Dear Jesus,
There is none like you. None. After 40 days of sorting out your identity in wild and stony isolation of Judea’s outback – a day for each year the obstinate and faithless wanderers who were a plague to Moses grappled with their own identity – After 40 days your robes smelling like sweat and incense, the smell of wrestling with the accuser and the perfume of prayer – After 40 days of enduring the opening arguments of Heaven’s great prosecutor, you were revived as one can be only from completing an ordeal of spiritual magnitude. Filled with the power of the Spirit, you returned to your childhood home.
Good advice suggests returning to our childhood homes leads to disappointment. But you returned not for nostalgia’s sake, it was here the accuser was waiting and you needed to remind him and us again that your food was the word of God and not stones become bread. You needed to remind us that turning rocks to snack-food or base-jumping from the bell tower of St. Peters Cathedral or even by being martyred at the base of a stony cliff is no sure sign of God’s favor.
Perhaps some attending synagogue that Sabbath in Nazareth were wondering what was on tap – what the post-Cana brew might be. Others came to see a hometown boy made good – not many from the north with their drawl and suspicious genealogies were held in high regard by Jerusalem theologians. Still others, perhaps more serious-minded were wanting to hear what fresh take on old themes from well worn scrolls you might deliver – your growing reputation had gone before you. They were not much different from us really – spectators, consumers, learners.
And you preached in good Billy Graham fashion – good Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and Jeremiah fashion.
Preach Good News to the Poor, you said.
And the congregation said, Amen – that’s us.
Proclaim release to the Captives, you said.
And the congregation shouted Hallelujah – that’s us too!
Recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, you said.
And the congregation nearly broke into song – that’s us, that’s us, always under the thumb of Rome or some theological uppity-up from Jerusalem. Preach on! Preach on!
Jubilee you said. And they began to dance in the isles.
Today, you said, this scripture has been and is being fulfilled in your hearing.
And, old men and young could no longer contain themselves and the women standing behind the screens in the back of the synagogue began to laugh out loud like Sarah behind the tent flap.
And then you sat down. And everyone hushed in quiet expectation. And you said, no wine today, no healing paralytics, no raising the dead – there isn’t much faith here and this isn’t about you anyway. The prophet wasn’t writing about Nazareth. This isn’t even about the Jews.
Its about your enemies – its about the ones you despise – its about the gentiles – its about the Others, whomever the others may be. If you want to know the Truth, its about everyone. Though you think yourselves the poor the captive the blind the oppressed – you are not. You have Isaiah. You have the good news. Its about them. When all is said and done. Its about them. Its always about them.
We, like they, are good consumers. If their vision could only see you in the context of their own village, Joseph’s son, we are no better; they had heard rumors of your doings twenty miles away in Capernaum, but what really mattered was that you do a miracle or maybe two in Nazareth. Surely you must have been tempted to do a little conjuring trick.
How eternally thankful we are that you did not. How eternally thankful we are that you looked into Satan’s face mirrored in those good people and said, no stones to bread today, no water into wine. You, our holy food and drink said, no tricks today. Still, we confess that we, like they, have heard what you have done for others, and we would like just a small miracle or maybe two as well.
You have come with good news, but it is not for us alone, indeed it is for all humanity – even those we do not like, even for those we secretly despise. Perhaps especially for them.
Breath of Heaven, breathe on us as we commit ourselves, abandon ourselves to follow after you satisfied with a resurrection we did not witness that breathed life into our spirits and raised us with you from the dead. Take us to the wilderness to confront the accuser if that is what it takes – but do not leave us alone. Breathe on those in this very room who proclaim good news to the poor, who tear down prison walls, who are healers of the body, the mind and the spirit, who champion the cause of the oppressed, and take the yoke of the laborer on themselves. Who do their daily work in your name. Give them your miracles.
Give us, as a congregation, the will to resist our bent to consume and replace it with the will to give at the risk of reputation or even life itself. May we, in prayer and encouragement and financial means support those who go out to serve the widows of Sidon and the Lepers of Syria. Save us from the narrow-mindedness of Nazareth. The belief that it is all about us. Because, by your grace, we have come to understand a universe where we are both the center and circumference is far too small.
In your name, dear Jesus, prophet, preacher, deliverer, Savior of all the world and not just a few, we pray.
Amen.
— Written by Dr. Richard White