Text:  Luke 4:1-13

Theme:  "Things Conditional and Unconditional"

1st Sunday in Lent

February 17, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, ² where for forty days he was tempted^[a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

³ The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

⁴ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’^[b]”

⁵ The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. ⁷ If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

⁸ Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’^[c]”

⁹ The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. ¹⁰ For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
¹¹ they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’^[d]”

¹² Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’^[e]”

¹³ When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

¹⁴ Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. ¹⁵ He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

It is a dangerous thing to be led by the Spirit of God.  We Christians claim to be "followers" of Christ.  But there's a subtle difference between "following" Him and being "led" by Him. 

 

The First Sunday in Lent, on an annual basis,  brings us the story of the temptation of Jesus.  That's right; He was tempted too!   This year we hear it from the Gospel of Luke.  Matthew's Gospel adds a bit to the narrative and takes a little bit of it out.  Mark's Gospel, not surprisingly, gives us the shortest account. 

 

Matthew and Luke say that Jesus was "led" by the Spirit into the wilderness -- or, to be more precise, the desert.  It doesn't say that He followed the Spirit.  The Gospel of Mark, for all its brevity and speed, is even more vivid.  It says that the Spirit "drove" Jesus into the desert.  The word can mean to "throw" or "cast".

 

As I said, it's dangerous to be led by the Spirit of God -- or even driven or thrown about by the Spirit.  It could land you in some sort of desert or wilderness -- or even Haiti.  Worse than that, if we're led -- or even thrown around -- by the Spirit, we give up some sort of control, don't we?  That's risky business for folks who like to think that they at least have some control. 

 

Take a look and breathe easy.   It doesn't seem to me that we're in any sort of desert or wilderness this morning.  But, of course, we're not that far from West Texas.  And besides, desert lands aren't all that bad.  Consider Palm Desert, California.  It's hot and dry and dirty and dusty all around.  But you add some grass seed and water, and BOOM:  it becomes an oasis.  And the sunsets over the San Jacinto mountain range are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen.

 

Desert lands may not be everywhere, but temptations certainly are.  It has been said that "Temptations are like birds:  you can't stop them from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair." 

 

When Jesus taught us to pray, he said:  "Lead us not into temptation."  I wonder if He thought of those forty days when He was "led" by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

 

We'll get to the first temptation of Jesus in just a moment.  But for you and me, the first temptation we face is this:  the temptation to think that we can handle temptations on our own.  St. Paul puts an end to such nonsense in his remarks to the Corinthians.  He says:  "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall.  No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.  And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted  (notice: he doesn't say "if" you are tempted), he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

 

A second temptation we face is to think that there really aren't any temptations out there.  Instead, there are only "appropriate" or "inappropriate" choices.  Oh really.  Who, then, makes the determination as to what is appropriate or inappropriate?  Who is "policing" the thoughts and actions?   "Well, that's up to the individual," someone might reply;  one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."  If that logic holds, there are then no objective standards of right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate.  That's all up for you to decide.  You make the rules; you call the shots.  It's called individual autonomy; you're a law unto yourself.  The calls this, among other things, idolatry.  In this case, it is the impulse to play God yourself.

 

That's a lot to think about, but before I confuse matters further let's look at what happens with Jesus.  He was human, and He had gone some forty days without basic nourishment.  In short, he was hungry.  We may not be able to agree on what constitutes right or wrong, but we know when we're hungry. 

 

The devil says:  "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread."  "Would it not be the 'appropriate' thing to do?" the devil seems to be asking.  Satan introduces that nasty little two-letter word:  "If".  Sometimes we face "iffy" situations.  In short, we're not quite sure what's happening or what will happen.  We're presented with choices, but we're not quite sure which one will work.  And so we're stuck.  One national life insurance company -- I believe it's Metropolitan Life -- sells insurance so that you and your loved ones can be covered for those "if" moments in life -- if, for example, your home were destroyed or your ability to provide for your loved ones came to an end, then Metropolitan has you covered.  "Tell the stone to become bread, Jesus," Satan says in effect; "I've got you covered." 

