Put Up or
Shut Up
By Griff Martin
On Luke 4:21-30 and 1 Corinthians 13
For the Beloveds of First
Austin: a baptist community of faith
On the Fourth Sunday
following Epiphany
February 3, 2019
Luke 4:21-30
Then
he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing.” 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?” He 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.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in
the prophet’s hometown. But 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; yet Elijah was sent to
none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many
lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was
cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the
synagogue were filled with rage. They 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. But he passed through the midst of them and
went on his way.
The Homily:
Incarnate
and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it
into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us
aware of your presence here in this space and in these words God, for if we are
present to you then nothing else will matter, but if we are not present to you
then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the
Comforter. Amen.
VH1’s
Behind the Music helped us to see the
story behind the art. It’s here we learned that early on in his success, the
Piano Man himself, Billy Joel, lost $90 million because of bad investments; that
Slash has had numerous near-death experiences; that MC Hammer blew through $33
million after his first hit (and actually, the surprise story there might be
that there was more than one MC Hammer hit); that Metallica’s Kirk Hammet was
saved from death because of a fight over which bunk he would sleep in before
the tour bus hit black ice and he was saved because he was sleeping at the
front of the bus; we learned the details of Milli Vanilli’s lip syncing con; that
MF Grimm once recorded an entire album after posting bail and knowing he had 24
hours of freedom; that Sting did not write the guitar riff for “Every Breath
You Take,” yet still gets huge royalties from it.
Today’s
Gospel text is a Behind the Music
episode. One of you saints who reads your Bible regularly stopped me last week
and said, “Griff, you only told half the story this week,” which is true. Last
week, we only read half the Gospel passage, a practice that I don’t like, but
felt was appropriate because we ended with Jesus’ first sermon in the Gospel of
Luke. Luke has Jesus baptized, in the wilderness, beginning a public ministry,
and then coming home to Nazareth to preach this first sermon. He reads from the
scroll of Isaiah and then he offers a brief 9-word sermon: “Today this
scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
And
we stopped reading there to take that sentence in, a brilliant and beautiful
sentence that calls us to the now of God’s kingdom. The lectionary has us pause
there as if to hear the sermon Jesus preached, as if it were preached to us – which
it is.
Today
we get the rest of the story; we get the story behind the sermon.
And
let me warn you: if you thought Jesus’ sermon, that little 9-word beauty, was a
Hallmark greeting card sermon, then you did not pay enough attention. Because the
now of the Gospel demands that we change our lives now, that we do better today.
It’s about freedom and it upends our political and personal worlds to make them
more in tune with God’s dream.
You
sit with Jesus’ words and they begin to afflict more than comfort. It’s like
Fireball: sweet at first, and then it starts to have its way with you. It’s why
Jesus is a good preacher; his words unsettle us in all the right ways. He
practices the art of truthful preaching – which is, you say the only truth you
know, even if it’s going to get you run out of town or killed.
Let’s
finish the story, what happens after the sermon. Jesus offers his words, and
the response is so much like church, especially the church of the South. I can
picture it: the service ends, and folks flock down to shake his hand and hug
his neck. “Good job preacher.” “Good sermon.” “That is one I will think about.”
“Well bless your heart….”
It
took me a while to learn that in Louisiana (and all the south), “Bless Your
Heart” was not a compliment on the sermon I just preached, but rather let me
know that I was dumb as dirt and totally misinformed and out of line. Maybe
it’s how we need to read their response – they were amazed at his words (Bless
his heart), and asked, “Is this not Joseph’s son, the carpenter?” Which I don’t
think should be read as a compliment. It might read a bit more like they were
amazed that he would speak such foolish craziness to them, and they asked
themselves, “What right does he have to say those things, isn’t this just
Joseph’s son? He’s just a carpenter…”
And
digging into the words is really important here, because we have translated
this quite poorly with “amazed at his gracious words.” A better translation
would read, “they marveled at his words of grace.” And that is true, because
the words he has just uttered, this Isaiah passage, are words of incredible
grace where the poor become wealthy, where those caught are finally freed,
where have-nots finally have, a place of equality and liberty and freedom….
They marvel at his words of grace, until they figure out what those words mean
for them. How they call out to change their lives, and then that marveling
turns to outrage and anger.
It’s
that moment from the Emmy’s a few years ago when Jill Solloway won for Transparent, and she ended her speech
chanting “Topple the patriarchy.” And then host Jimmy Kimmel came out and said,
“Good speech, but I think that’s bad news for me.” It was a great comedic line,
but also brilliant because if you have not noticed it, sometimes us white men
miss it.
Someone
in the crowd probably says something just like that: “Good sermon, but I think
that is bad news for us.” And then the real sermon takes place, because the
real sermon always takes place in the church parking lot when we start really
talking about what Jesus said to us and what that calls for us to change and do
differently.
Jesus
observes what is going on… the murmuring… he notices that folks are finally
starting to get it. Their faces get a bit red, some of the smiles turn to
frowns and there is a lot of sideways glancing going on. “He said what?” And
“You think he meant what?” It’s their way of reaching the parking lot and
immediately texting their friends, “You won’t believe what my crazy pastor
preached,” or on Facebook posting some snide comment that makes them feel high
and mighty, or the best of all (my personal favorite), writing the pastor an
email before they leave the parking lot, because we pastors love reactionary emails
that are drafted not even a block from our office. Really heartwarming for our
Sunday afternoon.
