3rd Sunday after Epiphany
Text: Luke 4:16-30
HOMETOWN HOPES AND HILLS
Rev. Kenneth W. Wieting
To the church of God at Luther Memorial Chapel and University Student Center, called as saints, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; Beloved in Christ,
Many of you have come from towns much smaller than Shorewood such as Bonduel or Fremont or Gillett or Ironwood or Monfort or Plymouth or Suring or Redgranite or put the name from your childhood there. Small hometowns often possess a unique character. Sometimes they’re so small that everyone knows everyone else by name. There is such a thing as hometown familiarity and hometown pride and hometown expectations and hometown contempt. The population of my hometown when I grew up was about 250. It hasn’t been able to sustain those numbers in recent decades, however. The population of Jesus’ hometown as He grew up is estimated at about 500 people. It was just a little town, out-of-the-way, off the beaten path, set in the hills of Galilee. It was not known for anything special. Capturing its reputation was Nathanael’s question of Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46)
Gathering places such as churches and schools and taverns are central to hometowns. Not much changes in perception in those gathering places even as the years and decades roll along. Relationships there are pretty set and stable. When I go back to my hometown and to my home church such as at thanksgiving, I’m still “Kenny” to everyone there. It takes you back and keeps you in place. There was also such a gathering place in Jesus’ hometown where the relationships were set and stable. It was the local synagogue. That’s where the events of backwater Nazareth recorded in our text take place. As was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.
The word for “custom” in the Greek is ethos. It means habit or pattern or way of life. The weekly worship of Jesus is a powerful witness to us today. When our weekly routine omits that which Jesus saw as essential to his life as true man, we are in effect putting ourselves above Jesus. We are saying I’m stronger than you, Jesus. I don’t need what you habitually needed and received. For such thinking repentance is needed. We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.
Synagogue worship centered on reading Moses and the prophets from which instruction was then given. It was very much like our service today for Psalms were also sung and prayers were raised. As we heard, Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the governor were fervent in restoring divine worship after the Babylonian exile. The ears of the people were attentive to the reading of God’s Word and the explanation of its sense. They answered “Amen, Amen” and bowed their heads and worshipped the LORD.
That’s what was taking place in the synagogue of Jesus’ small hometown of Nazareth. …and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Dear Christians, there is so much beauty here in the Old Testament! The blessings are summed up by the year of the Lord’s favor or the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25). Slaves were then set free and property returned and debts forgiven. Everything was renewed and restored! It was a clean slate! The word for “liberty” used here is the standard New Testament word for forgiveness. It indicates a total freeing from captivity to sin. Recovering of sight to the blind indicates eyes no longer held in the darkness of unbelief.
This text is teeming with Messianic marvels and magnificent promises! It is bursting with hope and comfort for people in captivity! And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. The people knew the rumors of his preaching and healing miracles just 20 miles away at Capernaum. What would He do and say now in His hometown? There were no straying thoughts, nor wandering attention in that house of worship. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. They had watched Him grow up as a boy. They had gathered with Him each week in this very synagogue. Their intense gaze was locked on Him as they wondered what He would say.
And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (literally – in your ears). What a wonderful gift! For a moment there was admiration at his gracious words. So long God’s people had waited. So wondrous were the gifts. But Jesus was clearly saying that these promises of rescue and release were fulfilled because He was speaking to them. He was also thereby saying that He was the anointed one, the Messiah, and that they were blind, captive, beggars whom God was rescuing in Him.
And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s Son?” (Pause) No, no, a thousand times, a million times, no! This is God’s Son, in the flesh, true God begotten of His Father from eternity and also true man born of the Virgin Mary! But in His hometown He seemed so ordinary. If He was someone special He would have to prove it locally. If He was someone special then they should have preference for the use of His power. Hometown familiarity boils over into hometown skepticism. Relationships that were set and stable boil over into this question, “Is this not Joseph’s Son?”
And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. Then He gave two examples of God ministering to Gentiles. Elijah fed a pagan widow even when Israelites were starving. Elisha healed a pagan general of leprosy even when there were multitudes of lepers in Israel. Jesus was saying that not only was the salvation He brought not limited to Nazareth, it was also not limited to the sons of Abraham. The liberty He claimed to bring was for all. His words clearly rebuked pride in outward connections and presumptions of hometown favoritism.
