“At the Edge of the Cliff”

January 21, 2007

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Luke 4:16-30

As I’ve said in the announcements recently, we’re making 2010 the year of Luke here at Congregational UCC. I will be preaching from Luke extensively throughout the year. We’ll have opportunities to study the Gospel together. And we’re encouraging everyone to read through the Gospel of Luke at least once in the year ahead.

That said, the more I read the Bible the more I understand why so many people—even people within the church—don’t read it. It’s so, well, strange and unsettling.

Take the Gospel of Luke, which I just commended to you. It starts with that beautiful story of shepherds and angels and the baby Jesus. Next we see the Jesus at the age of twelve, astonishing all who hear him talking with the teachers in the temple.

Then suddenly—BAM—this little baby, this appealing youth, this Jesus is an adult out in the wilderness facing trial and temptation. After that he returns to his hometown—all grown up and heading for trouble. Jesus comes to the synagogue in Nazareth. Here we see a picture of Jesus the Jew, following the tradition in which he was raised, honoring the Sabbath day, worshipping God along with the rest of the community. We must always remember, when we hear about Jesus and his confrontations with the religious authorities, that both Jesus and his earliest followers were Jewish and sought to be faithful to the God of the covenant. His arguments with the leaders and the people were not condemnations of Judaism or Jewish people. They were more like disagreements within a family.

Here we see the hometown boy who is making quite a name for himself.

This is Joseph and Mary’s son, the kid who was once a familiar member of the community. Now he is becoming known as teacher who is being talked about by everyone, praised by everyone. He reads from the scroll of Isaiah. “God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

We need words like this. We especially need words like this today because, well, because it’s January.

The cold and the snow and the ice let up just enough to result in all of our cars being coated with a mix of sand and salt. Now, some people got to the car wash. Others depended on the rain and made good and abundant use of wiper fluid. You could see on some cars how their wipers traced an arc of clarity out of an encrusted windshield.

Those grimy windshields, including my own, became to me an image of the life of faith, including my own. Our sight becomes blurred. Our purposes and goals become obscured. As individuals and as a congregation we can get caught up in self-preoccupation, captive in dark prisons of our own making. We reduce the vastness of the Christian faith down to something small and tired and predictable. Oh, it’s comfortable—but not very liberating.

So we need to be reminded of the hope of the prophets: release for the captive, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed—something greater than ourselves and our little plans.

After reading the prophet, Jesus sits down and begins to speak.

What will he say? What wisdom will come from those lips?

His first word is “Today.” With that word we are thrust into the living present. Most of us look backward or forward, remembering times of God’s presence, hoping that God might be real in the future. Jesus says “Today,” which is really all that we have anyway.

Today is the gift that we have to cherish. We are the stewards of these hours to use them wisely and fully.

How we live today is of great importance. This is the day that we have to choose to live according to our principles, to love, to give.

Hearing Jesus, all the people speak well of him. They stand in wonder at the gracious words that proceed out of his mouth.

Everyone has something good to say about Jesus.

I hear these words as words of judgment. 

My job, after all, is to “speak well of Jesus.” I work hard at it. Each Sunday and throughout the week, I'm expected to put in a good word for Jesus, to commend him to others.

But we know how the story ends, don't we?

The same people who were speaking well of Jesus listen a little more to what he has to say. He reminds them that often their ancestors—his own ancestors—missed what God was doing in their midst. He reminds them that God's favor is often with the outsider.

In the time of a famine, the prophet Elijah was sent only to a widow in Sidon, foreign territory.

Elijah’s successor, Elisha, healed none of the many lepers in Israel but only Naaman, the Syrian, the foreigner.

Reading through Luke’s gospel, we keep hearing this theme—that God is concerned with the outsider, with those who live on the margins. Lepers and foreigners, the despised and disregarded often receive or show the love of God more than those on the inside track.

As we listen, we begin to squirm, wondering what we might be missing, worrying about those whom we might want to exclude.

Who’s in, who’s out?

Too poor, too rich, too old, too young.

Wrong gender, wrong sexual orientation, wrong race, wrong political party.

For 2000 years, church people have drawn lines to keep people out—lines that God refuses to draw.

The good news is that in the United Church of Christ in general and in this congregation in particular, we seek to open ourselves to all people. We say: “Whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” This comes as a wonderful surprise to many who had never imagined that a church could be like that. In declaring ourselves an Open and Affirming congregation, we announce that we are working to erase those lines of exclusion that Christians have so often drawn. As Jesus suggests, it is just through such “outsiders” that God often acts.

