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Weekly Devotional

February 1, 2010

God’s Peace be with you all.

Luke 4:21-30  ²¹ Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."  ²² All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?"  ²³ He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'"  ²⁴ And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.  ²⁵ But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land;  ²⁶ yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.  ²⁷ There were also many lepers¹ in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."  ²⁸ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.  ²⁹ They 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.  ³⁰ But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

The scripture above is the gospel reading that we would have had at church yesterday.  It is a continuation of the scripture from last week.  There are many important things about this text that I had prepared for my sermon yesterday, the main one being about faith.  This text shows us that Jesus’ neighbors and the people he grew up with did not have faith in who he was.  They did not have the same faith that his mother had in him.  (Remember back two weeks to our Gospel, the story about the wedding at Cana.)

Our text today has the neighbors and friends of the family gathered around Jesus in the synagogue, listening to him speak.  They are ooing and aahhing him.  They are amazed at the words that come from his mouth.  And then someone speaks up:  “Wait a minute, isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  The correct answer to that question is “No, this is God’s son.”  Jesus’ own neighbors do not have the faith of a true believer, like Mary.  They don’t believe the words that they have heard.  Instead they have questions about what they have heard.  Faith believes the word that it hears.  Unbelief does not hear the word that it hears.  Unbelief has doubt, questions, and the tendency to trust oneself over God.  Unbelief is what happens when people circle the wagon around themselves.  They trust what they know, they do the things they have experience doing.  Those gathered around Jesus didn’t understand why a hometown boy was doing ministry in other places.  He should stay in town, and look after the people that he knows.  Why worry about anyone else?

In this text today, Jesus identifies himself as a prophet.  What do prophets do?  They go out there.  They don’t necessarily stay in their own hometown.  They go and do ministry elsewhere.  And as the countless prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament tell us, they ministered through words.  The people that had faith believed those words.  Those full of unbelief did not hear the words.  They did not believe in the message from God.  They had questions, and anger, and hatred toward the prophets.  That made the role of prophet one of the hardest roles to lead.  In their own hometown, prophets were not liked.  They said things the people did not want to hear.  So the prophets went elsewhere.  While some believed, some would not.  We look at the life of Jesus and we see the same thing.  In many places the words Jesus spoke were accepted with joy and acclamation.  Even in modern times, we still accept those words with joy and acclamation.  Our faith grows on hearing the words of Christ, and our prayers should be that those prophetic words are also heard by the rest of the world. 

In our prayers this week:  Wendi, Ann, Kim, Robert, Lisa, and Catherine.  Also, I ask that you keep Carrie and I and our family in our prayers this week..  We learned yesterday of the death of Carrie’s 94 year old grandmother.  The service and visitation will be later this week in Columbia.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Judson