 

Creating "if" moments is one of the great tricks of the devil, one of the great tactics of evil.  "If" tends to create doubt.  If you're full of doubt, you're easy pickings. 

"If" usually introduces what we call a conditional sentence.  For example:  "If Uncle Bob gets here before six, then he can have Sunday dinner with us.  If Uncle Bob arrives after dinner, then he can go to the movies with us."  What's uncertain, what's "iffy" is what time Uncle Bob is going to show up.  You get the idea. 

 

"If you are the Son of God" , says the devil.  "That's obviously not a sure thing; you're out here in the wilderness all hungry and such.  That's inappropriate for the Son of God."

 

Jesus doesn't come up with a nifty little conditional sentence of His own.  He won't play by the devil's rules.  Instead, He, hungry as He surely was,  makes a declaration, an unconditional assertion, a statement of fact:  "Man shall not live by bread alone."

 

But the devil is a persistent little cuss.  He comes at Jesus from another angle.   This time he uses a bit of show and tell.  He shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in all their splendor.  "It's all yours," he says to Jesus.  "There's one condition:  worship me; if you worship me, then it's all yours."  For Jesus, there are no ifs.  He says:  "Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only."  There's nothing conditional about that.  It sounds unconditional to me. 

 

Satan gives it one more shot.  He's still hung up on this "Son of God" thing.  He takes Him up to the highest point in the temple and has Him peer down.  "If you are the Son of God, then throw yourself down.  For it is written:  'He shall give His angels charge of you... .'"  Here, the devil sounds like a reasonably good Presbyterian.  He quotes Scripture.  The devil knows His Bible; he knows it up, down, sideways, and horizontal.  The only difference between the devil's reading and faithful reading of Scripture is this:  the devil will always twist it to his own purpose. 

 

Our Lord, of course, is only too aware of this. He connects with the devil's high fastball and knocks it out of the park.  He says:  "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

 

Satan went on offense, and he struck out.  As the text says, he would await another opportunity. 

 

Earlier this morning, we confessed our sin.  We said, in effect, that there have been times when evil has taken the opportunity -- gone on offense! --  with us, and we have given in to the temptation; we accepted the conditional logic as gospel truth; we struck out.  Is it too much to say that there are times when we even welcomed a good temptation?  Is it too much to say that we like a little bit of "high risk/high reward"?  What a mess we are in our sins.  What confusion reigns when we try to twist everything -- our own lives, the lives of others, God, the Scriptures -- to our own purpose!  Is there any hope for us?

Turn again, finally, the text:  "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.  He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him."  Jesus didn't leave; he returned to His people.  He would be with them.

He, through the power of His Spirit, is with us too -- leading, guiding, and sometimes even driving us.  It may be to Haiti and a mission of relief.  It may be into your next day where you'll meet up with a neighbor, a friend, an acquaintance, or a nameless face of someone facing temptation.  Like Jesus, you can be there for them.  You can be there for them unconditionally -- just as Jesus is there for you, for that person, buffeted by temptation, who stares back at you in the mirror.

For, as the writer to the Hebrews has unconditionally declared:  "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Amen.

 

 



Lent: Training for the Spirit

Text:  Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Theme:  "Lent:  Training for the Spirit"

ASH WEDNESDAY

February 13, 2013

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

² “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ³ But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴ so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

⁵ “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

¹⁶ “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ¹⁷ But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I hold in my hand what is called a "Desire Chip".  It is given out in recovery meetings as an outward symbol of an inward desire to not take a drink of alcohol for a twenty four hour period.  It doesn't ask for abstinence for six months, twelve months, fifty years, or forever.  It just asks for one day -- one day, come hell or high water, when you don't take a drink.