Every Israelite knew these stories from childhood. But when Jesus spoke them to their selfish perspectives it was like He had spoken the obvious truth that the emperor had no clothes on and they were the emperor. When Jesus finished His sermon not a single face in the synagogue was smiling. In swift reversal, admiration turned to hatred. Their emotions exploded in fury. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and brought him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff. Pride and wrath combine to lead a hometown mob to a hometown cliff. They intended to take their life-long neighbor and hurl Him to his death.
What about us? What do we expect of Jesus this morning (evening)? Can’t it seem as if nothing much really happens in worship week after week? Isn’t it true that our hearts are tempted with the hometown hankerings of Nazareth? If Jesus doesn’t relieve my personal suffering or take away the struggles in my family or give me smooth sailing in school or make things in this parish perk along, then perhaps we should push Him out and get a different Jesus. I’ve been a Lutheran all my baptized life and what advantage has it gotten me? I’ve paid my dues and hung around, so where’s the payoff?
Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t allow Himself to be thrown down our hometown cliffs. Passing through their midst, he went his way so that He could come into our midst today. His way was the way of the cross. He would go to another hill, not first to be thrown down, but to be lifted up. Not only did His hometown reject Him there, but so did His disciples and the world He created, and His heavenly Father. As He was lifted up on that hill, Jesus was simultaneously hurled down the precipice of the damned. He was flung down our eternal cliff.
Risen from that hellish fall Jesus not only brings good news He is the Good News! He is the Savior of the world! He offers life and salvation to all the poor. Nazareth qualified. So does your hometown. So does this whole world of dying sinners. God use us and that by which He prospers us to bring the Gospel to those sitting in darkness.
He comes today not as our hometown, have-it-your-way buddy. He comes as our heavenly have-it-My-way Helper and Healer. He gathers with us each week in this place to keep the relationships set and stable. He is the Head, we are His body, He is the Shepherd, we are His sheep. He is the Bridegroom; we are His beloved and holy Bride. Gracious words still come out of His mouth, for it is He who says, “I baptize you” and “I forgive you” and “take and eat and drink”. As He speaks all of God’s promises are fulfilled in your ears. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
HOMETOWN HOPES AND HILLS
Rev. Kenneth W. Wieting
To the church of God at Luther Memorial Chapel and University Student Center, called as saints, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; Beloved in Christ,
Many of you have come from towns much smaller than Shorewood such as Bonduel or Fremont or Gillett or Ironwood or Monfort or Plymouth or Suring or Redgranite or put the name from your childhood there. Small hometowns often possess a unique character. Sometimes they’re so small that everyone knows everyone else by name. There is such a thing as hometown familiarity and hometown pride and hometown expectations and hometown contempt. The population of my hometown when I grew up was about 250. It hasn’t been able to sustain those numbers in recent decades, however. The population of Jesus’ hometown as He grew up is estimated at about 500 people. It was just a little town, out-of-the-way, off the beaten path, set in the hills of Galilee. It was not known for anything special. Capturing its reputation was Nathanael’s question of Philip, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46)
Gathering places such as churches and schools and taverns are central to hometowns. Not much changes in perception in those gathering places even as the years and decades roll along. Relationships there are pretty set and stable. When I go back to my hometown and to my home church such as at thanksgiving, I’m still “Kenny” to everyone there. It takes you back and keeps you in place. There was also such a gathering place in Jesus’ hometown where the relationships were set and stable. It was the local synagogue. That’s where the events of backwater Nazareth recorded in our text take place. As was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.
The word for “custom” in the Greek is ethos. It means habit or pattern or way of life. The weekly worship of Jesus is a powerful witness to us today. When our weekly routine omits that which Jesus saw as essential to his life as true man, we are in effect putting ourselves above Jesus. We are saying I’m stronger than you, Jesus. I don’t need what you habitually needed and received. For such thinking repentance is needed. We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.
Synagogue worship centered on reading Moses and the prophets from which instruction was then given. It was very much like our service today for Psalms were also sung and prayers were raised. As we heard, Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the governor were fervent in restoring divine worship after the Babylonian exile. The ears of the people were attentive to the reading of God’s Word and the explanation of its sense. They answered “Amen, Amen” and bowed their heads and worshipped the LORD.
