4th Sunday after the Epiphany
Texts: Luke 4:21-30;
1 Cor 13:1-13; Jer 1:4-10
YouTube: https://youtu.be/CME_W3CTp34
See also the Sermon Notes
CHALLENGING “ISRAEL (AMERICA) FIRST”:
JUBILEE EQUALITY IS FOR EVERYONE
“Previously, from Luke’s Gospel.” This morning we get to do something like our favorite streaming shows. We provide a recap of last week’s episode (Epiphany 3C) before we begin. When Cathi emailed the bulletins yesterday, she mentioned it’s Part 2 of my sermon. But that’s because it’s Part 2 of Jesus’ sermon — his inaugural sermon, no less, given in his hometown synagogue among his neighbors and family. So, “Previously, from Luke’s Gospel,” you might recall that Jesus read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, rolled it up, and concluded, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” What he read was the prophecy of the Jubilee year in Jewish culture. The Jubilee year is the promised year when there is a society-wide reset, especially economically. All debts are cancelled, all enslaved people released, and all property and wealth redistributed more evenly. Everyone is on a more equal footing. Jesus says that he has come to embody the Jubilee prophecy. He represents the way of equality among God’s children. That’s Part 1 of Jesus’ inaugural sermon.
This morning we read Part 2. Jesus cites the example of two early prophets, Elijah and Elisha, doing what? Bringing the fulfillment of God’s promises to foreigners. Elijah saves a widow and her son from drought in the land of Zarephath. Elisha heals a general from leprosy — the general of an opposing Syrian army, no less. What is Jesus trying to say with these examples? Isn’t he trying to say that the fulfillment of the Jubilee promise isn’t meant just for Israel but for everyone. Being blessed with Jubilee isn’t just a matter of “Israel First.”
In other words, Jesus is breaking the boundaries expected by human nationalistic thinking. Nationalism of any variety always expects the blessing to come to its nation first. “Israel First.” “America First.” No!, says Jesus. He is there to offer the Jubilee promise of equality to all people. Just like Elijah and Elisha brought the power of their prophecies to those outside Israel. Well, this was not what his hometown crowd wanted to hear. They had been the doormat to other people’s empires for many centuries. If God’s promises to their people were finally coming true, they didn’t want to hear about other nations receiving them, too. Their nationalistic thinking caused them to be filled with rage. “Israel first! We don’t want to share the blessings with anybody else — especially those who have held us down for so long. Israel first! Israel first! Israel first!” Were they chanting something like this as they tried to force Jesus off of a cliff? But it was not yet his time. His time when he would be sandwiched between both “Israel first!” on one side and “Rome first!” on the other, and end up on a cross. For now, he simply slips away unharmed.
When we hear this story as Christians, we are tempted to think, “What’s the matter with those Jews? How could they try to do that to Jesus?” But that’s exactly the wrong response, right? It’s the kind of response that has led millions of Christians down the road of Anti-Semitism, of anti-Judaism. Adolph Hitler not so long ago, less than a hundred years ago, used that kind of nationalistic fervor to blame the Jews. With cries of “Germany first!”, he blamed the Jews for Germany’s post-WWI problems. He ended up consuming 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. Did you know that Hitler and the Nazis sponsored anti-Semitic movements in America? They pumped in a lot of money to hold rallies designed to keep America out of the coming war. The rallying cry at those rallies? “America first!” Tragically, this kind of nationalistic thinking has always proven to be something that we human beings are susceptible to. As many Americans raise that rallying cry “America first” against any ‘outsiders,’ we have seen the revival of neo-Nazi rallies like the one in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, where participants were shouting things like, “Jews will not replace us.” Apparently, through recent events of the past few months, there are many of us Americans — a majority? — who are extending that kind of thinking to all immigrants, all those deemed ‘outsiders.’ “America first! The others will not replace us!” Whoever the “others” happen to be for us at the moment.