We don't hand out desire chips like this in worship, for our problem runs deeper than chronic alcohol abuse.  We may or may not be alcoholics or addicts, but all of us are included in that teaching of the Holy Scripture that simply says this:  "All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God."  Likewise, all of us are included in that teaching of the Holy Scripture that simply says this:  "The wages of sin is death."  There is nothing more universal in the world than that; the mortality rate, last time I checked, has held steady at 100%. 

So it is not a desire chip we are handing out.  We are, however, making it possible for ashes to be imposed on your forehead.  And make no mistake:  it is an imposition.  Death -- whether we like it or not or whether we're ready for it or not -- will impose itself on us.  Tonight -- with hearts still beating, brain waves still registering, and lungs still engaged in respiration -- we come forward, willingly, to have an outward symbol imposed upon us.  Like the desire chip, it is an outward symbol of an inward desire to remember that we are mortal.  That, in the words of Scripture, we are "dust and to dust we shall return." 

We are not in heaven tonight.  We are on earth, on terra firma.  What we possess, and the Bible bears this out, is a body, a mind, and a soul.  At death, we leave behind that body and mind.  We believe that the soul returns, then, to the God who gave it.

I have noticed -- and perhaps you have too -- at the massive amount of attention that is being directed to taking care of the body.  Recently, I read some startling statistics about how much money we could save on health care if people would just do something that requires physical exertion.  You don't have to run a marathon or pump iron like Schwarzeneggar.  Just do something.  What an amazing thing, the body!  The Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made! 

Then there's the mind.  That's gets its fair share of attention to.  In fact, one of the hallmarks of the Presbyterian Church -- historically, at least -- is education.  We talk about the "life of the mind" in the service of Jesus Christ.  We have schools, colleges, universities, and any one of a number of institutions that are designed to expand, challenge, and stretch the mind.  The gentleman who recently spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, Dr. Benjamin Carson, is a pediatric neurosurgeon.  That is, he operates on the brains of children.  His expertise is vast.  What an amazing mind!  His soul is in tip-top shape too!  His hero is Jesus Christ!

Again, we devote so very much attention to our bodies.  Entire industries have developed around it.  Similarly, we devote so much to education and the mind. 

But my question is, what about the soul?  What about the spirit?  What about that mysterious reality that is going to go on once our bodies give out and our minds start to atrophy?  What have we done to exercise, expand, challenge, motivate, and inspire that spirit? 

How important is it to ask questions like this?  I say it's very important.  Jesus Himself once said:  "What does it profit anyone to gain the entire world but forfeit His soul?"  In other words, you can have the most beautiful, fit body the world has ever seen; you can grace the cover of Cosmopolitan, GQ, Women's Day, or Esquire; you can have more money than Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Donald Trump combined; you can have Ph.D.'s behind your name a mile long.  None of it makes one stinking bit of difference, Jesus is basically saying, if you forfeit your soul. 

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that if you're paying attention to your soul, your spirit, everything else -- including a healthy body and mind -- are going to start to fall into place. 

Here we are at the beginning of Lent!  What better time is there than Lent -- sometimes called the "springtime of the soul" -- to start exercising the soul?  No better time than Lent to energize the metabolism, if you will, of the soul.  Like the mind and the body, that soul needs a good, solid diet of the best nutrients.  How wonderfully our God has provided for this in His Word and the blessed Sacraments.  Word, font, and table!  They are there in front of us each time we gather.  They are God's precious gifts to us to nourish our souls.  Don't settle for malnutrition anymore!

Do you want more?  An exercise regimen perhaps?  Jesus is ready if you are.   In the traditional Gospel for Ash Wednesday, which we just heard, the Lord outlines three practices that can wonderfully engage the soul -- not in the sweet by and by, but right here and right now. 

But He begins with a warning.  Do not engage in these practices to show every Tom, Dick, or Harry, or Suzy, Sally, or Jane what a strong Christian you are.  "Don't practice your righteousness," Jesus says, "before others in order to be seen by them.  There's no reward in that."  So the first thing we do is check in our spiritual egos at the door. 

