|
|
Epiphany 4, 28 January 2007 |
Luke 4.21-30 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ 24And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. Sisters and brothers in Christ, “You can’t do it on your own. Here, let me help you.” When those words are spoken to us, most of us get angry. Oh, we would get angry and say back with defiance, “Yes, I can. I don’t need your help.” When our ability to do something that is very important to us is threatened or denied, we will argue that we can still do it. If it is the ability to live on our own and care for ourself, the young will say, “I can do it myself. I’m strong enough. I’m big enough.” The old will say, “I am quite capable of taking care of myself. I am not a child. I am not a weakling.” Everyone is told that they must grow up and earn a living. We are all told that we have to be responsible. To work, to earn money, to make a living, to be respected, we are all told that is what we must do. Honor is given to those who have proven themselves. They are accepted into the world of adults, the world of the capable, the world where you are called “a man” or “a woman.” Then we work for years. We work more years and we work decades, always proving to everyone that we can to it. After working so hard and so long, no one wants to be told, “You can’t do it on your own. Here, let me help you.” Such words are an insult. They hurt us. Which is why we get angry at those words. We defend ourselves. “I can do it. I don’t need your help.” That attitude does help people to contribute to the care of their family or their village or their country. It is a way God has given us to protect us from everybody being lazy or from everybody taking what is not theirs. But when we go home, when we go to our hometown, when we go to where we began our life, when we go before God, we do not get accepted. That is because we cannot earn our acceptance from God. We cannot prove ourselves to God. Just as any great person who brags before his parents is told, “Yes, dear, we know you are great. But don’t forget, we once changed your diapers.” Parents have always given their children their love. A baby girl does not have to prove how good she is before her mother will feed her. A baby boy does not have to show off his strength before his mother will hold him and sing to him. Such love is a gift. So also with God. God’s love is a gift. God’s love gives us life and the sun and the earth and our home. God gives us our arms and our minds. To stand before God and say, “Look at what I can do! You must love me for what I can do!” is an insult. It is an insult because it says to God that we do not trust God to love us. Instead, we tell God that we have to earn God’s love. How presumptuous! When someone offers us a gift, it is an insult to ask if we can pay for it. It is to reject their kindness. It is to say, “I can do it myself. I don’t need your help.” How can we say to God, “I don’t need your help?” It is a lack of love for God. It is to say that we don’t want God to love us. What is God to do? When a child to his parents, “I don’t need your help,” the parent steps back. The parent says, “Okay, I will let you do it yourself.” The parent says that out of love, even though the parent knows the child will fall and get hurt when he tries it by himself. Do not parents hurt when out of love they let their child try? Even when they know the child will scrape his knees? Out of love God lets us try to be on our own. “This is what you want to do on your own,” says God. “You want to love me most of all. You want to honor your parents. You want to protect your neighbor from harm. In matters of sex, you want to treat others with honor and faithfulness. You want to help your neighbor keep what is theirs. You want to speak the truth about others so that they do not lose their reputation falsely. Now go ahead and try.” And we say, “I can do it myself.” And maybe we do pretty well at protecting each other, being honorable and faithful, speaking the truth, and honoring our parents. But by our very effort to do this on our own, to do this without God’s help, and the better we do it, the more we fail. We fail to love God most of all by the more we do this on our own. For we love what we do more than we love God. So we fall. We scrape our knees. We hurt our pride. And we die. That is what happens when we fall from loving God. We die. That is how God made it to be. But we keep saying, “No, no, I can do it myself. I don’t need your help.” That is what the people said when Jesus offered his help, to help them so that they would not die. He offered himself as the one who would free them from captivity, from their blindness to needing his help. But they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son? Who is he to help us? Did not Joseph change his diapers? How dare he say he can help us? How dare he say he can stop death?! We don’t need his help. Get him out of here.” They pushed Jesus out of their town. They pushed him out on to a hill and crucified him. Woe is us that we have done so! For Jesus is God’s son, his beloved son. Jesus is God’s gift to us and we have thrown him away. We have not loved God. Oh, we are doomed! Nothing we do now could ever make up for killing God’s child. We cannot get God’s love now. It does not matter how young or how old we are. We cannot do it. What is to become of us now? Jesus said, “I have come to bring you good news. I have come to free the captives, you, you who cannot escape the fact that you killed God’s own son.” And he frees us by his words, “I forgive you.” He picks us up from where we fell and skinned our knees. He picks us up from our graves. He picks us up and gives us new life, for he rose from the dead and so is the one who can give life, not just life, but life with God. We do not say, “I don’t need your help. Go away.” No, now we say, “Jesus, I cannot do it. Do it for me.” And he has done it. He gives us his love. In his love we have God’s love. In trusting him, we receive God’s gift. We accept God’s love. And that is the very thing God has wanted from us all along, that we be loved by him and that we love God. Receiving Jesus’ help changes us. It changes us from people who said, “I can do it myself” into people who say to one another, “I need your help. I need your forgiveness. I need your love.” And so we help one another. We love one another. No more of this, “I do it for me.” Now it is, “I do this for you.” We do not have to show off. We do not have to better. We do not expect God to favor us because we are the Israelite widow or the Israelite leper. It is not that God has to care for us because we can do it on our own. God gives love to those who cannot do it on their own. He sent Elijah to the widow who could not claim she was special or God’s chosen race. God gives his love to those who cannot do it. God cured Naaman the leper because he could not cure himself. He could not claim to be God’s chosen person. He said he could not heal himself. He cried for help. He trusted God to help him. And so God did. We trust God to save us. And so God has by giving us Jesus who died on a cross. So, when Jesus says to us, “You cannot do it on your own. Here, let me help you,” we say, “Lord, have mercy on me.” Amen. Timothy J. Hoyer
|
|
(top) |