The Unexpected Jesus

February 3, 2013 Part of life is living with expectations. I’ll go out on a limb here and say it might even be a part of our genetic soup – to live expectantly. We expect to wake up in the morning, expect to eat a meal or two today, expect to make it safely back home and wake up in the morning to do it over again. And then there are those other kinds of expectations. About how our life will turn out; about the presents under the Christmas tree; we have expectations about the big vacation we’ve planned for months; about our children and our retirement years. And let’s not forget the expectations we put on friends and family ...and the expectations we put on ourselves. But what happens when the gift under the tree is not what you hoped for, the vacation you planned turns out to be the worst 2 weeks of your life; your friend didn’t turn out to be such a good friend. You see the thing about expectations is that they can disappoint. Everyone here has expectations about God. I have found it to be true, that if you worship a loving God...you have him. If you prefer a harsh judgmental God – well, then that kind of God will be your kind of God. If you hate certain kinds of people, you God will hate the same ones. And there is no doubt that many people have convinced themselves that their idea of how things should be done and run, is surely how God would do it, too. Same is true about Jesus. For a long time we looked at the brown haired, blue eyed, fair-skinned Jesus and knew that was our man...until we got a whole lot more realistic about Jesus’ Middle Eastern Jewishness. If your politics are on the liberal side – then of course you believe that Jesus thinks like you do. And if you fall on the conservative side of the fence – you have no doubt that Jesus is sitting right there with you. Any student of the Bible knows that the Jews were waiting for their Messiah =a Messiah about whom they had expectations. Warrior - victorious in defeating Rome, a King like David, returning Jerusalem to its rightful place in the world = free... a powerful and prosperous nation. What they didn’t expect --- more to the point, what they would never expect is a kid from the neighborhood, from maybe the lower middle-class, whose family’s livelihood was carpentry. Just because he showed up after some ritual bath in the Jordan River and lots of rumors about healing people didn’t mean a thing...at least not after that day in the synagogue. And to think...it was all going so well. Everyone praised him. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. And then....after reading the scroll, he sat down and declared himself the fulfillment of the law. Declaring himself the fulfillment of the law was not what they expected. You see unlike today and in our culture - in Jesus' day it was considered not only horribly bad manners, but DIShonorable to boast, dishonorable to seek fame and celebrity, dishonorable to deliberately do anything for the purpose of drawing attention to oneself. Even if Jesus was speaking the truth, it probably wasn’t perceived that way...disappointing – not to mention a bit on the blasphemous side. Another thing the men in the synagogue didn’t expect was that Jesus would say no. They expected Jesus to do the same things he did at Capernaum – miracles. Because that’s what their culture expected. One’s family and village were always to be given precedence. Perhaps it is how we read it – the tone we give it...but we don’t know the tone in which it was spoken 2000 years ago....and so the question, Isn’t this Joseph’s son? – may not have been meant to be accusing or derogatory. Many believe it was their way of saying, Isn’t this Joseph’s son...hey...this is Joseph’s son...he is one of us...so...Jesus, this is your hometown, we are the people who watched you grow up, we are the friends who grew up with you....and so it is only fitting – actually you owe us – you can’t do miracles someplace else and leave us out in the cold...this is your hometown – out of respect, out of obligation – we should be the primary beneficiaries of your miracles --- so miracle us – it’s expected. But there were no miracles performed in Nazareth that day. Jesus said, no – and talked to them about two other prophets – whose miracles were performed, whose help was given--- not to their own, not to the insiders, not to the hometown gang --- but to the foreigner, to those who were outside of the Jewish community. Luke’s gospel has long been known as the gospel of reversal – filled with the unexpected. Luke makes sure the reader knows that Christ’s message is one that -- as Luke writes in the book of Acts -- turns the world upside down. ..... By bringing good news to the poor, lifting up the lowly and sending the rich away empty...proclaiming release to the captive, sight to the blind, and freeing the oppressed. What was is no more. The old is made new. Expectations are shattered. The Messiah is never to be boxed in, never to be held to societal norms or cultural expectations. To quote a New Testament scholar: We must understand that Jesus’ ministry will not be predictable....will not focus on the insiders, but on the excluded....anyone who cannot accept this, will find Jesus unacceptable. Anyone who cannot accept that God’s ways and thoughts are not ours...that Jesus is not bound by our limitations...that the Lord does not hold our world view, and came - in fact - for all people... for those who cannot accept those truths about Jesus – they will more than likely run him out of town and do their very best to hurl him over a cliff. Today’s scripture passage ends: But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way. Went on his way to preach to people who had ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts that were hungry. Jesus was surely kicking the dust off his sandals when he left Nazareth that day. One commentator writes, that the same could happen to us.....if we are not willing to welcome the unexpected Jesus, it will be with a ho-hum and an uncovered yawn, that Jesus will slip right out the back door of the church, ...while we are so consumed with making him in our image, so busy insisting that he is the fulfillment of our expectations ...that we won’t even notice he left us.