Then Jesus goes on to list three exercises that benefit the soul.  First, there is the giving of gifts to the less fortunate.  It's the Bible's way of saying "Pay it forward."  It has also been called engaging in "random acts of kindness."  Look for, find, and help out someone who is struggling.  If anything, sit down next to them.  You don't even have to say anything.  Just let them know that they are not alone.

Next Jesus talks about fasting, or, as people occasionally talk about, "What are you giving up for Lent?"  My friend, the minute you start talking about what you giving up for Lent, you defeat the purpose.  What difference does it make?  None.  Let's get down to the nitty-gritty:   What is it in your life that needs to go?  What is it that's weighing you down?  What is it that's bringing you misery and, by extension, misery to those you love?  Sometimes people say "Less is more."  What is it that you can do with less of so that you can have more of the good stuff?  Ask and answer that question this Lent.  It's between you and God. 

Then, finally, there's that spiritual exercise known as prayer.  First of all, the Bible does not make prayer optional.  It goes so far as to say "Pray unceasingly."  Promises are attached to it:  "Ask, and it shall be given unto you.  Seek, and you shall find.  Knock, and the door will be open to you."  How's it going with your asking, seeking, and knocking?  You can pray in your soul, in your mind, in your heart, and sometimes you can use your mouth.  If you don't know what to say, find a good book of prayers.  Use the hymnal.  Many of those hymns are written in prayer form.  Better yet, get going with a good program of daily Bible reading and meditation.  Then, the prayers you pray flow out from what you read.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once observed:  "The Word of God ought to determine our prayer, and not the poverty of our own heart." 

Like giving to the needy and fasting, this matter of prayer is best done privately.  Certainly, we do it corporately and publicly during worship.  But this is another thing.  This is between you and God.  Jesus went so far as to say:  "Go into your room, close the door, prayer to your Father who is unseen.  Then your Father, who knows what is done in secret, will reward you."

Finally, taking our cue again from the words of Christ Himself, Lent is about storing up treasure.  You can store up treasure on earth and eventually, one way or another, it will get eaten away or stolen.  The other option is to store up treasures in heaven, and that begins here on earth.  Jesus says:  "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

That's the best place to be in Lent:  where the treasure is!  The body is a great treasure, and so is mind.  An even better treasure is the soul -- and we've just outlined a pretty cool exercise regimen for it.  But the greatest treasure of all is Jesus Christ! 

 

It is Jesus Christ who, Himself, was marked for death.  It was He, Himself, who taught His followers and fed their minds.  It was He, Himself, who took the loaves and fishes and fed the body.  It was He, Himself, who healed the infirm.  It was He Himself who fasted from the glories of heaven, so He could come and give heavenly alms on earth.  It was He, Himself, who taught us how to pray.  It was He Himself who gave His all -- even to the last drop of His blood -- so that death will ultimately no longer be an imposition but, rather, the gateway to a life that can truly be called eternal. 

May God richly bless this Lententide to His glory and to our good.  Amen.

 

 

 

Freedom Unveiled

Text:  2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Theme:  "Freedom Unveiled"

The Transfiguration of the Lord

February 10, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

¹² Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. ¹³ We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. ¹⁴ But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. ¹⁵ Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. ¹⁶ But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate^[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. ² Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

 

For countless people, today is just another midwinter Sunday.  It's a day of rest on the weekend before the work week gets underway.  It's a morning to sleep in, have a slow and leisurely breakfast, read the papers, walk the dogs,  play with the kids, surf the web, or watch TV.  For a lesser number of people, for those who follow the rhythm of the seasons -- and even the seasons of the church year, today is an important Sunday. 

 

It is the Transfiguration of the Lord -- the liturgical "bridge" between the time of Christmas and the time of Easter.  It is the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.  An epiphany of the Lord is a disclosure of His glory.  We saw it in the Christmas star, the voice from heaven and the descent of the dove at the Baptism of the Lord, and the turning of the water into wine at the wedding at Cana.  Now, in the Transfiguration, we hear of a big blast of glory as Jesus is transfigured on a mountaintop with Moses and Elijah of old.  Physically, Moses and Elijah had died long ago.  But then again, we remember that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. 