Still, we should realize that when we listen for the word of God, we might not like what we hear. Words about release of the captives, recovery of sight to the blind are good news. But they first might only make us aware of just how imprisoned, how unseeing we are—even with all of our liberal, progressive sophistication.

This morning we heard heard of Nehemiah, the governor of Judah who rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem, and of Ezra, the priest reading the book of the teachings, the Torah to the assembled people, men and women alike.

The people of Jerusalem gathered at the Water Gate. They listened. They wept.

God’s word sounds like judgment.

But that word also sounds like grace. Because knowing you’re captive is a moment of opportunity. Only then can you seek freedom. Ezra reads the torah—God's way—to the people. Then as grown men and women are standing there weeping, what does he say? 

“Good. At least you know how rotten you are?"”

No. Ezra also calls the people back to the present. He tells them twice: “This day—this day—is holy to the Lord your God.” Like Jesus centuries later, Ezra calls the people into the present.

Then Ezra tells the people to rejoice. He suggests that they have a feast.

To the captive, the poor, the sightless—to the lost of the world good news is spoken. In Christ we are set free from trying to save ourselves. 

Some fear the judgment of God.

Some fear God's forgiving grace.

The word of God comes to us as we are, but does not leave us that way. It informs our choices. It transforms our lives. 

Listen for the Word of God. It comes both as judgment and as grace. 

You listen for the Word of God when your spirit is open to the Spirit of God.

The words in the Bible are just that—simply words. Many of them are the same words we speak every day. Until the Spirit breathes life into those words as we listen, the Bible itself is dead. The Bible isn't a guidebook filled with directions. It isn’t some holy “To Do” list. It is only a map in the delightful way that maps are described in the book PrairyEarth: “Maps are a way of organizing wonder.”

Out of all the wonder that we discover in the Bible—including that most wondrous story of the human and the divine meeting in Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen from death—out of all the wonder a map of sorts appears.

Don't look for it in the past.

Listen for it today.

Let the Spirit of God speak to you. For it is the Spirit—not those words—that gives life. That requires something of each one of us, doesn’t it? Not just a passive hearing, but active listening. 

Again, this is where the problems start to arise. As the people listen further to Jesus, as they take in what the hometown boy is saying, they become “filled with wrath”—a great biblical phrase that means they were really angry—angry enough to kill. The people who speak well of Jesus want to throw him off a cliff—dash his body on the rocks below—as soon as he says something they don't like.

All of us can speak so well of Jesus.

 At the same time—admit it—we’d just as soon throw him over the cliff when our values and our lifestyles are threatened by his words and his actions:

When Jesus suggests that the quest for more and more things might be keeping us from loving God and neighbor—THROW HIM OFF A CLIFF!

When Jesus suggests that our labeling people “good” and “bad,” “acceptable” or “unacceptable” might be contrary to God’s way of seeing—THROW HIM OFF A CLIFF!

When Jesus suggests that we confront evil in the world rather than look the other way or passively accept it—THROW HIM OFF A CLIFF!

“Crucify him.” That's where this story is going. And all of us—those who preach, those who listen, those who would speak well of Jesus—we are all ready to join in as soon as we hear something we don't like.

I love the ending to that story in Luke.

The angry crowd rises up. We take Jesus out of the city and lead him to the brow of the hill in order to throw him down headlong.

What happens next is one of those strange incidents that keep people from opening their Bibles.

What happens next is a mystery, and one that points to the ways of God in our world and our lives: Jesus walks straight through the crowd and goes on his way.

How did that happen? I have no idea. That it happened seems perfectly in line with who the living Christ is and how he works among those of us who are foolish enough to want to follow him.

The way of Jesus Christ is his own way—and all the hatred, anger, and violence of the world will not stop him from going on that way. Even death will not stop him for his life is a witness to a love that is stronger than death.

The choice to follow on that way or not is ours. Christ will continue on the way of life giving love whether or not we choose to be a part of that way.

But here and there, now and then, we will find the grace to follow—individually, as a congregation. But here and there, now and then, we will find Christ working among us, giving us strength where we are weak, courage where we are cowardly, helping us to love when hating would be so much easier and would feel so good.

The living Christ goes on his own way. May we—all of us who would rather toss him off a cliff—be so transformed by the love of God that we too might follow on his way of love.