(406) 777-5443 steviumc@gmail.com
God’s Voice Shapes Us
February 2, 2025

God’s Voice Shapes Us

Preacher:
Series:
Passage: Luke 4:21-30

When the words we’re used to hearing and the things we think we’ve already figured out make us angry, they prevent us from hearing. How do we know when our own reaction is getting in the way of hearing and being shaped by god.

Preaching with Headphones on

One time I was going to church. We came in and, after a bit, music started blaring out of the sound system. The pastor was up front with headphones on … faced away from everyone. Between the music and the headphones, even if we had yelled, he would have never heard us. 

After a while, took the headphones off and the sound stopped.

It’s hard to hear when what you’re listening is so loud nothing else can break into your world. If I was preaching to a different crowd, that’d be a really tempting way to make the basic point.

Because, at the center, this passage is about being hard of hearing. Not because loud noise damaged your hearing, or because that’s what sometimes happens over time, or because of an accident. Sometimes not hearing has nothing to do with your ears themselves. 

Messiahs, Messiahs, We Know Messiahs

Last week, I talked about the town that used to be four miles away that was leveled by the Romans in their war against a Messiah. Again and again, Israel had been occupied. And their founding stories were all around freeing the Hebrews from the Egyptians. Israel had a history with Messianic figures. Jewish religion celebrated ones who led armies against occupiers and sought to protect Jewish culture and religion.

It wasn’t about the individual or the town or the community. It was about delivering the nation as a whole. Were they expecting Jesus to go on and lift them up with a message about hope … of Israel freed from the Herod and the Romans? 

Perform for us

There was enough history here, were they also a bit cynical about hope. There’s a sense here where they’re looking for someone to perform for them. Do here… what you did in Capernum. Perform for us Jesus. Do your magic tricks. Wave a magic wand and amaze us, too. He’s becoming famous and we’ll be able see, you know, I knew him way back. Even then he was amazing! And boy did he smile when the ball… swoosh. Perform for us Jesus. This may not end well for you but we will remember your name. 

It doesn’t have much to do with listening.

Not about our hometown, our homeland

Jesus says a prophet is not welcome in their hometown or homeland –the word could mean either– so he reminds them of two stories. 

Elijah and Golliath’s people

In one, there’s a massive drought in the land. Elijah the prophet didn’t go to people in his hometown or even their homeland. He went across the border to a Philistine city. You may remember them for their larger than life leader Goliath and the wars they fought Israelites. In spite of that history and the need at home, Elijah went to one of their widows and helped her.

Elisah heals a foreign general

Then Jesus tells another story they would have known, about Elijah’s successor, Elisha. There were people ravaged by skin diseases. Instead of healing them, he healed a Syrian general, a general who didn’t believe in Israel’s god, a general who looked down on Elisha and his people. 

Elijah and Elisha. When Jesus said love your enemies, he may have been thinking of stories of prophets healing foreigners. And if you were listening and asking what does this story mean for me, it isn’t a long jump from the Philistines and Syria –old national enemies– to Rome, their current national enemy. If there’s a message here, they don’t want to hear it.

Heal Thy Self

One of the stranger parts of this passage is how Jesus seems to know what they’re thinking: You’re going to say. It was almost as if Jesus, as he was growing up, had actually been listening to all the adults. We make this assumption kids don’t actually pay attention to what the adults are saying. I still remember some of the things my Dad said. I have a sense of what my Mom is about to say.

I imagine someone thinking Instead of sharpening swords and waiting for a Messiah to lead us, you’re suggesting we do what? No wonder he thought some of them we’re going to tell him physician heal yourself. Did someone think he was crazy for preaching about love and healing our enemies? Did someone say, who is he, a carpenters son, a man without a degree or ordination papers or an appointment from a bishop, to say we’ve been reading scripture wrong? 

Anger

The end of the story is striking. They haul him to the edge of a cliff to through him over the edge. How angry do you have to be to attempt to kill someone? Jewish law said there had to be a trial. Roman law said they didn’t have the authority to carry out a capital crime. How angry do you have to be? Had anger overwhelmed them? Did they have the mental space to consider the stories Jesus was telling? Could they hear the message he was saying? Did some of them get angry to avoid hearing what Jesus was saying?

Message

Israel was a country. It was also a people. It was also a faith. They’ve become used to thinking of Gd’s words of deliverance being about deliverance of Israel in all those sense from their enemies. And here’s Jesus reading from one of their most famous prophets: bring good news to the poor … release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to declare the Jubilee

It’s a message that is not about what god is going to do for our nation but about what gd is going to do through us. In the year of the Jubilee, god did not raise up an army to restore the nation. In the year the jubilee, people freed other people from the money they owed and from the slavery that held them.

The poor, the indebted, the outsiders, the sick… even when you have every reason to hate them… even when they’re not part of your hometown or homeland or your people, even if they’re a general in your enemy’s army.

Preaching a home for all is a dangerous, radical things to do. It may be even harder to hear the call to love your enemies, to be the one who hears the call of Jubilee that can send you beyond your limits to places and people who are nothing like you.

Last Night

Last night, I listened to the Canadian Prime Minister speak. Members of the Canadian press were already talking about trade war being part of a strategy of conquest. I was surprised by what Canada’s leader said. He began by celebrating all the ways Canadians and Americans had been there for each other including how Canada had just sent firefighters to help in Los Angeles. 

In all the noise and clamor, there are many things he could have chosen to hear and amplify. When he could have talked about the US as Canada’s enemy, there was a hint of Jubilee in his words.

But, I want to be clear. This is not a sermon about those who lead countries. The call to Jubilee is not to them but to us. How will we love our enemies? What enemy general will we heal? What foreign widow will we come alongside in her poverty? The poor, the indebted, the outsiders, the sick… people who we are given every reason to hate… 

If everything we are hearing is making us angry, furious, maybe furious enough to haul Jesus out of town and throw him off a cliff, can we stop ourselves long enough to breath… and ask what don’t I want to hear? Is god speaking in this moment? What can I hear that, right here, right now, today in this year of Jubilee.

Even when you think you’ve already got god, the bible and your theology figured out, there are times you’re not going to have it right. There are times you think saving the world involves taking up a sword. And, sometimes, Jesus heals the ear we cut off, then turns to us and gently says, put it down. We have work to do. Listen and go.

02/02/2025 Digital Bulletin