“Today, for Them”: Welcoming the Stranger in the Way of Jesus ~ Luke 4:14-30

 

What was the spirituality of Jesus like? What animated his mission? And what would he think about us spending two months so far on the spirituality of immigration? Last week I briefly imagined what Jesus might have said to the prophet Nehemiah who responded to foreigners with threats, violence, and expulsion. This week, we won’t have to imagine, we need only watch Jesus and listen.

Because in his very first sermon, Jesus stands up in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, and doesn’t just offer a devotional reflection. He doesn’t give a comforting word about God’s love in general. He hearkens back to Scripture, defines his mission, and then—almost immediately—reminds his neighbors that his ministry extends beyond Israelites and includes outsiders – non-Jews, pagans, foreigners. And how do people respond? They try to kill him.

That alone should give us pause, especially since the preacher today is well - me.

If Jesus’ very first sermon about love, justice, and foreigners, could provoke awe and attempted murder, then maybe we should stop assuming that faithfulness to Jesus’ mission will always feel safe, affirming, or polite.

1. The Spirituality of Jesus Is the Joy and Urgency of “Today”

After reading from Isaiah about the Spirit of the Lord, Jesus sits down. Every eye is fixed on him. And then he utters a single, earth-shattering sentence:

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

That word—today—is not incidental. In Luke’s Gospel, it’s a theological keyword. He uses it more than any other Gospel writer, and he places this scene at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry – a declaration of liberation for the poor and marginalized.

Not tomorrow.
Not someday.
Not after the right people are in power.
Not when the borders are secure.
Not when the economy is stable.

Today.

God’s promise is not deferred. God’s justice is not postponed. God’s mercy is not theoretical. The Spirit’s work is happening now, in real bodies, real communities, real conflicts.

Jesus will live this way of “today” consistently:
He prays, “Give us each day our daily bread.”
He teaches, “Do not worry about tomorrow.”
He announces, “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Jesus models a spirituality that is radically present. He notices the person in front of him. He responds to suffering as it appears. He trusts that God is active in real time.

And yet—if we’re honest—the church often reverses this.

Jesus says, “Today,” and we say, “Eventually.”
Jesus says, “Look—right now,” and we say, “Let’s wait and see.”
Jesus says, “God is liberating people on the earth today,” and we say, “The good news is about getting to heaven when you die.”

A Jesus-animated spirituality of today refuses to spiritualize away suffering. It refuses to delay justice. It insists that God’s love must take flesh now—in policies, in neighborhoods, in how we treat the most vulnerable among us  - today.

2. The Mission Jesus Announces Is Good News for the Marginalized—Here and Now

Jesus reads from Isaiah, but Luke is careful to preserve the wording of the Greek Scriptures—the Septuagint. And that matters.

“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 send the oppressed away in freedom,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And behind this text is not only Isaiah 61, but also Isaiah 58:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?”

This is not charity. This is not vague compassion. This is gospel justice.

In the Septuagint, “release” is the word used for the forgiveness of debts. “Freedom” is the language of emancipation. “The year of the Lord’s favor” echoes Jubilee (Lev. 25)—the restructuring of economic and social life so that no one is permanently excluded. Everything – money, oppression, bodies, is spiritual.

Jesus is not announcing a private spirituality of personal salvation. He is proclaiming the healing of the world. And notice who benefits first: the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, the oppressed.

Which means—by definition—those on the margins. Those without power. Those without legal protection. Those whose suffering is often justified or ignored.

If we translate that into our own moment, it includes people fleeing violence, families at borders, asylum seekers waiting for hearings, migrant workers whose labor is welcomed but whose lives are treated as disposable.

We live in a world where people drown at sea because no nation wants to claim responsibility. Where children languish in detention centers. Where fear of the foreigner is dressed up as realism, prudence, or even patriotism.

Jesus names all of that and says: This is what the Spirit has sent me to confront—today.

3. The Turning Point: When Welcome Extends to Outsiders

At first, the congregation loves this sermon. Luke tells us they “spoke well of him” and were amazed. Who doesn’t like good news—especially when it sounds like it’s for us? And it’s important to remember that the Jews were currently oppressed and their own country occupied.

