Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Throughout this liturgical season we’ve been looking at different stories of Jesus’ life and seeing them as “epiphanies” – windows into the person of Jesus: who he is and what he is doing. We’ve seen him as the newborn king, honored by the magi; he is the beloved Son of God, baptized into a life like ours; he is the miracle-worker who comes rejoicing, turning water to wine. He is the liberator, who sets the captives free.

But what about this week? What great epiphany does this story reveal? How about this: He is the cranky prophet who doesn’t meet people’s expectations and makes them so furious they want to shove him off a cliff!

It’s not such an encouraging epiphany, really, but this is the story we’ve got!

Jesus has just returned home to Nazareth where he was raised. He went into the synagogue, read the scriptures and then declared that he, at that moment, was fulfilling the long-awaited expectations of God’s deliverance, and everyone was thrilled. So what does Jesus do? Does he capitalize on their enthusiasm and turn it into a well-orchestrated political movement? No. In fact, he does the exact opposite:

Oh, I know what you people want. You want me to do the same miracles for you that you heard I did in Capernaum. Well tough luck. I’m not going to do, ‘cause you’re all a faithless lot.

You’re just like our ancestors. Remember the story of the prophet Elijah who made the widow’s flour and oil last throughout the drought, and healed her son when he lay dying? And you know that story about the leper who was healed by the prophet Elisha?

Well, they were both foreigners, weren’t they? It’s not as if there weren’t widows and lepers in Israel, but God didn’t do any miracles for them, because they were faithless.

Just like I’m not going to do any miracles for you.

Well, you can just imagine how well that went over. They’re filled with rage and they drive this presumptuous little so-n-so, this son of a carpenter, out of town, to the edge of the cliff, intending to hurl him off.

Now, here’s an interesting thing about that cliff.

The village of Nazareth is built on a high plateau overlooking the Plain of Megiddo, a valley that lies at the cross-roads of the ancient world: this is the valley where Asia, Europe, and Africa converge, which means if you can control this valley you can control the movements of armies and merchant caravans. If you can control this valley, you can have great power. So it comes as no surprise that this valley has been the site of major battles since the dawn of recorded history, from Pharaoh Thutmose III in 1468 b.c. to British forces in 1917. By the time Jesus was born, the city of Megiddo had been leveled by warfare at least twenty-five times.

In fact, when the book of Revelation describes the apocalyptic battle of Armageddon – that final battle between good and evil, it’s describing this place. “Armageddon” derives from “Megiddo,” this valley, this place of warfare and the striving after power.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, was raised overlooking this valley. And now his ministry begins with the same threat of violence and control that has characterized the whole of human history:

We don’t trust you, Jesus. You aren’t behaving the way we want you to. You’re not giving us what we expect and deserve. So we reject you. And on these plains, you too will die.

Now we might not relate to this behavior in any literal way. We’ve never tried to fling Jesus off a cliff. But, then again, we’ve never had the opportunity. Jesus has never stood before us in the flesh, never walked into our home or our church, provoking us and disappointing us. Who knows? Given the opportunity we might be just as violent as the Nazoreans. What if Jesus showed up here and said,

All you Episcopalians make me sick, with your decorative crosses and endless liturgies. Why don’t you practice true religion for once? Repent and live like I live.

Now, I’m not saying that’s what Jesus thinks or what he would say. But it’s certainly what it felt like for the Nazoreans. And, filled with a sense of shame and betrayal, they turn on him. Just like we’re capable of doing.

Like them, we think we have a particular hold on Jesus, that he belongs to us. And we know how he ought to behave. Think about what most of our prayer lives look like, what prayer lives we have. It’s usually a to-do list:

• Jesus, heal my friend’s cancer.

• Jesus, give me a friend who is like me.

• Jesus, help me find a job.

• Jesus, let me find my lost Kindle.

• Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…

And with all these prayers we’re certain that if he answered them the way we want him to, then everything would be great, and we would love him with our whole hearts.

The problem is: this line of thinking presumes that we, ourselves, know what is best for us, what we need to be happy and content.

But rarely is that the case.

• Which of us knows ourselves through and through?

• Which of us understands how the circumstances of our lives have formed us?

• Which of us knows what it means to be made in the Image of God?

• Which of us knows what it means to be integrated into the whole of God’s created order?

