Sunday's Sermon: Unownable

Genesis 28:10-17

Luke 4:14-30

As we hear this passage tonight and think through this story, it might be fair to say that Jesus is a P.R. Disaster. Seriously, doesn’t it seem that way? Yes, definitely a public relations nightmare. Here he is in his hometown, the place where he spent his young years, observing and questioning, learning and playing, working and growing into adulthood. It might be the perfect opportunity for Jesus to. . . you know, get his people behind him, right? - the perfect opportunity for him to use this beginning point in his ministry to get a boost of support at the right time. But what do we find? A genuine P.R. Disaster.

Let’s use our imagination to get into this story. Can you picture the scene? People from the small town of Nazareth are gathering together on a Sabbath, a Saturday morning. I imagine it was a pretty run-of-the-mill, routine day. When the people roll out of their beds on that morning, they probably aren’t expecting anything too out of the ordinary. The Sabbath is a special, holy day – no doubt. But they’ve experienced many Sabbaths before, and who knows? Maybe some of them are a bit on auto pilot.

But when they gather in the synagogue, they do have something to notice. Present among them is Jesus, - their Jesus – Joseph and Mary’s boy! They’ve heard all about what he did recently in the nearby town of Capernaum, and this is just the beginning! Who knows what will come of this young man – this boy who grew up here – yes! – one of our own! Certainly he will do great things for us! Certainly he will put Nazareth on the map!

And with pride in their chests and smiles on their faces, they’re thrilled when Jesus volunteers to read the scripture and deliver a message. They watch him ask for the Isaiah scroll, and he finds a particular passage. A beautiful choice, Jesus, a familiar hymn – one that sounds good to our ears! They listen intently, except perhaps to subtly (or not so subtly) lean over and whisper to one another: “Our boy up there, the carpenter’s son – he made my kitchen table!” “Yes,” someone else replies. “Isn’t he wonderful?”

They watch Jesus finish the passage and sit, the stance of a teacher. “That’s our very own Rabbi!” they think. “What will he have to say today?”

Today. Perhaps that word is a bit ironic: “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Okay. . .that’s different. What does that mean? Today these things are coming about? Today you are anointed to be the one who brings these things about? – Good news to the poor, sight to the blind, release to the captives, freedom for the oppressed, and the year of God’s favor? Yeah, that’s different. “What else do you have to say, Jesus?”

What else do you have to say? I suppose his first line was the beginning of the end, that is, the end of their awe-struck sense of pride. What follows next is a P.R. Disaster.

Jesus must have sensed their pride, their sense of ownership. He says, “Surely you will say to me, do the things here that you did in Capernaum. Do them here: in-your-home-town. Well, no prophet is truly welcome in his home town. I mean, think about it: The prophet Elijah was living in the Israel with no rain at all, with a famine more widespread than we can imagine. And where did God send him to receive help? There were many widows all over the land of Israel, but God sent Elijah to a widow at Zaraphath in Sidon. And think about this: When the prophet Elisha lived in the land of Israel, there were more lepers than we can count, but who was cleansed? Naaman. Naaman, the-Syrian.”

Yes, a genuine P.R. Disaster. If that person from Nazareth had that kitchen table in this synagogue, he would have overturned it right then and there. The synagogue was filled with a sense of rage. The air was thick with indignation. And the people acted on it too. They seized Jesus by his arms, escorted him outside the town – “We’ll show you what happens outside the town!” - and they try to hurl him off a cliff. A cliff!

Yes, a genuine P.R. Disaster.

Perhaps it’s hard for us for us to get at what Jesus was trying to do and say in Nazareth. But we can certainly take a challenging message away from this text – what seems to us like a P.R. Disaster. Here it is: Jesus is unownable. He’s unownable. He cannot and will not submit to being our possession. And that is good news! It allows Jesus to be Jesus toward us instead of forcing Jesus to be Jesus for us. It’s true that he came to serve us, but he did not come to be owned by us. He did not come to serve our agendas. Instead, he came as a human being – yes, truly, one of our own! – that we might become like him, truly human – humans who live humanity in service others, particularly the poor, the blind, the captives, the oppressed – all who are suffer. He’s unownable. Thanks be to God.

I read a story this week that seemed to provide an uncanny intersection of imagination with our passage today. It’s a brilliant short story called “The Visitor” written by Ray Bradbury in his book, The Illustrated Man. The story begins with a situation that sounds very bleak. Saul Williams has a disease – a terrible, terminal disease. Its slang term is “Blood Rust,” a disease that causes a great deal of bleeding in the lungs. And because this disease is so terrible and so contagious, Saul has been quarantined with others just like him, not on earth, but in a colony far away on Mars. Saul is sick with Blood Rust, but he’s not as bad off as the other men who live on the planet with him. That is, not yet. And he laments that these others are too weak, sick, and tired to have meaningful, intellectual discussions. He’s profoundly lonely. So he spends his days trying to imagine New York, his beloved city that he left behind in order to die a quarantined man. Oh, the sights, the sounds, the smells of New York! He longs for them, and he knows he’ll never experience them again.

