One evening just a few weeks
ago, for example, I was helping our four-year-old, Laura, get ready for bed. We
were in the bathroom brushing her teeth and I apparently did something that
made her angry. I can’t remember precisely what it was, but I remember that she
was fairly worked up over it. At one point she stiffened her whole little body
in rage and stared at me with piercing eyes and shouted, “Daddy! You’re such a…genius!” She had no idea what “genius”
meant, of course. I suppose she had heard it somewhere and thought it sounded
like an insult. Normally we correct them when they misuse a word, but we just
let that one slide.
Yet for all the times we all laugh
at the improper use of language and words, in our house and elsewhere, we also
find ourselves drawn into their power to move and inspire, to call whole worlds
into being. I think about the title character in a book by Wendell Berry named Jayber Crow, which is about a boy who
grows up as an orphan in rural Kentucky just before and then during the Great Depression.
As a child from hardscrabble origins, little Jonah has almost no possessions to
speak of except for a small tablet he carries around. Every time he comes
across a word or a phrase he likes he gets out his tablet and writes it down. He
keeps this list throughout his life and continues to add to it: not simply words
that bring him comfort or delight, but words of things and names of people he
wants to remember. Some of the words phrases are common and some are rare but
together they are words that end up explaining who he is. If you were to keep a
tablet of words you want to remember—words you like the sound of and that tell
your story—what would be in it?
As it turns out, one of the
first things that Luke tells us about Jesus is his use of words and the effect
those words have on people. Luke explains how Jesus goes around the region of Galilee,
preaching and teaching in their synagogues and drawing attention and praise
everywhere he goes. We finally get to see this power in action when he gets to
the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. He stands up and reads from the
prophet Isaiah words that are full of grace and hope. He declares release for
those in captivity, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, good news
for the poor. Then Jesus rolls up the scroll and says the most amazing thing: he
announces that all those things are about to take place now that they have
heard them from his lips. They think he’s a genius! They are amazed at the gracious
words that come out of his mouth. They probably all want to get out their little
tablets and scribble down everything he says.
In doing so, Jesus, you see, has
named a new reality…. right there in those Galilean synagogues. Fading away is
the old time of poverty and despair and captivity and darkness. With the
speaking of a few powerful words, God’s new age of freedom and mercy and
blessing has begun. That’s an indication of the power that words can have. He
has named the new reality of redemption, and it gives them hope. He has named a
new world of freedom and peace, where the captive goes free and the poor hear
good news, and it moves them. And now that he has spoken this new kingdom into
existence, he will go about living it. He will go about calling people to take
part in it, to learn to speak it and bear its hope on their own lips. There is
a new set of vocabulary to master and believe: one where God’s salvation is
made real for each and every human being, one where creation’s brokenness and
decay is truly named but also where it is finally rightly healed by grace and
put back together.
But just as these new words
begin to establish their power, there is immediate pushback, immediate doubt
from the hometown crowd. As things sink in, they begin to ask themselves, “Isn’t
this just Joseph’s boy? Where’d he learn to talk like that?” Just as quickly as
they are amazed at his ability to announce the reign of God, they become
suspicious of the things he says. They demand, in fact, that he back up those
words of power with deeds or power. They don’t want simply to hear about the
new reality be brings; they’re ready to see
it, and if he truly is the prophet he makes himself out to be, then they’d like
a piece of the action.
 |
| modern day Nazareth |
Jesus’ response to their
disbelief involves reminding them of two stories from the Hebrew Bible which
seem a little foreign to you or me, but which would have been readily
recognizable to them. Both stories, however, are illustrations of times in
Israel’s history when deeds of power occurred outside their kingdom’s
boundaries and to people who weren’t of the household of Israel. Story one: In
Elijah’s day, famine swept all across Israel’s land, creating many a widow and
orphan, but the only widow who received food miraculously was an outsider in
Sidon. Story two: And during the prophet Elisha’s time, plenty of Israelites
had skin diseases, but the one who got healed was a commander in the Syrian
army.
The upshot of these stories is
that the new reality that Jesus names and then brings about with his life,
death, and resurrection is not just intended for one people, or one village, or
one nation. When he announces freedom to the captives and sight to the blind, God
intends that freedom and sight for all people. When Jesus proclaims the year of
the Lord’s favor, God intends that favor for all folks on earth. And when Jesus
breaks the bread of life and pours the cup of forgiveness with his disciples on
the night before his death, God intends that life and that forgiveness to
extend to everyone. And when Jesus is nailed to the cross, all the words he has
ever uttered about God’s justice and God’s peace and God’s mercy will reach
their clearest definition…for every person on earth. Sin keeps God’s people
captive no more. Death’s darkness keeps us blind no longer.
That crowd in Nazareth has
heard enough, however, and in their rage they run Jesus out of the synagogue
and attempt to kill him. At least for them, and at least for that moment, the
reality of Jesus’ words is too difficult to learn.
However, for the people who
do hear and believe, who are transformed by Jesus’ self-giving life, speaking
this new reality becomes possible. In fact, it becomes our duty. The Holy Spirit
empowers us to be prophets in the manner that Jesus was the day he stood in
that synagogue and preached the good news. Beginning with those who “think like
a child, reason like a child, and speak like a child” right on up to the ones
who speak with tongues of mortals and angels, this is the task: to keep
learning a new language that reminds people that God loves them. Now that God
has given us those words, they are never to be kept to ourselves. They are for
all people. They name a new reality of
forgiveness and freedom that we all live into. They become the words in a story that doesn’t
just include us and our little tablet. God’s kingdom becomes the story of
everyone.
A colleague of mine tells a story about a pastor who came to serve an urban
church and quickly came to realize that while the neighborhood around the
church was mostly low income and people of color, the congregation was almost
exclusively upper middle class folks from the suburbs. So the pastor began some
outreach ministries into the neighborhood. Before long there were many
community members coming to the church and getting involved in things. Some
weeks later, a woman who had been a member of the church for a long time made
an appointment to come see the pastor. And she explained to the pastor, "Pastor,
there are a lot of members of the congregation who are just not comfortable
with all these people from the neighborhood being here in our church."
And the pastor said, "Well, I am doing this because I don't want these
people to go to hell."
The woman said, "Now Pastor, don't say that! We know that God loves
everybody, including the people in the neighborhood."
And the pastor replied, "No, you don't understand, I'm talking about
the members of this church."
By virtue of your baptism you
have been given a new vocabulary on which the life of the whole world depends. Open
your mouths—for God’s sake!—and begin to speak. Name the reality that Jesus is
risen. Death does not win and forgiveness abounds! Give shape to it with your
words, your speech, and then live it in your actions.
Like the folks in Nazareth, some
may look at this plan to take ordinary, broken people like you and me and
enlist them as prophets, proclaimers of the word that changes the fate of the
world. They’ll look at our propensity to screw it up and they’ll say that therefore
God is foolish, that God’s wasting his time. That God’s starting in the wrong
place with the wrong people.
But judging by the hope and
release from captivity we can see lived among us, I’ve got just one word for
it:
Genius.
Thanks be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
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