The list of what we don’t know about ourselves and our place in this world is endless. And, if this is the case, how can we presume to instruct God what’s best for us?

I find it wiser and more settling to come before God with fewer instructions and greater humility and vulnerability. Instead of, “God give me a husband,” to pray, “God, I am lonely.” Rather than, “God, heal this disease,” to pray, “God I am hurting” or “God, I am afraid.”

Is it wrong to pray those other kind of prayers, telling God what to do? Oh, I don’t know. I’m not the final authority on these things. I just find that kind of praying to be dangerous. Not only does it set us up for disappointment, it constructs a narrow, defined way for us to see God at work in our lives. We’ve got our eyes set on one particular outcome, and if it doesn’t happen, then we’re apt to miss where God actually is at work.

And here’s the other thing: flashy miracles don’t actually produce the kind of faith that we think they would.

Consider the village of Capernaum. Capernaum is the place where Jesus did perform miracles, the kind of miracles that the people in Nazareth wanted. In fact, immediately after today’s story Jesus went back to Capernaum and did some more miracles. And yet, six chapters later in Luke 10, Jesus denounces the communities where he had done miracles, and calls them out by name, including Capernaum:

Woe to you, he says. [I did all these miracles for you, but you didn’t repent. You didn’t change a thing. You got what you wanted out of me, but you didn’t get me].

Jesus is not a magician who does marvelous things for the sake of being marvelous.

And Jesus is not a vending machine where we pay our token, pull the lever, and get what we want out of him.

No.

But Jesus is committed to obeying his Father in Heaven in redeeming this hurting world, with a wisdom that he and his Father share. Our vision is short-sighted; we will always choose the path that seems most comfortable. But clearly what we see from Jesus’ own life of obedience is that the way of God is often the way of the cross. It is a way we would never willingly choose. So the way we follow Jesus is to say, I will trust you, even with what I don’t understand.

I’ve told this story before, but it’s worth sharing again.

I took a trip a few years ago to Fes, in Morocco. And one morning when I was praying I said, “Jesus, I want to see you today.” Now how or where or if this would happen I couldn’t say. It was just an articulated desire to see Jesus in a way my heart would recognize.

Later in the day I headed out to explore and I brought my leather passport wallet with me because I’d noticed earlier that the stitching was coming undone. And since I was in a city famous for its leather work, I thought maybe I could find someone to repair it. And I walked into this tiny shop where there was an old man at a sewing machine, and I handed him the wallet and showed him the problem. He didn’t seem to speak much English (and I didn’t speak Arabic or French). But he studied it for a little while and then started preparing his machine. Now, this made me a little nervous because all the travel guides warn you about getting ripped off in Fes, that it’s really easy to get lured into some unintentional expectation of payment – where you take a picture of someone’s donkey and the next thing you know they’re demanding money. And so I was always super vigilant about my vulnerability. And now here I am; this guy’s starting to fix my wallet and we haven’t agreed on a price yet. So I ask, all smiles, “How much?”

How much? he parrots back. How much? And he keeps working. Hmm.

I try again. How much? And he chants it back to me again,

How much? How much? and starts threading the bobbin.

After the third time with the same response I finally just gave in and thought, Well, Eric, you’re in for it now, and I sat back and watched him. After several minutes he finished and handed it back to me and I asked again, How much?

He smiled. Libre, he told me. Libre. It’s free.

And I can’t tell you how deeply this touched me. Not just because I got free work done. But because I’d told Jesus in the morning that I wanted see him that day. And I did see him, in the face of this old, Muslim tailor who knew from the start that he would show me grace. And what I felt in that moment was the encouragement that God heard, and God knew and God honored the heart-yearning of my prayers.

My caution and shrewdness and self-sufficiency will only take me so far. There reaches a point where I need to say, God, I still don’t know who you are. I cannot know where you are taking me or dictate how you will respond to my fears. But I trust the God whose nature I see in Jesus of Nazareth, and I choose to trust you again.

And as we carry forth into this anxious world, threatened by such destruction and uncertainty, the God in Christ we have received through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the God in Christ the church has preached for two thousand years, this God can still be trusted, even if we don’t understand how God receives that trust and translates it into the fabric of our lives.

We have a sure and certain hope. Thanks be to God.