Comfortable and Familiar?
based on Luke 4:21-30
Rev. Karen A. Goltz

            We have an interesting relationship with scripture, don’t we?  We turn to it gladly when we’re looking for comfort or inspiration.  We might point to it proudly when justifying our own behaviors, or accusingly when judging someone else’s.  But most of the time, we keep it at a distance.  It includes some nice stories, some harsh words, some clear expectations.  It includes some parts we return to again and again, and it includes some parts we carefully avoid.

            Last week I challenged you to approach the bible as a person dying of thirst might approach water, but the truth is that most of us approach it more like an all-you-can-eat buffet of exotic foods, going for the few things we think we know and like, cautiously sampling a few others, and utterly avoiding the rest.  It’s too overwhelming to try it all.  And it’s too dangerous.  You never know what you’re going to get.  Better to just stick with what you know, with what’s safe and familiar.

            But are you sure you know what you think you know?

            The people of Nazareth were in familiar territory.  It was Sabbath, and they were in the synagogue.  It wasn’t a festival day or a big holiday that might attract more occasional worshippers—it was just a regular Sabbath with all the regular people there.  Nothing unusual at all.  Everyone’s sitting in their usual places, doing their usual things.  And oh look!  There’s Mary’s boy Jesus, all grown up now and back visiting his home synagogue.  When the folks saw him they probably chatted a bit amongst themselves, comparing notes on what they’d heard he’d been up to since he’d left home.  Traveling around quite a bit, they’d heard.  A preacher of sorts, some said.  A few even claimed he’d done some amazing things—miracles they were!—in places like Capernaum.  Maybe he’d do some here, too!  Ah, little Jesus, a grown man now, who was really making something of himself out in the world.  They remembered him when he was just knee-high to a grasshopper.

            Worship gets started and Jesus stands up to read.  How nice.  Someone hands him the scroll of Isaiah and Jesus searches through it until he finds the passage he wants.  And in a clear, deep voice he reads: 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.

            How nice.  He read the Jubilee passage.  What a lovely idea, that everyone would be restored to the just and equitable society that God had intended in the first place.  Too bad it had never happened the way the scriptures said it should, and it probably never would.  But it’s a nice idea, and it’s comforting to think about.

            Everyone in the synagogue watched Jesus, wondering what he’d say about the passage.  And Jesus didn’t disappoint.  He told the people of his hometown, the people he’d known his whole life and who had known him, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

            That sounded good to the people in the synagogue.  Surely he didn’t mean it literally; it was an old passage and Jesus was someone they knew, but how kind of him to try to ease their burdened and troubled lives by making that claim.  And if you look at it in a certain way, surely you could find a way to stretch and interpret the Isaiah passage such that you could almost believe that it applied to you.  In some ways, if you ignored certain aspects of reality, you could almost believe that the just and equitable society that God intended actually exists.  How wonderful that Jesus would comfort his people by saying this!  Where did he get this ability to tend to people in such a loving manner?  Isn’t he Joseph’s son?  Joseph was a good man, but he was only a carpenter.  How could he have taught his son such eloquence and compassion?

            And there lies the heart of the problem.

            Jesus was familiar to the people of Nazareth.  They though they knew him.  They knew him as Joseph’s son.  But he wasn’t Joseph’s son.

            In the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”  In the second chapter of Luke’s gospel, after three days of searching for their lost son, Mary and Joseph find their twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem, the sacred place where God himself resides, and he says to them, “Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  In the third chapter of Luke’s gospel, when Jesus is baptized, a voice comes down from heaven and says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  That voice wasn’t Joseph’s voice.  So in the fourth chapter of Luke’s gospel, when those who thought they knew him because they had known him his whole life said of Jesus, “Is this not Joseph’s son,” the answer is no, actually, this is not Joseph’s son.  This person you thought you knew is God’s son.  And that changes everything.

            When Jesus read the passage from Isaiah about bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, etc., he meant it.  When he announced that today this scripture had been fulfilled in their hearing, he meant it.  When he proclaimed the restoration of the just and equitable society that God had intended, he meant it.  Jesus wasn’t speaking in vague terms about some nice idea put down in scripture a few hundred years ago; he was bringing the scripture home to them, up close and personal.  Too close and too personal for comfort.

            He brought up those awkward stories from the bible when God had blessed those outside the covenant, seemingly at the expense of those inside.  Why was Elijah sent to a starving widow in Sidon rather than a starving widow in Israel?  Why was a Syrian leper cleansed rather than an Israelite leper?  These were stories the people in Nazareth probably avoided, because they challenged their comfortable ideas of their special status with God.  They didn’t want to think about the just and equitable society that God intended including people like that widow and that leper.  Because a truly just and equitable society as God intends requires everyone working to make it a just and equitable society.  Justice and equality don’t happen in a vacuum; everyone must work together to put the needs of the other as equally important as their own needs, if not more so.  And those people didn’t deserve such treatment.  They could take care of themselves; the people of Nazareth were only concerned with their own.

            Except Jesus had other ideas.  He wasn’t Joseph’s son; he was God’s son.  He wasn’t concerned just with Joseph’s people; he was concerned with God’s people.  All of them.  The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he was anointed to bring good news to the poor.  All the poor.  And release to all the captives.  And recovery of sight to all the blind.  And to let all the oppressed go free.  And to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor to all.  And that comfortable and familiar passage read by someone they were comfortable and familiar with suddenly required something uncomfortable and unfamiliar from the people of Nazareth.  They lost sight of the promise in those words, that they too were released from their captivity and oppression, and that the year of the Lord’s favor was upon them, too.  They focused instead on the anger and betrayal they felt at finding out that that favor wasn’t going to happen the way they wanted it to.  So just as Jesus proclaimed recovery of sight to the blind, they chose to blind themselves to the truth of God’s abundant love and grace.  And they were so committed to their blindness that they didn’t even see Jesus pass through their midst and continue on his way as they tried to throw him off a cliff for daring to upset their comfortable and familiar ways.

            Scripture is old, it is challenging, and it is dangerous.  But it’s dangerous in the same way that leaving your mother’s womb and taking your first breath of air is dangerous.  It’s scary, it’s overwhelming, and it’s filled with such promise that the possibilities can’t even begin to be comprehended.  Hear the word of the Lord.  Let your eyes be opened to God’s truth, and recognize the abundance of God’s grace and mercy in the world, that he could even love and forgive a room full of sinners like us.  Imagine what the world would look like if we all worked for the just and equitable society that God intends.  They may have been written a few thousand years ago, but the words of Isaiah were true when he wrote them, they were true when Jesus read them in his home synagogue, and they’re true now.

            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.  Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.  Now, shall we go to the annual meeting and live according to that promise?  Or should we just head straight for the nearest cliff, instead?  Amen.