READINGS

Luke 4:21-30 - Rejection at Nazareth Deuteronomy 31:19,21 - Joshua Takes Moses’s Place Ezekiel 12:21-25 - A Deceptive Proverb Stopped

TEXTS

Luke 4:21-30

Rejection at Nazareth

21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”

22 They were all speaking well of him[n] and were amazed by the gracious words that came from his mouth; yet they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

23 Then he said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb[o] to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. What we’ve heard that took place in Capernaum, do here in your hometown also.’”

24 He also said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

25 But I say to you, there were certainly many widows in Israel in Elijah’s days, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months while a great famine came over all the land.

26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them except a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

27 And in the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many in Israel who had leprosy,[p] and yet not one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

28 When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was enraged.

29 They got up, drove him out of town, and brought him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to hurl him over the cliff. 30 But he passed right through the crowd and went on his way.

Deuteronomy 31:19,21

Joshua Takes Moses’s Place

19 Therefore write down this song for yourselves and teach it to the Israelites; have them sing it, so that this song may be a witness for me against the Israelites.

20 When I bring them into the land I swore to give their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey, they will eat their fill and prosper. They will turn to other gods and worship them, despising me and breaking my covenant.

21 And when many troubles and afflictions come to them, this song will testify against them, because their descendants will not have forgotten it. For I know what they are prone to do, even before I bring them into the land I swore to give them.”

22 So Moses wrote down this song on that day and taught it to the Israelites.

23 The Lord commissioned Joshua son of Nun, “Be strong and courageous, for you will bring the Israelites into the land I swore to them, and I will be with you.”

Ezekiel 12:21-25

A Deceptive Proverb Stopped

21 Again the word of the Lord came to me:

22 “Son of man, what is this proverb you people have about the land of Israel, which goes, ‘The days keep passing by, and every vision fails’?

23 Therefore say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says: I will put a stop to this proverb, and they will not use it again in Israel.’ But say to them, ‘The days have arrived, as well as the fulfillment of every vision.

24 For there will no longer be any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel.

25 But I, the Lord, will speak whatever message I will speak, and it will be done. It will no longer be delayed. For in your days, rebellious house, I will speak a message and bring it to pass. This is the declaration of the Lord God.’”

HOMILY

Rejection at Nazareth

21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”

The jubilee is being fulfilled, the one the promised, the coming in of the Melchizedek priestly figure who is going to fulfill the the tenth jubilee in the first week of that jubilee.

He was making a very serious claim of the sort that either had to be taken seriously or not, but it was not a matter of indifference and it's not maybe he just had a reading and said: well you know I think that I'll bring out a few bits of fulfillment here - no, He's saying something much much stronger than that.

22 They were ALL SPEAKING WELL OF HIM and WERE AMAZED by the gracious words that came from his mouth; yet they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

Immediately at the beginning of our Gospel today, we come across two of the most problematic words in terms of translation in Luke's Gospel, because the two words which are translated in our text as "ALL SPOKE WELL OF HIM" and "WERE AMAZED" unfortunately give entirely the wrong impression.

They give the impression that, first of all, they listened to him and thought "oh this is wonderful" and then, for no reason at all, turn to saying "it's not this Joseph's son?"

I suspect you will find that, as always with Luke, you don't look at the word itself, but you look at what's going on with it in the Septuagint.

The Greek word [...] means to bear witness and is normally used in the Septuagint of a witness to a murder or to a crime having been done which enables people to be killed. That is to say: you are not allowed to kill somebody on the witness of only one person. It has to be two or more people (and preferably everybody together) in order for a person to be justly killed. The witness of everybody allows a lynching to happen.

Remember this story happens at the beginning of an attempted lynching.

However, there's a key place where this appears in the Hebrew scriptures, in the book of Deuteronomy, which I think is even more important, because it's where the Lord, just before Moses' death is going to give to him the song which he's to leave for the people of Israel.

The Lord says to him:

Deuteronomy 31:21 And when many troubles and afflictions come to them, this song will testify against them, because their descendants will not have forgotten it. For I know what they are prone to do, even before I bring them into the land I swore to give them.

So the notion that something positive is given to people and yet they bear witness against it is part of the biblical understanding of the word.

So the question is: what were they doing?

Were they demonstrating with him?

Were they refusing the message of favor which he had just given? He'd given the jubilee text and He had excluded the the promise of vengeance.

If you all know the text and you know that someone has excluded the word of vengeance, you're suggesting that they're mucking with the word of god.

So witnessing against them is like saying: Oy, altering the text ... there's something fraudulent about what you're doing there.

In fact, we get something similar in Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 12:24 For there will no longer be any false vision or flattering divination within the house of Israel.

