Sermon for Fourth Sunday after Epiphany – Luke 4:21-30

Have you heard of “cancel culture”? Where someone famous says or does something offensive and folks campaign to get them dropped from TV or the internet. It’s pretty controversial. Some folks argue that this is like a mob mentality or an attack on free speech. Others argue that it’s a way to hold powerful people accountable. Now, I know free speech is crucial, but when folks spread misinformation, I confess I don’t mind it when their Facebook and Twitter accounts get suspended. Though it can be tiring to hear story after story of celebrities being canceled, especially when it’s folks I don’t know. Here’s a funny story. This week, the musician Neil Young just demanded that the online music streaming service Spotify remove all his music, to protest that they promote Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he tries to turn folks against vaccines. So millennials are like, “who’s Neil Young?” And some older folks are like, “what’s Spotify?”

Here’s a not-so-funny story. We all know who Dr. Tony Fauci is – our pandemic expert. A lot of folks want to cancel him, because they’re so offended that anyone would dare to ask them to wear a mask or get vaccinated. Which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but folks have been killed in arguments over masking. The same things Dr. Fauci asks for. Not just in the US, but even around the world. So Dr. Fauci needs bodyguards everywhere he goes because he keeps getting death threats.

So, it’s not really farfetched that folks try to kill Jesus in our gospel reading. Jesus is back home in Nazareth, preaching in the synagogue he grew up in. Last week we heard him preach from Isaiah, but we’ve slept a few times, so here’s the gist:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
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.”

That’s good stuff, right? The audience “speaks well” of Jesus. They’re “amazed at his gracious words.” And they’ve heard stories about Jesus working miracles in Capernaum. So Jesus knows these folks expect equal treatment. But he doesn’t do it. Instead, he says, “You know what? There were many widows in Israel, years of drought, famine, folks were starving. But God sent Elijah to a gentile widow in Zarephath instead. And then there were many lepers in Israel, but Elisha didn’t heal any of them. He healed Naaman the Syrian.” In other words, you get nothing. Immediately, they all lose their minds! They’re so enraged that they drive Jesus to a cliff in order to throw him over and kill him. To cancel Jesus forever. But he escapes, so I guess there was a miracle after all.

So, why all the rage? Well, Jesus has been working in Capernaum, which is nicknamed “Galilee of the Nations.” Gentiles live there. But Nazareth is about as Jewish as it gets, so maybe they think Jesus is like a traitor to his own people. Squandering his power on a bunch of dirty Gentiles. Jesus knows what they’re thinking. “Do here in your hometown what we heard you did at Capernaum.” It’s a dog whistle. So Jesus turns up the heat. He reminds them of Elijah and Elisha.

Now, let’s remember Elijah. King Ahab of Israel marries Jezebel of Sidon, where they worship Baal the god of rain. She pushes Israel to worship Baal too, and of course that pisses off God. So God sends Elijah to prophesy drought (get it?), then sends him to rescue a widow in Zarephath. But Zarephath is in Sidon, where Jezebel’s from. In other words, God lets Israel starve while sending Elijah to feed a pagan widow in the heart of Baal country. Not cool. But these folks conveniently forget that if God hadn’t sent Elijah away, Jezebel would have found him and killed him, and Jezebel would never think to look for him back home.

Then there’s Elisha. He heals Naaman the Syrian. And here’s the thing. Syria constantly attacks Israel. Sieging cities. Taking folks prisoner. And Naaman isn’t just any Syrian. He’s their commander. The brains behind these attacks. Israel’s archenemy. But here’s the thing. Syria sends Naaman with a letter begging for healing, and gifts of gold and fine clothes. The king of Israel laments and tears his shirt because Syria’s asking for a miracle. He’s convinced this is a trick, an excuse to start a war. So Elisha messages the king, “Calm down. Send Naaman to me.” And Elisha heals him.

So, Elijah and Elisha didn’t arbitrarily choose to deprive God’s people. They acted out of necessity. There was no other way. But when our sense of entitlement is as big as Nazareth’s, you can’t hear that. All you can hear is betrayal. That’s why Jesus doesn’t bother to remind them about Elijah’s and Elisha’s hands being forced. Nazareth already stopped listening. And notice, they’re too proud to beg or plead, or play on Jesus’ loyalty to his hometown. They don’t repent either, and that’s the whole point of Elijah’s and Elisha’s stories. All they want now is restitution in Jesus’ blood.

What about us? How does our entitlement come out? When faith doesn’t seem to deliver on its promise but God’s supposed to be “good” all the time. When folks hate our supposedly “good” deeds even though we meant well. We may not be on the edge of rage, though we’re really good at bottling up resentment, and everyone has a “last straw”. But we’re also not as proud as Nazareth. So maybe we praise God as a bribe to win God’s affection. Advertise our good deeds like a bargaining chip. Quote doctrine like it obligates God. Because maybe deep-down we feel like God makes empty promises. But without our trust, God has nothing left to offer us, and Jesus leaves the room.

But the good news is that we know where Jesus goes. He goes to Jerusalem. Where his own people shout to crucify him. And the authorities succeed where Nazareth failed. They nail him to a cross to die. But after three days, Jesus rises in the glory of his resurrection. This should remind us of Elijah’s miracles with the Zarephath widow, or Elisha healing Naaman. God wasn’t doing something for the chosen few, but for the sake of Capernaum, and Nazareth, and the whole world in eternity. So thank God that God owes us nothing, because Jesus gives us everything, even his own life. But death couldn’t stop him from giving his undeserved and unconditional word of forgiveness to the whole world, and especially to a bunch of entitled sinners like us.

If only Elijah and Elisha could have reminded Nazareth of God’s faithfulness. God sends Elijah back to Israel with rain. To feed the crops of starving people and to draw repentance out of them. Who could expect someone like Naaman to come to faith in the God of Israel, thanks to Elisha. Jesus knew Nazareth would hate him, yet he gave his own body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. And so he feeds us, that we would know the taste of forgiveness in a world that forgets how to forgive. The kind of generosity that frees us from the bondage of entitlement and self-righteousness. Because that stuff will kill us. And we give thanks for this undeserved grace, because it proves that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

So Jesus reads the Isaiah scroll into our ears. We hear Jesus proclaim release for the captives, when our community defies entitlement and bias. We hear Jesus proclaim sight to the blind, when we witness kindness from folks in spite of our arguments. We hear Jesus proclaim good news for the poor, when we stop feeling like we’ve got to compete with each other, because God gives us abundance to share. We hear Jesus proclaim freedom for the oppressed, when we hang everything on a change that’s going to come, even if it seems impossible. Jesus says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing,” and no one can cancel that.