 

 

We are told that these pivotal characters in the Old Testament spoke with Jesus about his "exodus" that He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.  The word "exodus" simply means "the way out".  But the question is:  the way out from what? 

 

For Moses and the Israelites long before Jesus, the way out was the exodus event where the God's children were set free from over four hundred years of slavery under the Egyptian pharaoh.  Through Moses, God told Pharaoh -- over and over again:  "Let my people go." But Pharaoh was a tough nut to crack, but crack he did.  And God's kids walked to their freedom from bondage, through the Red Sea, on dry land. 

 

But what of the Lord's exodus?  What way out was in store for Jesus?  In Luke 9:51, we learn that "As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem."  The adverb, "resolutely", more literally means that he "set his face" to go to Jerusalem.  To use language that we all understand, Jesus was focused "like a laser beam" on His upcoming passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. 

 

The forces of bondage and the spirit of slavery in the world were out to get Jesus from the start.   King Herod tried to kill the infant King of the Jews.  Even the magi must have sensed intuitively that Jesus would die because one of the gifts they brought was myrrh, a gum resin that was used for burial.  People in His own home town of Nazareth, as we learned last Sunday, tried to kill him.  How could this little lad who worked in his dad's carpenter shop become a dangerous subversive that had to be taken out? 

 

You know, we can talk about the exodus of the Israelites all those years ago, and we can thank God for it.  We can celebrate the exodus of the Lord Himself when, when He rose from the dead, He burst forth from the bondage of death.  "Death could not hold him," the Scriptures declare.

 

But my task -- in fact, our common task -- is to bring it closer to home.  So the question must be asked:  what about our exodus?  What do we need a way out from?  What is it that has us enslaved? 

 

Maybe it's the bondage of mental illness, or alcoholism, or chemical dependency.  Each day I drive by University Behavioral Health, just down the road from here, and I notice that the parking is always full.  There are less and less empty chairs at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and Narcotics Anonymous meetings in our own town.  More and more teenagers and early 20somethings fill those chairs. 

 

Or perhaps it's the crippling bondage of worry.  The elephant in America's living room is that people are worried sick about what the future will bring, so they turn in on themselves and they isolate.  That little "committee" in their brain goes into session, and they sketch out scenarios that are all doom and gloom.  They end up creating more problems for themselves.  Their minds are like bad neighborhoods:  it's not safe to go in into them alone.   One is reminded of the dictum of Mark Twain:  "In my life I've had many problems; most of them haven't happened."  Again, there are all kinds of slavery.  Maybe you're enslaved in a marriage or a relationship that can no longer function or that has become abusive. 

 

Advancing years and age presents its set of problems too.  People feel trapped in a body that can no longer function as it once did, and that has to be as frustrating as it gets. As matters get worse, they wonder whether there will be the resources -- both economic and human -- that can help them.  It seems we've done much to increase the quantity, or the length, of life, but we've not do so well at expanding the quality of life. 

 

More and more, people find themselves in a kind of cycle which sometimes becomes a vicious cycle.  They do the same things in life over and over again and expect a different result.  At some point in time, they've had enough and they create their own exodus, their own way out.  There's a manhunt going in California right now for a police officer who has done just that; he's taken matters into his own hands.  According to his rambling manifesto, even the system of redress for grievances has enslaved him. 

 

Then there's the bondage and slavery of what I call the default position.  It goes like this:  if there's a problem, I didn't cause it.  Here in the twenty first century, we've developed very shrewd and sophisticated mechanisms to point the finger of blame at the other guy.   Ever watch a congressional hearing on C-Span?  We like to think that our sidewalk is always clean while the garbage is on the other guy's side of the street.  Yet, it's hard to deny the dictum of Teddy Roosevelt:  "If you could kick the person in the pants who is responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month!"