But
I get it – it’s easier to try to argue with really scary Gospel calls than it
is to figure out how we orient our lives around them. If it were not so, the
church and the world would look very different today.
Jesus
does not have time for this, which should be a warning for us as well. If they
are not going to listen, he is going to move on to another town. And he starts
that way, but before he goes he reminds them of some old truths: that never
have people liked a hometown prophet, that the story of God is often more about
the outsider than the insider and that the Kingdom of God is certainly going to
call for us to turn our lives inside out, and it’s going to call us to a whole
new way of living that is not going to be too comfortable if you currently have
power and privilege.
Because
that is the Gospel – a call to a whole new way of living and a new reality that
is quite scary for those of us who are doing well in the current world.
This
week I have been thinking about their response. And truth be told, I think I
get it. I understand why they can’t accept Jesus’ words once they really
understand them. I understand it because I was reading this novel, a novel that
I thought was just for fun, and it wasn’t until I got to almost the last
chapter and one of the characters says this line: “Love, who has time for love,
we have to-do lists and fears to take care of….”
And
I was punched in the gut by that reality, because it was so true for me. Love,
who has time for love when we have to-do lists and fears to take care of?
The
first hearers don’t get it for the exact same reason we don’t get it; because
it can’t get past our crazy mind’s focus on fears and to-do lists. Of
course, Jesus’ words scare them because it’s a whole new way of doing life, a
way that was actually suggested centuries ago. It involves a new way of
thinking and being and living, a new social system, a new political order, a
new way of religion, a new way of being…. And that involves change and that is
scary to all of us.
And
we have already made our plans, we know what our to-do lists look like and even
though we might complain about them, they offer us incredible comfort because
they offer us a way forward that we know. And Jesus’ words don’t fit on our to-do
list because again, it’s a new way of doing life and that way of life does not
easily fit onto tomorrow’s to-do list.
To-do
lists and fears. It’s so much of what we talked about last week, how we are
hijacked by our pasts and our futures and how that makes us miss today.
Our
to-do lists and our fears are stopping us from experiencing love.
Because
that is what Jesus is preaching. Jesus is preaching what the world will look
like when we finally let love be the central ethic, when love is the verb we
lead with, when love is our orientation. Love makes our entire existence
change. Love frees us. Love heals us. Love brings good news to the poor. Love
releases all that is bound and chained. Love gives sight to the blind. Love
lets the oppressed go free. Love is jubilee.
And
just like I said last week, it’s political and it’s spiritual, just like our
Jesus. It’s the orders of this world and it’s the orders of our heart. It takes
both, or neither will happen. The political and spiritual revolution have to
happen at the same time. And church, listen to that because it means that when
we are sanctified, we become sanctifiers of the world. So, if your world is not
changing, neither is your heart.
The
church of Nazareth does not like it. They don’t like Jesus to challenge their
way of thinking; they thought they had this religion thing figured out. They
don’t like Jesus to challenge their wallets; the way they are doing this is
good for them. They don’t like Jesus to talk about reordering their lives and
their worlds. This is not the Jesus they wanted.
And
they let him know that, which is where I have to give them immense credit. They
are filled with rage and anger and they drive him straight out of town with
plans to kill him, hurl him off a cliff. They don’t like his words, so they
make it quite clear that they are not going to follow him. In fact, they are
going to do whatever it takes to stop him.
And
maybe that is where we can learn our lesson this morning. You see, the truth is
we don’t like Jesus’ words much either. We don’t like it when Jesus challenges
our way of thinking. We think we have a pretty good understanding of church and
religion and how this thing works (After all, we’ve been doing it together
since 1847). We don’t like it when Jesus challenges our wallets because right
now our wallets are pretty full. We don’t like Jesus talking about reordering
our lives and our world. Sadly, we live our fears and our to-do lists. This is
not the Jesus we want.
But
we aren’t brave enough to say it, so we nod along. We don’t ty to run Jesus out
of town – even worse, we just placate him. Nice sermon, and then we go on with
our lives, with our systems and to-do lists and fears.
Church,
for the sake of God’s Kingdom, it would be better if we ran Jesus out of town
and said, “nope, that is not going to work for us.” Jesus would rather be
kicked out of a place than to be placated in place. They realize they can’t
accept this good news, so they try to stop it. We realize that we can’t accept
this good news, so we just push it aside to play it safe. Because our world is
not being saved because we have played it safe. In fact, quite the opposite:
our world is going to hell because we have played it safe and placated.
Jesus
is ready for us to run him out of town again. Because it would be better for us
and it would better for Jesus if we just ran him out of town and said, “no,
that way is not going to work for us.” It would help us feel a little bit less
guilty that we don’t really listen to Jesus, and it would certainly help Jesus
if we were not claiming to represent him.
Or
we could choose another way. We could sit and think and reflect and realize
that what Jesus is calling us to, this Kingdom of God, is the Kingdom of Love
and it’s the only chance we have. And instead of running Jesus out of town, we
would follow him to wherever he leads. Because he is the only chance we have
and he will lead us to that place, the place where the Greatest of These is
Love, that place where the only thing that exists is Love.
Church,
I truly believe we as a church (the larger church and us as First Austin) are
at a moment of reckoning, a put up or shut up moment. And it begins with this
question: reject or follow? Run Jesus out of town or run with Jesus?
May
we join Jesus, because it is the only way.
Amen
and Amen.
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