But Jesus knows something. He knows that admiration can turn to rage the moment privilege is threatened. He knows that mercy can provoke anger when it moves from me to them. So he keeps preaching.

He names the unspoken assumption in the room: Do this for us NOT them. Heal us, please, but harm them. Bless us but curse them. Take care of our people first – only – primarily – exclusively.

And so he reminds them of two stories.

Elijah sent not to an Israelite widow, but to a foreign woman in Zarephath.
Elisha healing not an Israelite, but Naaman—the general of an enemy army.

In both cases, God’s saving action bypasses the insiders and blesses outsiders.

Jesus is not rejecting Israel. He is reminding them of their calling given to Abraham long ago: through you, all nations will be blessed (Genesis 12:2-3, 22:18). You were never meant to hoard grace; you were meant to share it.

But here’s the hard truth: people often support justice until it costs them something.  The moment Jesus suggests that God’s love is not controlled by national, ethnic, or religious boundaries, the mood shifts.

The crowd becomes furious. They drive him out of town. They try to throw him off a cliff.

Let that sink in. The first act of violence in Luke’s Gospel is not against a criminal. It is against a God-ordained preacher who insists that God loves foreigners.

Jesus suffers violence not for being too harsh. He is rejected for being too merciful.

4. Jesus’ Spirituality Includes the Liberation of Others, Even at Personal Cost

Jesus reveals that there is no such thing as liberation that stops with me. There is no salvation that ignores you. There is no faithfulness that refuses responsibility for “them.” He challenges the very “mercy me” theology expressed by Nehemiah last week. And this is precisely what provokes rage—then and now.

Anger often erupts when people are asked to give up the illusion of being first. When they are asked to share resources. When they are asked to see strangers not as threats, but as neighbors.

We see this pattern everywhere.
In political rhetoric that dehumanizes migrants.
In policies designed to deter suffering rather than relieve it.
In churches that speak warmly about love but go silent when that love demands risk.

But Jesus does not retreat. He passes through the violence and keeps going.

And the rest of the Gospel shows us what this costs him.

He touches those others avoid.
He eats with the wrong people.
He crosses boundaries again and again.
And eventually, the violence that begins in Nazareth finds its way to Jerusalem.

The cross is not an accident nor simply a God-ordained fate. It is the consequence of a life lived in radical welcome.

5. So the question becomes, “What Animates Us—Today?”

What animates us?
Fear—or trust?
Scarcity—or abundance?
Privilege—or solidarity?

Jesus says, Today.
Today God is at work among the poor. Today God is freeing the oppressed. Today God is blessing people we might rather ignore.

The good news is not only that Jesus welcomes the stranger. It is that he invites us into that same vocation. Will join him today?

To be a people who rebuild ruined cities.
Who loosen the bonds of injustice.
Who offer not just sympathy, but solidarity.
Who let joy—not despair—fuel the work of justice.

This is hard work. It exposes our fears. It costs us something. And yes, it can provoke resistance—even from within the church. But it is the holy work of Jesus.

Because “this very day,” God is loving people we have been taught to fear.
“This very day,” God is blessing those we might wish he wouldn’t.
“This very day,” Jesus stands among us and says:

This scripture of liberation is fulfilled in your hearing.

May we have the courage to follow Jesus.
May we have the faith to welcome the stranger.
And may we discover, even now, the joy of liberation—good news - for all. Amen.

 

A Mouth Full of Scripture & A Heart Full of Hate: How Should We Understand Nehemiah's Treatment of Foreigners? ~ Nehemiah 13

 

Imagine this scene with me. A nation has been beaten down. It has lost a war it thought it should have won. It has gone through years of humiliation, economic hardship, and frustration. Stronger nations push it around. People feel ashamed of their once-great name. There’s a growing hunger for dignity, stability, and glory again.

And into that atmosphere steps a powerful, charismatic leader. He’s organized. He’s devoted. He believes God is calling him to restore what has been lost. He gathers resources. He convinces government officials to help. He rallies the people. He inspires hope. Walls begin to rise again as a symbol of renewal.

But this leader believes there is one thing holding his nation back—foreigners. People with a different language, a different culture, a different story. People who don’t “fit.” People he fears will weaken the nation’s identity.

