St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
January 30, 2022
Year C: The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30
Home Can Be a Painful Place
Because of the many horrifically tragic cases of abuse that have happened in churches, all clergy and other employees, lay leaders, and volunteers – especially those who work with kids - are required to participate in various trainings designed to help us spot the signs when something wrong is going on, and to know how we should respond.
These trainings are both necessary and depressing, but over the years they’ve become sort of routine – just another unfortunate thing that we have to do in this fallen and broken world of ours.
But, last Saturday I participated in a required training that was a new one for me.
It was specifically focused on domestic violence.
Unfortunately, this kind of at-home abuse - both physical and emotional - is more widespread than we might hope or suppose – yet another epidemic in a land that seems to be just full of them.
But, even if the trouble doesn’t sink to the level of abuse, we know that all too often home can be a painful place.
One of the worst flaws of human nature is that we are very good at hurting the people closest to us.
We know their histories and insecurities, their hopes and fears.
And, in a moment of anger or frustration or tiredness, we can so easily wound the people we love - with a cutting remark or a quick insult, or even just with a withering or disgusted look.
And the wounds inflicted by those closest to us are the hardest to heal, aren’t they?
Those deep scars remind us of betrayal, leaving us forever unsure of just where we stand.
Last week I talked about the joy of homecomings, but, sad to say, it’s also often true that home can be a painful place.
Last Sunday we heard how Jesus had been traveling throughout Galilee, teaching and healing.
It seems that Jesus’ good words and amazing deeds had made a wonderful impression on the people.
Jesus “was praised by everyone,” Luke tells us.
And then after his successful tour, Jesus returns home to Nazareth.
On the Sabbath, like all pious Jews then and now, Jesus attends synagogue. There, surrounded by people he had probably known forever – his family and neighbors - Jesus recites a passage from the Prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…”
After he’s finished, while everyone in the synagogue looked at him in silent anticipation, Jesus says:
“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
And that’s where we pick up today.
Before I get to the disturbing and kind of confusing second half of this story, let’s remember what the gospels are and are not.
Although they contain history and biography, the gospels are not exactly histories or biographies.
No, they were written to tell the story of Jesus in ways that would help us to know and understand what is most important about his life and message. The gospels were written so that we could and would place our trust in Jesus.
As the Evangelist John writes near the end of his gospel:
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
So, because the four evangelists have a somewhat narrow focus, there is a lot about Jesus’ life that we just don’t know, including the long stretch of time from his infancy to when he presents himself to John for baptism.
I often wonder about those years, about Jesus’ childhood and young adulthood in Nazareth.
Of course, we do know about the goodness of Mary and Joseph – and we can be sure that their love and faithfulness and courage shaped the man Jesus became.
But then there’s everybody else in that small town.
I wonder about the rest of his family and his neighbors, the people who would have heard the rumors about the strange circumstances of his conception and birth, the people who might have gleefully gossiped about this boy who was “Joseph’s son.”
Later, we know that Jesus’ relatives did not support his ministry – in fact, they wanted to restrain him and bring him back home.
Home can be a painful place.
And so I wonder how this sense of being an “outsider” affected Jesus.
And I wonder if Jesus’ own experiences at home made him even more sensitive to the plight of other outsiders: the lepers, the prostitutes, the tax collectors.
And might Jesus’ own painful experiences at home help to explain what happened on that Sabbath day in the Nazareth synagogue?
Because, as you might have noticed, it’s Jesus who goes on the offensive - maybe because his divinity gave him the power to read the minds of his family and neighbors or, more likely, it’s simply that he knows these people. Jesus knows that they are not going to accept his message. They are not going to believe that the Scripture is in fact fulfilled in and through him.
And so, Jesus makes the first move, anticipating that, like prophets before him, he will not be accepted in his hometown.
And then Jesus reaches back into Israel’s past, reminding everybody of times when it was the outsiders who were blessed by God.
Well, that does it.
The people of Nazareth have heard enough. Enraged, they drive Jesus out of the synagogue, wanting to be done with him once and for all.
Home can be a painful place.
So, that’s a really sad ending for a Sabbath that had begun with so much anticipation.
There’s no doubt that Luke includes this incident in his Jesus story because he wants us to know that Jesus was rejected by lots of people, including by at least some of the people closest to him.
And we know that later, Jesus’ chosen family – his disciples – they will mostly deny him and abandon him, too.
And, as we know, people today continue to reject Jesus’ message of good news for the poor and liberation of the captive.
We know all that, but even more important, this story gives us a painful but also poignant glimpse of Jesus our brother.
In this memory from his hometown synagogue, we see Jesus our brother – Jesus who knows the pain of being an outsider – Jesus who knows what it feels like to be rejected, to be hurt by the people closest to him.
But in this sad story there is good news for us:
In our hard moments when we feel like outsiders – when we are rejected – when we are hurt by people close to us – we can pray to Jesus with confidence – we can take Communion with confidence – and receive comfort and healing from a Lord who is not above our suffering but who really knows what it feels like, a God who who really gets it.
Jesus knows that home can be a painful place – which is good news for us.
Amen.
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