The point of all of this is not to blame someone else. The point is to be able to look at ourselves and see how easy it is for us to fall into such nationalistic thinking. Into such Us-vs-Them thinking. And often it begins with religious feelings, with feelings of gratitude of being blessed. Or hopes placed in promises that God means to bless us. God loves us and wants Us to flourish. But this is only half of the truth that leads to nationalism. We think God is blessing us above and beyond all others, instead of understanding that God is blessing us for the sake of the others. This is how it has been since the beginning of salvation history with the blessing to Abraham and Sarah. In Genesis 12 we read, “You are blessed and all your descendants are blessed . . . so that you may be a blessing to all the families of the earth.” We so often miss or forget the second half, focusing on the first half. Believing the half-truth of God blessing us leads to things like the cross and a history of nationalism.
It is an age-old story that has played itself out throughout human history with such tragic results. It begins with a blessing from God for us that turns out to be a curse to others. The story of Jesus letting himself go to the cross is just such a story. This morning’s Gospel about his inaugural sermon in Nazareth is just a precursor of that wider story of the cross that encompasses all of us.
Douglas Wood has written that story for children in his amazing picture book Old Turtle and the Broken Truth. It begins in a land far away — and close at the same time, as all good stories do — when a Truth descends from the heaven like a meteor. It is a stone with a message, but it breaks in two as it rockets to earth. The animals are the first to find one half the Truth. They sense that it’s a broken Truth, not whole, so they leave it alone. But one day a human being happens upon half of the Truth and begins to relish it. On this one half of a stone is written, “You are loved.” Wood writes,
The man held it carefully, thinking it was the loveliest thing he had ever seen. He tucked the broken truth into a safe place and kept it. Sometimes he would take it out and admire it. And the truth sparkled just for him, and whispered its message to him alone. And the man thought he had never felt so proud and so happy.
The man took the wonderful truth to his people — those who lived with him, who spoke as he spoke and dressed as he dressed and whose faces looked like his. And together they cherished their newfound truth and believed in it. They hugged it to themselves and it became their most important possession.
After awhile, the man and his people . . . heard only their truth. . . . And they called it . . . The Truth. The Truth made the people good and proud and strong. But soon they also began to feel fear and even anger toward those who were not like themselves and did not share their truth. The other beings and other people of the lovely land seemed less and less important. . . .
Time passed, and other people said, “We must have this Great Truth for ourselves, for with it comes great happiness and power.” Many battles were fought, and the broken truth was won and lost, won and lost, over and over again. But such was its power and beauty that no one ever doubted it, and when they were without it, they felt a great emptiness where their truth had been. The stones and trees suffered. The breezes and waters suffered, and the animals, and the earth . . . . And most of all, the people suffered.
What a familiar story, right? Douglas Wood has unmasked the age-old story of nationalisms of all varieties. Hearing just the first half of the Truth, that we are loved. And it ends up being over against they who are not loved. How does he end the story? Well, with the whole truth restored. A little girl travels to see Old Turtle, the wisest of creatures — who had seen many years before the breaking of that truth as it descended to earth. She tells the sad story of her people to Old Turtle, wondering if things can ever change.
Old Turtle shares with her great wisdom about being open to one other again, to all peoples and to the world around us. He tells her, “The Broken Truth, and life itself, will be mended only when one person meets another — someone from a different place or with a different face or different ways — and sees and hears . . . herself. Only then will the people know that every person, every being, is important, and that the world was made for each of us.”
After a long time of quiet, Old Turtle drops in the girl’s hand the other half of the stone, with which she then journeys back to her people who hold the other half. On this second half of the stone is written, “and so are they.” Joined together, the two halves of the stone read, “You are loved . . . and so are they.” [See the picture in today’s Sermon Notes.] The Truth is finally whole. There is no longer Us-vs-Them. There is only Us.
This is the truth Jesus died on the cross to reveal. It is the truth that helps us to put behind us any vestiges nationalistic thinking. It is the truth that helps us to love with the kind of love that St. Paul sings about in today’s beautiful Ode to love from 1 Corinthians 13. Kind and patient, and not insisting on its own way. It is the truth that can help us be part of mending the broken truths in this world. To heal this broken world. Amen.
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Bethania Lutheran Church,
Racine, WI, February 2, 2025
YouTube: https://youtu.be/CME_W3CTp34