So he convinces the community: We must protect ourselves. We must separate from them. We must send them away. I know this sounds like a modern political tragedy, but this story is not about current politics. It is about Nehemiah. And it is in our Bibles.

This is a hard story. We usually lift Nehemiah up as a hero of leadership—and in many ways he was! He loved God. He wanted to rebuild his people’s home. He prayed. He planned. He sacrificed. But the Bible is honest about its heroes. It tells us the truth: even the best leaders can get some things terribly wrong. And friends, Nehemiah got some things terribly wrong.

Today, I want to walk with you through this tension—not to tear down Nehemiah, but to understand what God is teaching us through his story.

Because if we only read Nehemiah, we might think he’s doing exactly what God wants. But if we read the whole Bible through the way of Jesus, we see something else. We see that Nehemiah is trying to protect God’s people in a way that actually contradicts the heartbeat of the biblical story.

And that should make us stop and ask a deeply important question: Where might we be doing the same?

A Leader With Good Intentions—and Blind Spots

Nehemiah comes back to Jerusalem to find the city in shambles. The people are discouraged. The economy is in a mess. Some families are being crushed by debt. Foreign officials threaten them constantly. This is not an easy environment to lead.

So Nehemiah gets to work. He looks out for the poor. fixes the economy. He rebuilds the walls. Life begins to stabilize. People gather to hear the Scriptures again.

And in this revival they read an old command from Deuteronomy 23:1-8—a command about Ammonites and Moabites. A command rooted in a painful memory, when those nations refused to help Israel in a moment of need. But the people misunderstand the command. It had an expiration date – the 10^th generation, which had long since passed. And it was only about specific groups. And even in that same chapter, God says other foreigners, after a few generations, should be welcomed. God even commands Israel to protect runaway slaves from anywhere in the world. This was not an anti-foreigner chapter. It was a very specific warning rooted in a specific historical moment.

But the people in Nehemiah’s day don’t see that. They take a narrow verse and turn it into a broad policy. They decide, verse 13:3 tells us, “Let’s get rid of all foreigners”(Neh. 13:3).

And then Nehemiah returns from Persia and sees something else: Israelite men have married foreign women, and their children don’t speak Hebrew. And instead of asking questions—
Instead of learning their stories—
Instead of discerning who among them loves God—
Instead of remembering Ruth the Moabite… or Rahab the Canaanite… or the “mixed multitude” that left Egypt… or Joseph’s half-Egyptian sons who became major tribes in Israel— Nehemiah reacts with anger.

He shouts curses. He beats people. He pulls out their hair. He forces them to swear oaths. And ultimately, people send their wives and children away. It is heartbreaking.

Now listen: Nehemiah thinks he is being faithful and in many respects he is. He thinks he is protecting the purity of worship. He thinks he is defending Israel from another collapse. His motives are understandable. But the overall biblical story points in a very different direction. Nehemiah reflects the painful recognition and Biblical truth that you can have a mouth full of Scripture and still harbor a heart full of violence and hate.

The Bible’s Bigger Story: “Remember, You Were Foreigners Too”

If you read the whole Old Testament, one command gets repeated again and again, more than almost any other:

“Do not oppress the foreigner.”
“Love them as yourselves.”
“Remember, you were foreigners in Egypt.”

It’s like God knew that Israel would be tempted to forget where they came from. To forget their own history of living as outsiders. Outsiders in Egypt. Outsiders in Babylon. Outsiders in Persia. And when people forget their own experience of vulnerability, it becomes very easy to harden their hearts against others.

But God did everything possible to stop that from happening. He built reminders even into Israel’s worship. Every yearly harvest festival, the festival of Shavuot [Pentecost], was supposed to begin with a declaration found in Deuteronomy 26:5:

“My father was a wandering Aramean…”

In other words: “Our family started as immigrants. As nomads. As landless people relying on the kindness of strangers.” This was more than a political identity but a worshipful one as well.

And then God says, “Celebrate this feast with the foreigners living among you.”
“Make sure they have food.” “Make sure they are welcomed.” Israel was supposed to be the place where outsiders discovered the kindness of God.

So when Nehemiah forces families apart… When the people expel women and children… When they use a sliver of Scripture to justify a sweeping, painful policy… They are not reflecting the heart of God. They are contradicting it.