But all that changes on the day that Leonard Mark lands on Mars in a rocket. Saul sees the rocket land. At last, someone new! Someone newly sick! Someone who can talk to me and spend time with me! Saul is excited, but he will discover someone beyond his imagining. After becoming acquainted, Saul says, “So, how’s New York?” hoping to hear greetings from his long-lost city. “It’s like this,” Leonard Mark replies. And immediately, Saul can see a vision of the city. It’s so real. He can hear real sounds, see real images, and smell the city air! He’s awestruck.

He asks Leonard Mark how he can do this. How long has he had this ability? Leonard Mark says that he’s had telepathic powers like this his whole life. He then produces another experience for Saul – one that delights Saul to the core! His powers put Saul swimming in a creek near Saul’s childhood home. Saul is moved and filled with gratitude. Here is his long, lost salvation – a person who can care for him and talk with him, a person who can give him the earth!

And immediately, another possibility dawns upon him. “C’mon, we’ve got to get out of here!” Saul realizes that he’s seen a miraculous thing. He’s in a miraculous presence. He wants nothing to separate him from it – especially the other, sick, Blood-Rust infected men. Saul looks over his shoulder and realizes it’s almost too late. The other men saw New York too, and now they’re hobbling over to meet Leonard Mark. “C’mon,” Saul yells, “We have to go, now!” But Leonard Mark makes it clear that he can meet everyone, that he can share his unique gift with the whole colony. He’s clear to say that he’s no one’s possession. But Saul will have none of it, and he immediately becomes very paranoid and possessive.

And so do the others. Once they discover that this gift is coming from Leonard Mark, they all want him for themselves. Here is their salvation, and they will have it at any cost! Eventually Saul steals Leonard Mark off to a solitary cave, and he ties him in place. But the others arrive too. They will have what is rightly theirs! Weapons are drawn. People are killed in the arguments. And lastly, before the men have a chance return to their senses, someone else has died. They’ve shot and killed Leonard Mark, their salvation. If they couldn’t have him, no one would.

And perhaps we could say, if the people from Nazareth couldn’t have Jesus entirely to themselves for their own purposes, no one would. Off the cliff he goes! But thank God, Jesus is unownable. He refuses to be reduced to a possession. He refuses to be owned. He refuses to be controlled or exploited. He will not follow others’ orders in slavery. He will be free – the True Human – who teaches us to follow him, to follow him in service with and for others. Jesus is unownable. He goes ahead of us, and we follow him.

It makes me wonder, if Jesus came in our midst tonight and sat among us in an obvious way, what would we want from him? Would we assume that he was here to serve our agendas? Would we fashion Jesus into a stereotype of a conservative Christian? Or would we assume that Jesus was a card carrying liberal? Would we allow ourselves to be challenged by him? Or would we simply box him in so that he can represent who we want him to represent? And yet, it is our conviction that he is among us now. His Spirit and his presence are here! Do we try to box him in now? We all need to ask ourselves that question again and again.

Jesus called the people from Nazareth into radical inclusion. They weren’t ultimately gathered together to be a social club, and neither are we. We love each other, and we have an amazing sense of community here. Those are the gifts of God, for us, the people of God. But tonight we remember that the people of God also exist outside this room, and it’s our call – our vocation – to include others beyond our comfort zone, to include them in our very lives, that we may serve them, that we may preach the gospel of good news to them, and that we would hear them, that we would listen to them, that we would allow people who are considered outcasts in this world to teach us, to preach the gospel to us. We are called to go to the Widows of Zaraphath and the Naamans from Syria. We are called to sit at their feet. We’re called to share good news with them – to live in the Name of Jesus, the True Human, who unites us together for purposes bigger than our imagining, purposes greatly exceeding our personal or collective agendas. If we do this – not sometime – but as Jesus says, “Today! Now!” perhaps we’ll be like Jacob. We’ll say with astonishment, “Surely, the Lord was in this place – and I didn’t know it!” Jesus moves beyond us in so many ways. He’s unownable. And yet he is ours. We don’t take from him. He gives himself. And he gives us new ways of following him.

And now, as God’s Spirit creates a sermon tonight among us and within us, tonight, where do you sense God calling you? Calling us? Let’s just take a minute of silence to think about what’s been on our mind and in our hearts tonight. How is God calling you tonight? How do you sense God calling us tonight?

-Renee Roederer, Campus Minister, and the Austin Agape Community