 

Is there an exodus for us?  Is there a way out?  The good news for today is that the answer is yes.  For many folks -- if not, for every one of us at one point or another -- we know that exodus is out there; we know that freedom is to be had somewhere, but we just don't see it, or we see only bits and pieces of it.  It's like it is veiled from us -- like the face of Moses was veiled, as we heard in the reading.

 

Nevertheless, St. Paul declared to the Corinthian Christians:  Only in Christ is that veil taken away.  "Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

 

You know, we Americans are big on freedom and liberty.  We claim, in our founding documents, that liberty is an unalienable right.  It can't be taken away from us.  But yet, we still, in the same breath, would say that we are so often enslaved by so many things -- almost to the point where we conclude that that right to liberty is no longer ours.

 

Today's readings from God Word fasten us to where real and lasting freedom and liberty begin:  with the Spirit of the Lord. 

 

The Spirit of the Lord is not going to get you to exchange one bondage for another.  The work of the Spirit is not to conform you but to transform you. When true freedom is unveiled, that is what starts to happen. 

 

Many people today see religion as NOTHING more than conformity to a set of rules.  Don 't buy that devilish lie for a minute.  Unveiled freedom, the kind the Spirit of the Lord brings, does not conform you.  It transforms you. 

 

As St. Paul says,  we have this hope and so we are very bold.  We have this ministry, and so we do not lose heart.  The Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of real freedom, transforms us each and every day, more and more, into the soft, gentle, rugged, strong, blessed, and saving image of Jesus.  "If the Son of man sets you free, you shall be free indeed!"  That's good news for the folks at University Behavioral Health; it's good news for the folks up the road and right here at First Presbyterian Church; it's good news for the whole world! 

 

Amen.

Giving Jesus the Boot!

Text:  Luke 4:21-30

Theme:  "Giving Jesus the Boot!"

4th Sunday after the Epiphany

February 3, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

²¹ He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

²² All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

²³ Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

²⁴ “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷ And there were many in Israel with leprosy^[g] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸ All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹ They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. ³⁰ But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

If my study is accurate, there have been 204 ticker-tape parades in New York City since the tradition began in 1886.  First ticker-tape was the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.  Fast-forward to today, and the most recent ticker-tape was last year, February 7th, as the New York Giants were honored for winning the Super Bowl.  They'll likely hold the 205th ticker-tape this year for an NFL team coached by Harbaugh.  (That's a sure bet.)

The second tickertape, in 1899, had nothing to do with football.  American Admiral Dewey had returned home from Manila, and the parade honored him.  Folks waited another eleven years for the next ticker-tape: former President Theodore Roosevelt returned home from a post-presidential African safari. 

 

This is one of the sub-plots to the entire story of the ticker-tape parade:  Americans go out there and even leave the country; they do great and noteworthy things; they come back home to the good old U.S. of A, and they are recognized as heroes.

 

There was no ticker-tape parade for Jesus.  However, He did return home to Nazareth after doing some noteworthy things.  You can go to Google Earth and spot that town on a map today!  That's where he grew up -- with Mary and Joseph.  Word had gotten around that Jesus was something special.  There were reports of healings and miracles and such.  "Did you hear?  Jesus is coming home.  Let's get to synagogue early so we get a good seat." 

 

Not content to let Him hang around and chat in the narthex, they let the home town boy be the worship leader that day.  Jesus read the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, chapter 61:  "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 

 

Then, in a rather shocking move, Jesus sat down.  Only rabbis did that -- and that when they were about to teach (or, as we might say, proclaim the Word after reading the text of the Word).  The main point of the sermon was stated immediately:  "Today," says Jesus, "this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."  Scripture is not ultimately fulfilled unless its heard.  "Faith comes by hearing," the Bible says, "and what is heard is the preaching of Christ." 

 

They started whispering to one another in worship. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.  They were amazed at the gracious -- even lovely -- things Jesus said.  It was a nice service -- a pleasant service made even better since that favorite son, whom they had known since He was "knee high to a grasshopper", had come home and even led them in worship.  How nice! 

