Super Spoiled (Luke 4: 14-30) 2/3/13

         

It’s here again. For football fans, today is the day. It’s Super Bowl Sunday. This evening, about 180 million people will watch the last two teams standing battle it out for the chance to call themselves champions of the world of football. At least that’s true in the United States. Elsewhere in the world, football is played with a round ball and the players use their feet to move the ball down the field. Americans call it soccer and its championship game actually draws an even bigger television audience than our football. The Super Bowl is such a big deal in the United States that last year, a thirty second commercial cost 3.5 million dollars. That’s a lot of dough to try to get your message out.

Super Bowl Sunday. Out of all the things Sunday might be known for, the Super Bowl is not my favorite. Don’t get me wrong. I love football and chances are pretty good that tonight I will be in front of the tube soaking it all in. A lot of grown men have spent their lives getting to this moment. This is their day. When the hype is over and the final whistle blows, a new team will be crowned champion…until next year.

Luke tells us of another Sunday when Jesus came home for a visit. It was a Sabbath day in Nazareth, the home of Jesus’ youth. The Sabbath is on Saturday, the last day of the week. It is the Lord’s Day for the nation of Israel. Some time after Jesus’ death, Christians began meeting on Sunday, the first day of the week, because that’s the day of our Lord’s resurrection. Whether you observe the last day of the week as your Sabbath or worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, either way, you are observing the Lord’s Day.

So Jesus comes to Nazareth. In the Gospel of Luke, he has spent his time in the desert being tempted by the devil and then returns to the region of Galilee. Luke tells us that a report of Jesus went out throughout the surrounding countryside. He was teaching in the synagogues and being glorified by everyone. The parallel story does not occur in the gospel of Matthew until late in Chapter 13. By that time in Matthew, Jesus has performed many miracles and healings. By that time in Matthew, Jesus has had his own Super Bowl of sorts, having fed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread.

For Luke, this event in Nazareth comes early in Jesus’ ministry. But again, we must realize that Luke has a different audience and a different lens through which he sees the gospel story. Luke does tell us that Jesus had been busy all over the region. He just doesn’t give us the detail that Matthew does. The chronological occurrence of these events is not necessarily in conflict, and besides, the chronology is not as important as the story, and Luke’s story of Jesus’ ministry begins in Galilee, in much the same way that John narrates six stories about Jesus in his ministry beginning in Cana, also in Galilee.

While Matthew wrote primarily to a Jewish audience, our doctor and reporter Luke, the only Gentile gospel writer, writes his Gospel primarily to a Gentile audience. Here, we can see that he starts early. The message Luke beings us early and often is that Jesus came for God’s people. He came to save God’s chosen. Luke’s point is that God’s chosen were measured by a different yardstick than Jesus’ Jewish friends and neighbors in Nazarath…and in the nation of Israel…were looking for.  God’s people included the Gentiles. Gentile is the Jewish way of saying anyone not Jewish. So no one is excluded. Every nation is invited.

This is the crux of the passage in Luke 4. Jesus comes home and goes to church on Sunday (not literally, but figuratively). There, in the presence of many with whom he has grown up, he reads the scroll citing Isaiah 61. The good news is for the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed. This is their year. They have finally made it to the Super Bowl. Then, Jesus levels everyone with his next announcement. He essentially tells them that he is the one they have been waiting for. To use a football analogy, this is the number 1 draft choice, the franchise player. While the people in the synagogue are glad that their native son has done well, he is, after all, their native son. This is Joseph’s son. Long forgotten is the message of the angels singing in the fields outside Bethlehem. This is the carpenter’s son.

Jesus anticipates their skepticism. He talks about what they want to see. Since he has done miracles and healing all over the countryside, why not prove himself and do them here? Since he has prescribed the proper remedy for so many others, let him now do so for himself. If he wants to be believed, let him give an offer of proof.

Jesus rejects such a suggestion. Perhaps it is precisely because of the people’s need for additional proof that Jesus will not accommodate them.  The concept is not lost on courts of law. To this day, advocates are prompted by judges to render an “offer of proof” prior to being allowed to introduce controversial evidence in the presence of a jury. Such a requirement moves into a physical, rather than a spiritual, realm. Jesus is not a performer. The words of Isaiah are still ringing in his ears: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” says Isaiah, and so quotes Jesus. Jesus’ offer of proof is himself, though he does not expect it to be enough for this crowd.

On one level, we see that Jesus has no expectations of those with whom he has so much familiarity from his youth. “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” “No prophet is acceptable in his hometown.” But on another level, Jesus speaks to the Jews about who God’s people really are. He quotes two Old Testament stories about the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Elijah is sent not to deal with the people of Israel during a three year famine, but rather to a widow in the country of Sidon, where his archenemy Jezebel was born. Elisha cleanses none of the lepers of Israel, but rather Naaman, a Syrian…a Gentile.

Jesus is telling the people of his hometown…and the people of Israel…that his story is bigger than miracles, broader than Nazarath. His message is not of deliverance from the tyranny of a ruling nation, but salvation of the nations themselves. Jesus message is, to use another modern day ad cliché, supersized. Jesus has come for all God’s people. He is bigger than the promised Messiah of the prophets. He is the Son of God and he has come for all those who would believe, whether they are Jew or Gentile, saint or sinner, rich or poor, man or woman.

The people in that synagogue in Nazareth became violent when they realized they were not at the front of the line. Some twenty years later, the apostle Paul was treated no better in Jerusalem when he announced his intention to minister to the Gentiles. In both cases, the listeners turned into an angry mob. Like the people of Israel in the time of the prophets, they turned their backs and refused Jesus. Like the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus took his message to those who would believe. It was never about the people of Israel to begin with. They were God’s chosen tool to reveal himself to the world. It was always about God and his revelation of himself to his creation. That creation did not stop with the nation of Israel.

Today, we welcome two more members into our membership. One comes from right down the road. Another made her way here from a Roman Catholic Church in Massachusetts. Our Savior could care less where they come from. He is concerned with where they are.

Where are you today? Who are you looking for when you come here to worship? Do you come to worship or to be entertained? It’s not about you, you know. It’s not about me, either. It never has been. It’s all about God. In the words of the Psalmist, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. We are his creation.

Don’t be Super Spoiled like the people of Nazareth. Take a lesson from this chapter on selfishness and self-centeredness in first century Israel. God can stand right in your presence and you can be so busy looking for what you want to see that you can’t see your salvation standing right in front of your very eyes. In the Super Bowl of life, we who believe in the Good News become champions not for a year, but for eternity. In the Super Bowl of life, Jesus is the prize, and he makes it possible for every one of us to obtain it.

Will you reach for the prize? Will you become super-sized?         Or will you remain super-spoiled? The choice is yours.