Between amazement at his gracious words and anger at his prophetic references… what the heck happened? I’m serious, this is one of the more confusing encounters between Jesus and his hearers. And in Luke’s account, it happens right at the beginning of his public ministry. Foreshadowing, perhaps, the confusion and rejection that were to characterize public reaction to Jesus’ ministry, all the way from Nazareth to Golgotha. Here at the very outset, we heard Jesus speaking up in his hometown synagogue and appealing to the prophet Isaiah and to the year of the Lord’s favor. That is, appealing to the very best and most just traditions of his community. And the people knew it, and affirmed him for it. And then—barely a few sentences later—they were ready to violently dispense with him.
Now there are likely reasons for this extreme change of heart, beyond the fickleness of human nature. Most Bible commentaries like to point out that the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian whom Jesus referenced were both gentiles, blessed by the God of Israel with salvation and healing. So maybe Jesus’ townspeople were jealous of this reminder of God’s apparent love for the outsider? Another possibility is that Jesus did not do any of the messianic deeds of power and blessings that he did elsewhere, like the five Sabbath healings he performed in other towns immediately after this story. Or maybe he just overstepped his authority as the son of the carpenter. In 2000 year hindsight, we really can’t be sure what ticked off the Nazarenes. Their reaction seems so very extreme, no?
Except… except that we all know an extreme reaction when we see one, because we’ve all seen them before. Stuff happens between friends, family and neighbors. Sometimes we know why, but often we just don’t. We don’t actually know what happened to provoke the feud, the betrayal, the divorce, the gaslighting or the ghosting. And I know that, when I’m on the wrong end of this kind of dispute, I can surely spend a lot of time trying to figure out what broke up a relationship. But if the other party is not interested in reconciliation, then all my efforts will be for naught. Speaking from my own experience, this situation can hurt a lot. And then I sometimes hurt myself even more by trying to fix a breach that is not fixable.
At least not right now. I do need to remind us that, because we are talking about Jesus and the Jubilee year of forgiveness—that’s the year of the Lord’s favor that he preached—we know that in the fullness of God’s time no falling out is final. God will indeed wipe away every tear, when all is said and done. Love never ends. But what do we do in the meantime?
But Jesus, Luke said, “he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Last week, in the context of our annual meeting, I preached about the importance of knowing our mission so that we can determine the right way to go. As people and as a parish. And we can—and should—spend some quality time going through the well-known steps of a strategic planning process, based on our mission and our goals. It’s the wise thing to do. It’s the right thing to do.
And… if we speak in the tongues of congregational development, but do not have love, we will be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if we can imagine a vital future, and understand all mysteries of church growth, and if we have all faith so as to remove deficit budgets, but do not have love, we are nothing. If we give away all our resources to outreach, and if we hand over our endowments so that we may boast, but do not have love, we gain nothing.
You see where I’m going with this, right? We can do everything right as a Christian community and as an ethical business—as those savvy Corinthians surely intended to do—but if we don’t begin and end all of our efforts with love, we gain nothing. Which is gentler way of saying that—without love—we lose the game of following Jesus before we’ve even started it.
You know this to be true. You act like it. I see how you love each other, in all sorts of ways. You pray for each other, you sing for each other, you cook for each other, you visit and check up on each other. And that’s not always easy: we at Trinity are a quirky lot. But as we practice loving one another and our neighbors—as we steadfastly continue to do—we get a little better at it every time. Love is like that: it gets better with practice. Most especially when the practice stretches and challenges us a bit.
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Paul’s beautiful letter to the church in Corinth is responsible for more than a few misty eyes at weddings, but as one who has the privilege of officiating at weddings, I always like to point out to the couple that Paul was being anything but sentimental here. He was being utterly realistic about our human capacity to be impatient, unkind, envious boastful and rude. Irritable and resentful? Check; I’ve been that. Rejoice in wrongdoing and rejecting the truth? Well, that’s a pretty accurate description of what was going on in Nazareth that fateful Sabbath day when Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah.
I like to think that when Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way, he was practicing the love that bears all things and endures all things. He chose not to repay his townspeople evil for evil, but rather to hold fast to the good, and to continue his mission to strengthen the fainthearted, support the weak and help the afflicted, to borrow from the words of an ancient blessing. Sometimes, choosing not to get caught up in or victimized by someone else’s anger is the best way to love them. Sometimes, choosing to pursue our own mission and go our own way is the best way to love ourselves.
Love is a choice. Let me repeat that, because the cultural messages about love can be confusing. Love is not primarily a feeling: love is a choice. Or rather, love is the sum of a thousand small choices that we make every day. Choices not to take up the gauntlet that someone else throws down, and choices not to react in anger to the persons who may be angry at us. Choices also to be true to ourselves and the mission that is ours. Choices to face change with curiosity and hope, rather than fear and resentment. Choices to turn and learn new ways to do things, to pray for those we find hard to love, to worship even with people we may be annoyed by, to bless those who persecute us, to go into a sometimes unfriendly world with hearts brimming with the love that we’ve chosen to bear because Jesus showed us how.
Our Presiding Bishop likes to speak of the our church as the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement. I love that phrase, because it embodies humility—we are not the only branch—and also power. We are people who move. We go, as the sixth of Bishop Curry’s practices of what he calls “The Way of Love” tells us to do. And then, recalling our gracious God’s restorative intent from the beginning of creation, we rest. The practices that make us more loving people? Bishop Curry asks us to turn, that is, to be open to change. Then to learn from our scripture and tradition, to pray, to worship, to bless one another, to go into the world in peace, and to rest.
Which of these practices do you need more of right now? We’ve got opportunities to engage in every single one of them right here at Trinity. In this Epiphany season—which is a season of encountering God anew—I invite you to try a new practice of faith. But most importantly, I invite you to consider what kind of love you most need to give right now. What kind of love do you most need to receive? It’s Sunday, our Sabbath day. Take a moment to rest and listen to your heart. And to hear again the words of St. Paul, this time from his prayer for the church in Ephesus—
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19). Amen.
Bravo, Reverend Julia! El amor nunca deja de ser!