 

It was at this point, though,  amid all this niceness, that things took a decidedly different turn.  Jesus wasn't finished with the sermon.  Perish the thought! The service might have went on past 12 o'clock noon!

 

Jesus said:  "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.  I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.  Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.   And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."

 

The reaction of the folks in worship to these comments is the proverbial 180 degree turn.  They went from admiring the gracious words of Jesus to actually trying to throw him over a cliff.  What -- in the interest of all things good, right, and salutary -- irked them so much about what Jesus said?  How, in just a few short minutes, did the hometown boy turn into public enemy #1?  Why did they go from giving him affection to wanting to give Him the boot?

 

All Jesus did was give them a little history lesson.  There was a famine long ago, and many widows suffered. There was a scourge of leprosy, too -- and many, likewise, suffered from that hideous, socially-ostracizing skin disease.  God sends His prophets, Elijah and Elisha, to help with, respectively, the famine relief and the cure for the leprosy.  Elijah goes to a widow in Sidon. Elisha is led to as an official in the Syrian army. 

 

The widow and the army official have nothing in common -- except for two things:  one, they are in desperate need; two, they are NOT Israelites.   This second point, that they were not Israelites, was the point Jesus made that eventually put the boot in his backside. 

 

The sermon Jesus delivered that day, quite simply, did not fit their narrative.  It was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.  Stated differently, the kingdom of Jesus was inclusive -- inclusive even to non-Israelite WOMEN and officials from enemy armies!  Apparently, the kingdom of God, to these rank and file folks from Nazareth, was EXclusive.  If you didn't believe like us, act like us, behave like us, look like us, hold the same political views as we do, and support our cherished causes, then you're an outsider; God doesn't love you, and we wish you would just go away.  God might love you if you first learn to be like us! 

 

Jesus burst that bubble in short order -- and they were having nothing of it. 

 

For the life of me, I can't picture it in my mind.  More than just give him the boot, the childhood neighbors of Jesus tried to kill Him that day!  They took Him to the edge of town and tried to throw Him over a cliff.  And Jesus just walked right through it and went on His way. 

 

Have you ever heard of "exaggeration for effect"?  Maybe that's what is happening here.  I'm just wrestling with the text.  One thing, though, is quite certain:  people still do with Jesus what their own beliefs dictate.  We'll line up with Jesus; we'll even cheer Him on and claim deeper allegiance INSOFAR AS He baptizes and blesses OUR points of view! 

 

But the minute Jesus comes along and challenges them (and even demands change), well, then we back up and do the whole "Whoa, wait a minute" thing.  The minute He gets "off message" -- our message, He gets the boot.  When Jesus starts to spout off things we don't like, we might not be as dramatic as the folks from Nazareth but we have our ways of dealing with that.  We water down His teachings to make them more appropriate to modern sensibilities.  We effectively turn Jesus into a glob of Silly Putty -- molding and shaping Him into our individual and even collective "opinion".  Depending on the point of view, for instance,  we can come up with a "2nd Amendment" Jesus or a "gun control" Jesus.  We can come up with the Jesus who supports the salutary effects of the "military/industrial complex" on the economy, or the Jesus who really socks it to the greedy 1%.   Pick your choicest narrative, and you can come up with a Jesus who really deserves a ticker-tape parade. 

 

It is not as though we haven't been warned about this sort of thing.  The apostle Paul wrote to his young protege', Timothy, ago:   "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

 

Meanwhile, back in Nazareth, Jesus walked through it all and went on His way.  The question, now, is whether we are going to stay back with the folks in Nazareth with the itching ears,  or walk along with Jesus? 

 

Where will such walking, such following of Jesus, take us?  To a cross -- where the sacrifice for our sins, our self-centered narratives, was made.  To an empty tomb--where that sacrifice was accepted. To a new day -- today! -- when we come to His supper and not run Him off a cliff.  To a moment -- even now -- when we are reassured that we are loved by God.

 

Amen.