Luke
4:21-30
The
Prophet Comes Home
I have been preparing for weeks for
this reading from Luke 4. I was
preparing for it, long before I realized it would fall to me to preach on this
lesson, and way before the circumstances swirling around us would (possibly)
add additional importance to the message of these ten short verses.
Jesus goes home. He is given the scroll of Isaiah (we aren’t
sure whether he asked for this particular scroll or it just happened to be the
one handed to him), he reads from the scroll the announcement of God’s
anointment, of God proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to
the blind, of those in bondage being set free.
When he finishes reading he announces “Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing…..”
He does have other things to
say. We cannot be sure if the storm of
discontent began brewing from when he was reading or only started when he
announces he will be doing none of the miracles they have heard of doing in
other places while he is here at home.
But a dark cloud does settle over the place. So dark that Jesus is silenced. The crowd drives him out of town and to the
edge of a cliff.
So, back to my advance preparation
for these verses and this sermon. It
involves a novel that I thought was more popular than it seems to be. It was made into a movie, and some liked the
movie, but as is often the case, the entertainment the movie offers is a big
shift from what the novel addresses (in my opinion.) The novel I referring to is Extremely Loud
and Incredibly Close. Seen the
movie? Read the novel?
The simple summary of the plot is
to say that a young boy - Oskar (who falls somewhere on the Autism Spectrum)
loses his father when the World Trade Center comes down on 9-11. Oskar goes to his father’s closet, among his
clothes. There he finds a key and a name
in an urn. Oskar has never seen this
urn. He hopes it might unlock mysteries
about his father. He goes in search of
the name on the key, “Mr. Black,” and answers.
The more complicated summary of the
plot involves the name associated with that key and the closure Oskar brings to
a young Mr. Black about his own father. The
elder Mr. Black is also deceased. There
is also this odd man whom the boy thinks simply rents a room from his
grandmother. This man does not
speak. He writes. This man’s earlier writings addressed the
inadequacy of words.
Both the simple and complicated
summary of the plot include the events on 9-11 when Oskar, and all other
pupils, are sent home from school on 9-11 as soon as the planes hit the Trade
Center. Oskar’s father had left the
apartment that morning on his way to the Center. Oskar is in the family’s apartment when the
phone rings. He hears his father’s voice
when the answering machine come on. But
the little boy can’t bring himself to pick up the phone. More calls come from the father. The content of the messages begin to shift from
“Don’t worry,” to “Remember I love you.”
Still the boy can’t bring himself to lift the receiver and tell his
father good-bye.
Why couldn’t he? That is what the book (in my opinion) is
about. Sometimes there are messages with
so much potential to alter our lives and our world that we had just as soon not
hear them. Sometimes, there is a word
which is so full of power that it is better left unsaid. Sometimes, we just can’t bear to hear the
truth and we would prefer to ignore or avoid confirming it’s message.
Remember the Grandfather whom I mentioned
in the “complicated summary”? The
grandfather has become speechless in the years during which he tried to adjust
to being married to Oskar’s grandmother, when in his youth the Grandfather had
fallen in love with the grandmother’s sister.
That sister dies, and the Grandfather speaks to her sister as if he were
speaking to her sister. His love message
for the sister fall on this girl but after a while he realizes his folly and
the inadequacy of his words.
Why had the older Mr. Black not
told his own son the information which is pieced together when Oskar comes bearing
the urn, and the key?
Some messages are just too
significant to be spoken.
Some messengers ought to remain
silent when the content of their message is too great to bear.
The folks in the synagogue on
Nazareth the day that Jesus returns to town were expecting him to set them free
and to bring Good News to their lives.
Perhaps they were thinking, “If he did some much for strangers, just
think what he will do for us?” It would
have been better if they had not spoken up.
When Jesus speaks to them he tells them, “God doesn’t play favorites,”
or “God isn’t your magic wand to accomplish all that you desire.”
When we talked about these passages
at the Wednesday night gathering, one of the students suggested it was Jesus’
claim to be the Son of God that got the crowd so riled up. Very good and highly plausible answer. It is the explanation given in may bible
commentaries. But why shouldn’t he say he
is the Son of God? It is true, isn’t
it? Is the truth too much for them to
bear, so they are unwilling to accept it?
Or even to allow it to be spoken out loud?
They knew Jesus as “Joseph’s
son.” How dare he so drastically change
the role relationship into which they had all become comfortable? So what if he was the Son of God, couldn’t he
just come home and pretend he was who he was when played in the street and ran
errands for his carpenter father?
Some messengers might do better to
simply remain silent.
I am not attempting to ascribe
fault in all of this. There need not be
a condemnation of the crowd for becoming so enraged and for threatening to
silence Jesus themselves.
And far be it from me to imply that
Jesus ought to have bridled his tongue.
That is one heresy I would never commit.
But might this story expose what
the novel I enjoyed so much attempted to teach us – that sometimes there is
something too significant to risk putting it into words. Sometimes there is a message too profound or
powerful to even attempt speaking it out loud.
How could the folks in Nazareth
have ever been expected to see Jesus for who he is, rather than who he had been
in the relationships they had with him during his childhood? Who could accept his Word and the meaning of
those words? Nazareth is but the first
of the cities to cry out for Jesus to be silent. Along the way there are the cities of Samaria,
and finally there is Jerusalem.
Some messages are so life-altering
that we find it difficult to allow them to issue forth from our lips. Some messages are so complicated that there
is no way mere words can express their truths.
This happens over and over in the pages
of our Bibles. Words fail us; so we
speak of events. Jesus doesn’t merely
say we are set free, he lives that freedom.
He lives it so completely that those who reject his good news for the
poor put him to death. An event which
once again drives home the inability of us to hear the messages which are truly
life-altering. He is murdered rather
than being allowed to speak.
Some messages are so life-altering
that we find it difficult to allow them to issue forth from our lips. Some messages are so complicated that there
is no way mere words can express their truths.
Amen.
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