The violent shouts of “Kill him! Kill him!” could be heard throughout the small town.
A woman seeking to protect her children rushed to the window of her home to get a glimpse of just what was going on.
A large mob of men were pushing a man towards the village hillside. The violent shouts now had faces. This mob wasn’t pushing this man to bully him, but to end his life.
In between all the commotion, she was able to get a brief glimpse of the man experiencing the violence. “Is that Joseph’s son?!” she thought. Nazareth being such a small community, everyone knew everyone.
The woman’s next thought immediately shifted: What possibly could he have done to warrant this? Was it something he said?
With the shouts only getting louder, and the cliffs drawing ever closer, was she moments away from watching these men throw Joseph’s son down to his death?
The Synagogue Reading
Whenever I read Luke’s account of Jesus (Joseph’s son) in Luke 4:16-44, this is how I imagine the story unfolding. While I’ve read this scene many times throughout the years, my latest reading had me seeing something I hadn’t connected before. Something that is pertinent for us, as American Christians, this advent.
Our story begins on the Sabbath, which was a very important day of rest for the Israelites; a day to cease from work and to reflect, remember, enjoy and worship God. It was on this day, as was customary, that in the middle of the town there was a synagogue. While the synagogue served many functions, one of them was to hear the Scriptures read aloud and taught.
In Luke 4:17, Jesus has returned to the synagogue of his hometown, and is handed a scroll with text from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. While standing, he begins to read:
“The Spirit of Creator has come to rest on me. He has chosen me to tell the Good Story to the ones who are poor. He has sent me to mend broken hearts, to tell prisoners they have been set free, to make the blind see again, and to lift up the ones who have been pushed down– to make it known that Creator’s Year of Setting Free has come at last.” (First Nations Version)
After Jesus read this, he hands the scroll back, sits down and then says something that leaves everyone gasping: “Today these words you have heard have found their full meaning.” In other words, Jesus is making the bold claim that he is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies about a coming king.
Upon hearing this, the room is filled with skepticism. People start questioning who Jesus is based off his family. Nazareth is a small town, everyone knows everyone. People are thinking, “How in the world could this guy be teaching us when he comes from an uneducated family?!”
Jesus then opens his mouth again, and this is where the tide turns.
A King For All People
In Luke 4:25 Jesus says, “I speak from the heart…” and goes on to recount two historical stories. The first is found in the book of 1 Kings 17, where there was a time of great famine. The prophet alive at that time was Elijah, and while it was a time of great hunger, Elijah was sent by God, not to Israelite widows, but to a Gentile (someone who is not Jewish) widow.
Culturally for many Israelites, Gentiles were the “other.” An Israelite didn’t go near a Gentile, speak with a Gentile, or even dare to share a meal with one. This is much like the visible regulations of the Civil Rights Era where signs of “Whites Only” and “Blacks Only” hung over water fountains and restrooms to direct who went where.
While it might be hard to find these same signs hanging today, it’s clear that some of the racist ideologies that drove this creation still exist in 2019.
We all have people that we’ve put in the “other” category. The people that whether we are aware of or not, we have built up false stereotypes and walls against. Who are the people in your “other” category? Are they people of a different color? Are they people of a different sexual orientation than you? Are they people who ascribe to a certain political party? Maybe they are people who immigrated to this country.
Regardless of who it is, Jesus is reminding the Israelites that God sent aid to those they had deemed and treated as the “other.”
Immediately teeth start grinding with fists clenched. “Who is this guy to come in here and to say this!?!” is the air in the room.
However, unphased, Jesus proceeds with the second story.
Similar to the first story, Jesus reminds his hometown of the time when, though there were many Israelites suffering from leprosy (an often fatal skin disease), God once again sends the prophet of that time (Elisha) to, not an Israelite, but a Gentile. And not just any Gentile, but someone who happens to be the head soldier of one of Israel’s enemies.
Jesus is highlighting a part of Israel’s past that they would rather forget and skip over. Think about it: Who is this God who sends healing to “the other”? And not just anyone, but the leader of the very armies that enslaved and killed their people? What kind of God is that?
America is no different in its own desire to forget and skip over certain parts of its history that doesn’t serve its purposes. For example, the colonizing and genocide of the Indigenous peoples who were on this land before Colombus “discovered” it. Another example is the language in the founding document of this country that made Indigenous peoples, blacks, immigrants, and women, “less than” and the “other.” Dehumanizing ideologies and systems that were part of the foundation of this nation are still negatively impacting us today.
Jesus doesn’t unearth the past without purpose though, he is trying to show his hometown (and us today) that he created, cares for, and will ultimately die as the King of all peoples. Jesus isn’t just talk either, because much of his ministry reveals to us that the Kingdom of God is one in which there is no “other.” Only family.
Fighting to Keep the Status Quo
What should have us asking more questions about this passage is not how Jesus supernaturally evades being killed by slipping through the crowd (Luke 4:30), but why his own people moved to kill him in the first place.
In my opinion, it’s because Jesus disrupted their status quo. Jesus challenged how they knew and understood God to be, and in the process revealed their worship of the false god of nationalism.
Somewhere the signals got crossed for the Israelites and the good work of loving one’s neighbor described in Isaiah (i.e., caring for the poor, mending broken hearts, setting prisoners free, and lifting up those who have been pushed down) became something exclusively towards “people like us,” instead of towards all people.
I believe Jesus has been gracefully disrupting a lot of false gods of nationalism, racism, comfort, greed, and power over these last few years for Christians in America (myself included). Just like these men in the synagogue, we have a choice on how we will respond. Will we resist? Will we press in? Will we keep fighting to maintain the status quo, or will we humble ourselves and consider a new way forward?
Each of us needs Jesus to disrupt our realities, not just once, but again and again. This is God’s kindness towards us, because no one has arrived with the full or complete knowledge of who God is, and none us walks with God perfectly.
Only by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection can we be eternally accepted and loved as we stumble forward in this work. It’s only by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, that we can engage the grumbling in our hearts, and uproot our own status quo of comfort. It’s only by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that we can continue with grace and truth to be bold enough to call out the unjust systems around us that benefit a group of people, while pushing down another.
With Jesus, we can.
Jesus comes to disrupt our false gods of nationalism, racism, comfort, greed, and power. How will we respond? Will we keep fighting to maintain the status quo, or will we humble ourselves and consider a new way forward? Click To Tweet
