February 1, 2004; The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector
It has been interesting, and at times entertaining to watch and read about, the Democratic candidates these past few weeks as they jockey to win their party’s presidential nomination. Howard Dean seemed to be the favorite to win as he took the lead even before the race began. But then as the starting gates opened in Iowa John Kerry jumped into the lead. Unfortunately Dean pulled up lame and shot himself in the foot with his tirade after the caucus. Now limping along he has fired his campaign manager and is trying to get back in the race.
After last Tuesday I heard an interesting phrase in reference to why John Kerry took the lead, it’s because he is “electable.” The commentators say that he has the strongest possibility of beating President Bush. Never mind whether or not he would make a great president, he is the Democratic’s best shot at winning the Oval Office. Politics! You either love it or hate it.
I must admit that I have not spent a great deal of time watching or studying the candidates, but one thing is quite obvious as they go from group to group and state to state. They promise different things to different people, sometimes even contradicting themselves. It would seem that their speeches would be more consistent as each candidate has a company of speech writers who labor over each and every word that is said. But, that’s politics; say what you have to say to win votes.
In Nazareth the people were abuzz with this man called Jesus, who had read the scripture from the prophet Isaiah. But the accolades were short lived. The community was looking for someone to embrace them as they were, someone like a politician. What they got was Jesus, who said that all of those people they had excluded or belittled were now going to be placed at the head of the line. And even more than that, he rubbed it in, by reminding them that their ancestors had rejected the prophets, while foreigners responded to their message and some were even healed.
Jesus’ message would be like the Democratic candidates telling the laid off textile mill workers in South Carolina that they needed to rejoice in the fact that poor people in third world countries were now making the fabrics that they had made.
Hum! The mumbling was becoming louder. The people tried to reassure themselves, this is only the carpenter’s son from down the street. He doesn’t know anything about politics, let alone the Law, and the fact that they are God’s chosen people. He was insulting them and they had to put a stop to it. They started pushing and shoving, herding Jesus out of town toward a cliff, with the intention of pushing him off the cliff to silence him forever. But just as he gets to the edge, he turns around and walks through the crowd and leaves.
The people of Nazareth had taken a vote and decided that Jesus was not the Son of God. So Jesus, unwilling to tell them what they wanted to hear or to twist their arms in order to force them to believe, departed from them. It’s not so much that Jesus physically walked away as our reading said this morning, it’s more like the people walked away from him.
Most of us have been Christians for our entire lives. We have, so to speak, grown up with Jesus. The question is what kind of Jesus do we know? How have we taken the stories and teachings of Jesus and put them together. Is our Jesus, a Jesus who only accepts people like us? Does our Jesus not only lift us up, but others also, rather than tearing them apart? Does our Jesus allow us to pick and chose what standards we live by? Have we become so complacent or comfortable with our Jesus that he has no real authority in our lives?
If so, we are in danger. Jesus walked through that crowd in Nazareth and left because they would not accept him for who he really was. The same thing can happen today in the Christian Church, as it did in the Jewish synagogue two thousand years ago, unless we listen and follow him as our Lord and Savior.