Epistle - One Corinthians 13:1-13
Gospel - Luke 4:21-30
Grace and Peace to you from God our Creator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, Amen
Other than a select few of you, I would suppose that most of you have moved away from where you grew up. Even if you moved away and came back, at one point or another, I’m thinking that most of you have the experience of moving away. Most of us have a sense of what it feels like to leave what you knew so well, and uproot yourself or your family to a new place. A new locale. A new school, a new job. Some of you might have gone away to college, or the service. Something called you away from home.
Home. It’s where the heart is; it’s where the heart wants to be. I considered, and still probably do consider Donnelly my hometown. So far, it’s where I’ve lived the longest. And yet, I’ve called many other places home. Each of us have a place we call home. Maybe it’s your home right now. Maybe it’s this church. We feel grounded in the place we call home. It’s truly where our heart is.
Jesus returns home in last week’s Gospel, and today’s Gospel is the second half to that story. Jesus returns home and it’s almost like he never left. The people still think he’s the carpenter’s boy. They’ve heard of his miracles in Capernaum, but don’t witness any while he’s there. They’re amazed at his reading of Isaiah, and wary of what he does with it. He points out that there are people that we forget about, and it’s not the people in his hometown. It’s not everybody else. There are people in his world; the blind, oppressed, poor and lame… that the people forget about.
Maybe they’re not held to the same standard as everyone else. Maybe these people are hurting, and are not taken care of. Maybe people blame them for their lot in life. It’s their own fault they’re poor, oppressed, blind and lame. Jesus points out that these forgotten people, are in need of salvation as well. They are in need of his ministry as well. They are in need of God’s love as well.
God’s love. Most of you have probably heard today’s second lesson. It is the quintessential wedding text. Why not? It’s about love, after all. It’s also a continuation from last week’s texts. Last week, Pastor Jim pointed out that we are all part of the Body of Christ. All of us use the gifts that God has given us. All of us are brought together by Christ, and the greatest gift that God gives us: God’s love. It is God’s love that breaks the bonds of division. It is God’s love that brings us together. Where there is neither Jew nor Greek, but we are all people of God. Through the waters of baptism, we are called and named children of God. It’s love. Love that is poured out for us.
This is true in our own world today. Entire populations of people are discriminated against because of their skin color. Because of who they love. Because of the money they make. Because of their gender expression or identity. In the name of whatever power they wish to hold over people; the Bible, the Constitution, the Country… People are discriminated against, and Jesus is there now, just he was then, telling us that all are deserving of God’s love. All are welcome at God’s table.
Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians that Love - Love is the greatest gift that is given to us by God. Whatever we think we might know about people. Whatever we might think we know about what is going on in people’s lives, that makes them unworthy of whatever we want to withhold from them. Whatever we think we might know about what someone wrote about in the Constitution or the Bible or wherever… It is love that conquers all. Love that goes beyond knowledge. Love that goes beyond supposition, discrimination, prejudice, and hate. In the words of Paul, “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. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.”
(1 Corinthians 13:4-10 NRSV)
Love. Not hate. It was hate that drove Jesus out of his own hometown that day. It was hate that drove Jesus to the cross another day. Hate for the good news. Hate for the idea that everyone is special in God’s eye. The idea that everyone is loved, by the same God that loved God’s son. It’s that old verse from John that everyone seems to memorize. For God so loved the world… not just Nazareth. Not just Jerusalem. Not just Israel. Not just the West. Not just the United States… the world.
Why is this idea of a God that loves all… so offensive, so wrong, so despising… that people were willing to throw Jesus off a cliff? What is it about mentioning the forgotten ones, even saying that a select group of people, ‘those people’... aren’t worth mentioning, or worth focusing on…
This idea that God loves even the people who weren’t like everyone else that Jesus was speaking to… Jesus cures the sick, feeds the hungry, heals the injured, provides ministry to the Gentiles, prostitutes and tax collectors… shows the people that even the ones they’d rather not worry about… are deserving of his grace. God’s grace. God’s love. The unwinnable, unattainable, unwavering grace that God bestowed to all, through the death and resurrection of God’s son, Jesus the Christ. The death and resurrection of the Messiah that saves us all. From ourselves. Our sin. Our hatred. Our blindness. Our selfishness. Our complacency.
God’s love was poured out for us on the cross, and God is the one calling us to spread the message of God’s love to the world.
I was asked this week… So what? What can we do about it? What can we do about the realities that are happening in our world right now? In our own community? We’re a small community in rural Minnesota. Things are the way they are, because it’s the way it’s been. I’m going to explore this question with you more next week, as we look toward the Transfiguration of Christ and the transition into Lent, but let me leave you with this…
At some point, most of us will leave the home we know, and travel to a new reality. Most of our ancestors, probably came from the same general part of the world. Whatever land they came from, they probably didn’t go back. They probably left home… and looked toward a new life for themselves, on the shores of this great country. Not knowing what they’d see when they got there, they boarded the boats, and traveled across the treacherous seas with many other people. Many other people, who likely didn’t all speak the same language. All together in the same boat, these people of different backgrounds, headed to different destinations. Our Scandinavian ancestors all pretty much settled in the same general area of the United States. They settled in the same place, because they grouped together with similar languages, similar customs, similar religion.
They formed communities. Named them after their homeland. (Amor for instance, supposedly comes from the town in Sweden, Mora - but there was already a town in Minnesota named Mora, so they switched the A around and Mora became Amor…) They named their churches after their hometown or their region. These churches became the center of communities, just as they were in their homeland. They spoke the language of their homeland in church. They spoke the language of their homeland at home.
Our ancestors made a home for themselves that was very much like their home that they came from. Over the years, their native tongues were outlawed in public spaces, including churches, so churches soon offered services in English. Schools taught English. Homes gradually became English speaking, and the world around them, could speak the same language in church. The world around them, spoke English.
We know this history, because this is our history. Our way of life. Our way of life passed down from generation to generation. This is our heritage.
Now, understand, that this is not the heritage of everyone else. This is not necessarily the heritage of everyone in here. This is definitely not the heritage of everyone in this state. Jesus is telling the people of his hometown, that there are people in his world that don’t have the same experience as everyone gathered. There are people who don’t experience life as they do. Jesus tells them that they are equally deserving of love, as everyone there is. Equally deserving of his ministry. Because the prophets of old did it. Because Jesus himself did it. Because we must do it. Minnesota has a long history of neighbor welcoming neighbor. No matter their background. No matter their heritage. No matter their current reality. Love one another. As God loves you.
Amen
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