesus, you probably won’t be honored by our hometown. But you will win an award. At the end of the day, while the final envelope is opened, your name will be read. The category will be: Faithful.

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