Even a divination of favor: they're suggesting that He's engaging in flattering divination, so there's something seriously wrong with that, because He's left out the bit of the ending.

Their reaction is to treat as bad theology or offense against the sacred word, something which is in fact the lord's fulfillment of the word.

The word AMAZED can be a positive thing or it can also be a more shocking thing, but the most basic use in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures is taking acception of persons.

It says THOU SHALT NOT BE AMAZED in the face of a person.

It doesn't mean you should go "whoa", but it means you should not look at the state of a person's face before deciding what they say is true or not.

You should not judge the rich differently from the poor or the poor differently from the rich.

They understood that he was speaking only the favorable words and didn't judge it on its merits, but on what sort of person he was. This is why they "is not this Joseph's son?"

Well this makes much more sense, because if they're making acception of persons the way you make exceptional persons is to say "oh this is Joseph's son", he doesn't really understand what he's talking about, he's not important enough to be saying these sorts of things.

And it's in those terms that Jesus now speaks to them.

Now let's have a look at the question of the gracious words that came from His mouth (because it's the words of favor). Remember that the words of favor exclude the words of vengeance, and this is something which is going to be absolutely key in Luke's Gospel: time and time again people want vengeance, because they assume it's for other people.

In Mark's Gospel, when Jesus gives his initial preaching, Mark describes Jesus saying: repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. But here Jesus is saying: the Kingdom of Heaven has come amongst you and He's not urging them to repent.

So the violence is purely on the part of people who don't accept the word of favor.

The word is purely positive, but a purely positive word amongst a jealous and violent people produces a violent reaction.

The violent reaction is not a divine punishment, but it's human violence and that's what we're going to see and acted out in this thing.

It's a brilliant part of Luke's Gospel, which is that the thing that is not present throughout is vengeance.

23 Then he said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. What we’ve heard that took place in Capernaum, do here in your hometown also.’”

Here we have a little hint of the passion, because on Jesus's Cross people will say to him: come and save yourself.

He's going to say here: what you want is for me to sort things out for you and you.

And people will say: do here also in your hometown the things that we've heard you did at Capernaum. The fascination is all on whether the local boy is going to do good here.

24 He also said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

In other words: you are not available to the good news that is coming upon you.

He's making a perfectly straightforward point here: it's not a punishment to them, but it's quite simply an anthropological fact. The people least likely to understand someone are the people who are familiar with them.

As Napoleon said: "No man is great to his valet".

Because you focus too much on his involvement in your local nitty gritty, you cannot understand the great thing that that person brings in.

25 But I say to you, there were certainly many widows in Israel in Elijah’s days, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months while a great famine came over all the land.

26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them except a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

This is what He's going to do throughout Luke's Gospel: start to make this "coming in" available to outsiders, to the the nations, to the pagans.

God always starts outside.

27 And in the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many in Israel who had leprosy, and yet not one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

Naaman the Syrian had a great deal of favor outside, but no favor in Israel, and he humbled himself to be without favor, without regard, no exception of persons, and he was healed.

It was when he gave up his protection to grandeur and was able to drop acception of persons that he was able to be healed.

28 When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was enraged.

So when they heard that Jesus was actually saying "this great thing is coming and I'm announcing it, you're not really going to be able to see it, because you're focused on me - the local boy - rather than what is in fact coming around in your midst".

Now at this stage, they understand that they are witnessing against him in the formal sense: he has spoken a word from God, which they think is false.

29 They got up, drove him out of town, and brought him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to hurl him over the cliff.

They think that they have under the law the not only the right, but the duty to stone him to death or the equivalent of that, which is to nudge him off for precipice.

As it happens (and various biblical scholars have looked for it), there is no such precipice in Nazareth.

This is a "theological geography" on Luke's part.

This is something that doesn't really exist physically, but perfectly foreshadows the Crucifixion.

This is going to be the story throughout: Jesus trying to speak the truth to the people of Israel, and the people of Israel wanting to hear the words of grace, but also wanting to hear the words of vengeance to outsiders; getting upset when they don't have it, and eventually throwing him out.

30 But he passed right through the crowd and went on his way.

Many of us imagine as this being something a little bit miraculous, but really, no.

The way throwing someone off a cliff worked was that you formed a semicircle around the person and then, little by little, came together over against that person until such time as he had no space to move and he left off himself or fell over backwards himself.

The key thing was that nobody should touch him because if somebody touched him then they were guilty of killing him.

If everyone did it together, no one was guilty of killing him.

That's the whole point of how lynch deaths - group sacrifice and so on - work is that everyone is responsible and no one is responsible at the same time.

If jesus steps forward bravely, then they part, because no one wants to touch him.

So that's what happens here: Jesus moves through the lynch mechanism and starts his public ministry.