I’ve preached on Luke 4 a number of times. Honestly, it’s many preacher’s favorite, particularly when we end at vs. 22. It’s not hard to see why. It’s a good church service. Jesus walks in, reads from Isaiah about good news, freedom, and healing, and then preaches the shortest sermon every preached. It’s literally one sentence long – “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” No awkward welcome time - - no announcements - no talk about the offering. And the people respond positively, Luke tells us: “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.” Wow. Spirit anointed preaching that results in everyone being kind, showing amazement, and reveling in grace – that’s a homerun, right? The passage reminds me of a Covenant Church that had the motto – posted on signs throughout Santa Barbara: “Love everyone, always.” I mean, who would have a problem with that?
But Jesus quickly perceives something – something was amiss. Friends, everyone appreciates love at 50,000 feet. Everyone revels at grace in the abstract. When the preacher says, “unconditional love,” or “healing,” or “good news,” everyone says, “Amen.” But when the prophet Jesus speaks of love, it’s no longer nice and people quickly turn nasty. Our passage asks of us two telling, prophetic questions:
Will prophetic love get an “Amen”?!
Perceiving that these good, synagogue-going people don’t get it, Jesus speaks two proverbs back-to-back: Proverb one: “Physician, heal yourself” or “Do here what you did for the Gentiles” and Proverb two: “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country.”
There are two things I want to point out about the second proverb of vs. 24: First, is that the Greek literally says, “Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν. . . [Amen, I say to y’all]” We often forget the prophetic power of “amen.” Those of us who’ve been in the church have heard used it so often that we have actually forgotten what it means. (Lisa’s story – “Don't fart in the mitten.” [Fahre nicht in der Mitte, to hear the story go to trinitycovenant.org/sermons]) I imagine, given it’s use in prayer, that perhaps you thought it meant “the end,” as if God needed to be sure that we were through talking. But no, “amen” is a rich Hebrew word which means “fixed” or “sure.” Over time it came to reflect agreement and consent with the purposes of God but also the truth about God and ourselves. And Jesus is saying to those in the synagogue, “I’m about to drop some “amen” here. I’m going to tell you the truth about you.” And that truth is the second point of the proverb – which is told with prophetic word play here. Jesus has already declared from the Scriptures that he was sent “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” also called Jubilee which is discussed in Leviticus 25:8-54 (held every 50th year; it was a celebration of forgiveness, a cancelling of all financial debts, a return of all ancestral lands to families; a time of rest for the earth with many fields lying fallow). That word “favor,” which can also mean acceptable, is the same word used for the unfavorable prophet in vs. 24. The irony, the “amen,” is that Jesus was sent to proclaim the “year of the Lord’s favor [δεκτός]” and people are not in favor [δεκτός, vs. 24]. At this point, perhaps they might argue? Perhaps they might say, “No, no, no, we do love everyone. We want forgiveness. We appreciate justice.” But all caveats, all niceties, all respectableness goes out the window (or at least off a cliff) when Jesus and love get specific. He makes them wrestle with the truth.
Jesus tells two amen-stories, right out of the Hebrew Bible. The first is from 1 Kings 5:17-24 about the prophet Elijah being sent, not to any of the widows in Israel but only to a foreign widow in the region of Sidon. Sidon, by the way, was the birthplace of Jezebel – the wicked queen in power during Elijah’s ministry. The pagan widow was generous to Elijah and, in return, was miraculously fed by the prophet. The second story is from 2 Kings 5:5-27 about the prophet Elisha who invites a foreign army officer from Aram, with an Israelite slave, no less, in order to heal him of leprosy. The kingdom of Aram was a competing kingdom with Israel with numerous military skirmishes in the book of Judges, 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings.
These stories are from Scripture and speak of God miraculously feeding, healing, and loving foreign, pagan people through a prophet of Israel. Will you give an “amen”? These are the stories that Jesus shares with the good, religious people who were just praising him for good news of God’s grace and forgiveness. Will you give an “amen”? And the “all” [πάντες] of vs. 22 that spoke well of him and were amazed becomes the “all” [πάντες] of vs. 28 who “were filled with rage.” That leads us to our second question.
When the prophet speaks of love, which “all” will we be?
When love becomes more than a gracious sentiment but an act of justice particularly for people who are being harmed, being hurt, being legislated against, which “all” will we be?When love gets specific and particular, when it encompasses the wicked, the foreigner, the outsider, the awful, another gender, a sexual minority, the other party, a person of color, which “all” will we be?
Prophetic love for Jesus is always the love of solidarity – it’s a love with and for people with names and is not first and foremost an issue. The Gospel message and ministry of Jesus toward the hurting, the poor, the oppressed wasn’t so much opposed by nonbelievers, pagan authorities, or even agents of empire. Jesus was opposed by religious people who sought only their own comfort and good. It enraged religious people with strong borders and boundaries who could never believe that God was willing to be that good, that gracious, that loving, toward friend and enemy alike. If we are going to follow “the man of sorrows, who was acquainted with grief”; if we are going to worship the suffering servant “who was despised and rejected”; if we’re going to give our life to the One that religious people want to chuck off a cliff – then grief and sorrow is what we must accept will occur when we speak about love concretely and specifically. The Jesuit priest and social reformer, Father Greg Boyle, who works with Latino gang members in Los Angeles says it this way:
The right wing would stare at Jesus and question where He chose to stand. They hated that He aligned himself with the unclean, those outside – the folks you ought neither to touch nor be near. He hobnobbed with the leper, shared table fellowship with the sinner, and rendered himself ritually impure in the process. They found it offensive, to boot, that Jesus had no regard for their wedge issues, their constitutional amendments or their culture wars. The left was equally annoyed. They wanted to see the ten-point plan, the revolution in high gear, the toppling of sinful social structures. They were impatient with his brand of solidarity. They wanted to see him taking the right stand on issues, not just standing in the right place. But Jesus stood with the outcast. The Left screams: Don’t just stand there, do something. And the Right yells: Don’t stand with those folks at all. Both sides, saw Jesus as the wrong size for this world, came to their own reasons for wanting him dead.”
When love gets specific, when love is not a culture war or an issue but the person right in front of us with a story and a name, when love will costs us something, will we “all” say, “Amen!” to that?
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