Jesus 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. Luke 4: 21-28
It’s almost impossible, in the political climate we live in, to avoid the topic of how our faith interconnects with those living among us as foreigners and immigrants. Even a cursory reading of scripture reminds us that this isn’t something peripheral to living the Christian life.
In the fourth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus returns to his hometown, where he angers his neighbors by envisioning God’s presence in the world that exists beyond his old neighborhood. Instead of declaring that they are God’s special people, he reminds them of foreigners whom God has lifted up.
There’s a poor widow from Zarephath; a Syro- Phoenician woman whom God fed in the midst of famine by replenishing her oil and flour. There’s Naaman the Syrian military officer; a worshiper of a foreign god who was cured of leprosy through the intervention of the prophet Elisha. To the people of Jesus’ hometown, these are the kinds of foreigners who should be excluded, not lifted up as people worthy of God’s care.
We can perhaps imagine the gears starting to turn in the heads of those who are listening to Jesus, and sense their growing suspicion as he quotes scripture verses they’ve pushed aside as being inconvenient. That skepticism turns to bitterness, rage, and violence. They’re enraged because Jesus is quoting scripture to jump-start a conversation about where God chooses to be active in this world; a conversation about who is worthy of God’s love. According to Jesus, God is found ‘out there,’ among ‘those’ people, just as surely as God is found ‘in here,’ among the faithful.
Jesus is reminding us that God is both present and active outside of the walls we construct in the vain hope of keeping ourselves safe from the unknown. When we begin to see that God’s love for this world extends beyond our own cultural mores and traditions, it can’t help but to confront that part of us that clings to our sense of privilege. But Jesus’ words come with a promise: Because we have been baptized into Christ, and because Christ was raised from the dead, we are therefore set free from all our brokenness and invited to respond to God’s love for us by loving every human being as we are loved.
The time of God’s favor that Isaiah predicted, and that Jesus announced, is still being fulfilled in our hearing along the beautiful North Shore. It’s still being fulfilled ‘out there’ as well; in a world desperate to hear the joyful news that Jesus is risen, and that all are invited to share in his resurrection life. That’s the Good News, folks. That’s the gospel that we are called to share here in our own community and wherever our hands can be used and our voices can be heard.
I ran across a poem some three years ago penned by Andrew King of Maple Grove United Church in Oakville, Ontario titled “Escaping From the Boxes,” that speaks eloquently about our calling to share the promise of resurrection with those whom this world teaches us to push to the side. It goes like this …
There you go again, God, moving to the margins, taking love to the outcast and the alien, breaking through the barriers we’ve constructed from our prejudice; a light that shines into the world’s dark corners, unfettered by our selfishness, unhindered by our blindness. There you go, defying our expectations, surprising us with the wideness of your grace.
There you go again, God, slipping through our fingers, escaping from the boxes put around you, crossing fences of theology we build to hold you prisoner, a wind that blows beyond our closed horizons; uncaptured by our doctrines, unbounded by our dogmas. There you go, defying our expectations, surprising us with the freedom of your grace.
There you go again, God, calling us to a journey, prodding us to leave our shells of comfort, bidding us to examine the rigid shelters of our thinking; a voice that reaches deep within our souls, undiscouraged by our stubbornness, patient in our fearfulness. There you go, defying our expectations, surprising us with the closeness of your grace.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Tom Murray of the Lutsen Lutheran Church and Baptism River Community Church of Finland.
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