That’s what was taking place in the synagogue of Jesus’ small hometown of Nazareth. …and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Dear Christians, there is so much beauty here in the Old Testament! The blessings are summed up by the year of the Lord’s favor or the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25). Slaves were then set free and property returned and debts forgiven. Everything was renewed and restored! It was a clean slate! The word for “liberty” used here is the standard New Testament word for forgiveness. It indicates a total freeing from captivity to sin. Recovering of sight to the blind indicates eyes no longer held in the darkness of unbelief.
This text is teeming with Messianic marvels and magnificent promises! It is bursting with hope and comfort for people in captivity! And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. The people knew the rumors of his preaching and healing miracles just 20 miles away at Capernaum. What would He do and say now in His hometown? There were no straying thoughts, nor wandering attention in that house of worship. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. They had watched Him grow up as a boy. They had gathered with Him each week in this very synagogue. Their intense gaze was locked on Him as they wondered what He would say.
And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (literally – in your ears). What a wonderful gift! For a moment there was admiration at his gracious words. So long God’s people had waited. So wondrous were the gifts. But Jesus was clearly saying that these promises of rescue and release were fulfilled because He was speaking to them. He was also thereby saying that He was the anointed one, the Messiah, and that they were blind, captive, beggars whom God was rescuing in Him.
And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s Son?” (Pause) No, no, a thousand times, a million times, no! This is God’s Son, in the flesh, true God begotten of His Father from eternity and also true man born of the Virgin Mary! But in His hometown He seemed so ordinary. If He was someone special He would have to prove it locally. If He was someone special then they should have preference for the use of His power. Hometown familiarity boils over into hometown skepticism. Relationships that were set and stable boil over into this question, “Is this not Joseph’s Son?”
And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. Then He gave two examples of God ministering to Gentiles. Elijah fed a pagan widow even when Israelites were starving. Elisha healed a pagan general of leprosy even when there were multitudes of lepers in Israel. Jesus was saying that not only was the salvation He brought not limited to Nazareth, it was also not limited to the sons of Abraham. The liberty He claimed to bring was for all. His words clearly rebuked pride in outward connections and presumptions of hometown favoritism.
Every Israelite knew these stories from childhood. But when Jesus spoke them to their selfish perspectives it was like He had spoken the obvious truth that the emperor had no clothes on and they were the emperor. When Jesus finished His sermon not a single face in the synagogue was smiling. In swift reversal, admiration turned to hatred. Their emotions exploded in fury. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and brought him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff. Pride and wrath combine to lead a hometown mob to a hometown cliff. They intended to take their life-long neighbor and hurl Him to his death.
What about us? What do we expect of Jesus this morning (evening)? Can’t it seem as if nothing much really happens in worship week after week? Isn’t it true that our hearts are tempted with the hometown hankerings of Nazareth? If Jesus doesn’t relieve my personal suffering or take away the struggles in my family or give me smooth sailing in school or make things in this parish perk along, then perhaps we should push Him out and get a different Jesus. I’ve been a Lutheran all my baptized life and what advantage has it gotten me? I’ve paid my dues and hung around, so where’s the payoff?
Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t allow Himself to be thrown down our hometown cliffs. Passing through their midst, he went his way so that He could come into our midst today. His way was the way of the cross. He would go to another hill, not first to be thrown down, but to be lifted up. Not only did His hometown reject Him there, but so did His disciples and the world He created, and His heavenly Father. As He was lifted up on that hill, Jesus was simultaneously hurled down the precipice of the damned. He was flung down our eternal cliff.
Risen from that hellish fall Jesus not only brings good news He is the Good News! He is the Savior of the world! He offers life and salvation to all the poor. Nazareth qualified. So does your hometown. So does this whole world of dying sinners. God use us and that by which He prospers us to bring the Gospel to those sitting in darkness.
He comes today not as our hometown, have-it-your-way buddy. He comes as our heavenly have-it-My-way Helper and Healer. He gathers with us each week in this place to keep the relationships set and stable. He is the Head, we are His body, He is the Shepherd, we are His sheep. He is the Bridegroom; we are His beloved and holy Bride. Gracious words still come out of His mouth, for it is He who says, “I baptize you” and “I forgive you” and “take and eat and drink”. As He speaks all of God’s promises are fulfilled in your ears. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
posted by Luther Memorial Chapel at
1/26/2007
