Scripture
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.
Luke 4:14-30
14 Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding region. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “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 set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 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.’ ” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 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, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 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. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Sermon
We’ve all been to at least one wedding that was delightful. Whether it was people we knew intimately or casually, something about the spirit of the moment transformed the entire experience into something extraordinary. Maybe it was the joyful-hopeful look on the faces of the bride and groom. Maybe it was a breeze playing in the trees nearby. Maybe it was the words you heard spoken with quavering voices.
And maybe our first passage was a part of that experience. Paul, in writing to a cranky, embattled congregation, managed to say something about love that transcends the original context and speaks to us all about something so profoundly, that even when we fall short of it, we know it’s right.
Paul begins by mentioning some of those spiritual gifts we’ve been talking about—speaking in tongues, uttering prophecy, even faith—and says, if I have an astonishing amount of these gifts, but don’t have the one thing that matters—I am nothing. I have nothing. Love is the one thing that matters.
Then come the words that I believe are the heart of the whole passage:
Love is patient. Love is kind.
You can continue throughout that section—verses 4 through 7—and find that everything else is either some version of patience or kindness, some outgrowth of patience or kindness, or some warning about the lack of patience and kindness. Everything comes back to these two adjectives. Love is patient. Love is kind.
So, when Jesus stands in the synagogue and opens the scroll to Isaiah chapter 61 and claims the words of the prophet as having been fulfilled in the presence of the congregation, is telling the people why he’s there. He is there to proclaim the love of God for humanity.
God brings good news to the poor. What do you think that might mean? Something like, “You’re ok. I’ve got you. There will be enough for you, for your family.” This undoubtedly applies to people listening in the synagogue.
God brings release to the captives. What do you think that might mean? A good thing to remember at just this moment: Jesus’s people, the people of Judea are under Roman occupation. They live in fear of crossing some soldier at the wrong moment. They are the captives.
God opens the eyes of the blind. What do you think that might mean? With blindness, scripture sometimes is referring to the literal inability to see. At other times it is a metaphor for those who don’t want to hear what God has to say. Here, I think it’s both—Jesus will, in the course of his ministry, restore people’s sight. But he will also deal with people who have some kind of spiritual block that causes them to look at him with suspicion.
God will free those who are oppressed. What do you think that might mean? So many possibilities: Again, the Roman Empire looms large. Jews are oppressed by them, but so are many others.
The way I see it, it’s possible for the people in the synagogue to see themselves in all these categories. They are the poor. They are the captives. They are the blind. They are the oppressed. So, initially, they hear these words of Jesus as a balm. As a blessing. And their first response is, oh how wonderful. How gracious. Imagine! Joseph’s boy!
But then Jesus goes on to describe the wideness of God’s mercy. How God’s love is for them, but not only for them. God’s love is for everyone—even those they consider outsiders, perhaps enemies. How, in their own treasured stories of the prophets—the story of the Widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings; the story of Naaman, the Syrian general in 2 Kings—God’s prophets bring God’s mercy, God’s love, to gentiles! To their enemies!
And in six short verses, the crowd goes from delight to fury.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy that can really tick us off. I’ve shared this story before, but it’s a great example of God’s mercy going just a bit too far for our tastes. At one Presbytery meeting many years ago, a candidate for ministry as a pastor was sharing their statement of faith. It included their vision of God’s eternal realm, where Anne Frank and Adolf Hitler could be found sitting side by side at the heavenly banquet. This didn’t go over so well with a number of those in attendance. Does God’s mercy extend to those who are arguably among the worst people ever to live? Can God heal even that sin-sick soul? Would God choose to do so?
We can look at scripture and come away believing that God has a plan for punishment of those who do not follow God’s commandments. We can also look at scripture and come away believing that God will indeed heal every sin-sick soul, because, as Jesus says in John 3:17, “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him.”
When I was in seventh grade or so I read a poem, and immediately committed it to memory, because, even then, I thought it was wise and wonderful. Some of you have heard this before, and for that I apologize. I can make it up to you by reciting something else after the service. For the rest of you, I couldn’t resist sharing this in the context of this gospel story.
I dreamt death came the other night,
and heaven’s gate swung wide.
An angel with a halo bright
ushered me inside.
And there, to my astonishment,
stood folks I’d judged and labeled
as “quite unfit,” “of little worth,”
and “spiritually disabled.”
Indignant words rose to my lips,
but never were set free,
for every face showed stunned surprise!
Not one expected me.[i]
Our scripture and our faith tradition tell us that God chose us, that the Spirit has endowed us each with gifts for the common good, and that we are called to be members of the Body of Christ, loving and serving God and neighbor. But it also tells us that the love of God is deep, and unfathomable, and will, at times, perplex us as much as it amazes us.
The good people of Nazareth hustled Jesus out of the church and up to the brow of a hill because he made them very uncomfortable. He pointed out that outsiders will receive the love of God. But they didn’t throw him over. I wonder why? The passage is short on details. Did something inside them change? Were they shocked by their own reaction? Did Jesus say or do something—or look at them in some particular way—that softened their hearts?
We don’t know. All we know is, he walked through the crowd and went on his way, to continue to bring the love of God that would change lives—and, indeed, the world.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Anonymous, “Surprise in Heaven.”