The book of Ruth – written close to the same time – offers us a foreign wife who helps others and becomes part of the line of King David and even Jesus. The book of Ruth is a voice correcting Nehemiah from inside the Bible itself.

The lesson is powerful:
You can quote Scripture and still miss Scripture. You can defend God with passion and still oppose God’s heart.

Why Did Nehemiah Go Wrong?

Nehemiah’s mistake didn’t come from malice. It came from fear.

Fear shapes us more than we realize. Fear shrinks our imagination. Fear makes us suspicious, protective, defensive. Fear tells us that safety is found in sameness. Fear tells us that people who are different are dangerous. Fear will have us read Scripture in a way that makes others afraid.

Nehemiah had been mocked, threatened, and sabotaged by foreign officials (4:1-3; 6:1-3). That’s real trauma. But he let that pain turn into a general suspicion toward all foreigners. He let personal wounds shape national policy.

And here’s the danger:
When we forget our story, we fear other people’s stories.
When we forget we were outsiders, we treat outsiders as problems instead of people. When we fail to transform our pain, we transmit it.

Israel forgot their story. Nehemiah forgot his story. And if we’re honest, the church often forgets ours too.

A Biblical Warning for Bible Reading Today

We live in a world full of complicated issues—immigration, refugees, war, politics, poverty, gender, race. And whenever people feel anxious or afraid, there is a strong temptation to reach for simple answers and simple slogans.

Sometimes people even reach for Bible verses to justify harshness, exclusion, or protectionism. The temptation is always to simplify:

“The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.”
“This one verse answers the whole question.”

But the Bible doesn’t work like that. God calls us to read the whole story, not just isolated verses. He calls us to interpret Scripture with Scripture, particularly with the mission and message of Jesus. And Jesus is our Rabbi. He calls us to let his compassion, his hospitality, his generous heart guide us in our Bible reading (John 5:39-40).

We follow a Bible-reading Savior who welcomed Samaritans, Romans, prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors, and traitors. We follow a teacher who told us that the greatest command is love. We follow a Lord who broke down “the dividing wall of hostility” between peoples. We are a church born at Pentecost, when God spoke through many languages at once, not through one purified language.

If Nehemiah had lived to see Jesus, I think Jesus would have lovingly, firmly challenged him—just like he challenged the Pharisees when they used Scripture to justify exclusion. Jesus might have said, “Nehemiah, your zeal is real, but your vision is too small. Let me show you what God really wants for the nations.” When it comes to Bible reading, Jesus always gets the last word.

So What Do We Do With Nehemiah?

We do what the Bible itself does. We honor the good in him—his courage, his sacrifice, his dedication. But we also learn from his blind spots and lament an all too common reality – that faithful people can use the Bible for bad behavior.

Nehemiah reminds us that even faithful people can misread Scripture. Even prayerful leaders can cause harm. Even holy intentions can go off track when fear takes the wheel.

The Bible doesn’t hide this from us—because God wants us to grow wiser than the people who came before us.

The Call for God’s People Today

So where does this leave us?

It leaves us with a challenge:
Will we be shaped by fear, or by the Gospel story?

Our story begins with a wandering Aramean.
Our story continues with a God who rescues powerless people.
Our story climaxes with a Savior who embraces the outsider.
Our story ends with a multitude from every tribe, language, and nation worshiping together.

This is who we are. Yet, Nehemiah because of his fear, could only pray for himself. His world shrank and he often prays: God remember me or show mercy to me. That’s what fear does. Notice the last line of the entire book. Friends, we must let our fear go and remember that God is not a “mercy me” God. God is “mercy for all” God.

So instead of fear, let’s choose curiosity.
Instead of suspicion, let’s choose hospitality.
Instead of protecting our little group, let’s open our arms.
Instead of narrowing God’s grace, let’s widen it.
Instead of pointing to isolated verses, let’s read the whole story until our hearts beat in rhythm with God’s. And that always looks and sounds like Jesus.

Because the world does not need a church that repeats Nehemiah’s mistake.
The world needs a church that remembers its own beginnings.
A church that knows what it feels like to be outsiders brought near.
A church that knows that “foreigners” are often the very people through whom God sends blessing.

May we be that church. May we remember our story. And may we welcome others with mercy the way God welcomed us. Amen.