FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER the EPIPHANY February 2, 2025

Prayer of the Day Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 4:21-30 21 Then [Jesus] began to say to [all in the synagogue in Nazareth,] “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 this not 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 his 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 with a skin disease 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.

SERMON
In the afterglow of praise for Jesus’ liberating words, Jesus sniffs out the stink of what Professor Abraham Smith calls the “preoccupation with a provincial perspective”. Jesus doesn’t begrudge folk for yearning for Good News for themselves; it’s that they clearly want Good News ONLY for themselves! So, Jesus re-invokes stories about prophets ministering to the marginalized thereby debunking the assumption that in God’s economy the size of the pie is finite and that we “deserve” the first and biggest slice. Had a bus passed by, the now irate crowd would have chucked Jesus underneath. As it was, they chase him to a cliff intending to pitch him over.

Jesus has spoken as a prophet; a word that literally means forth telling—- occasionally a prophet had the ability to foretell, but mostly prophets did forth-telling. On a regular basis Elijah ducked death threats and violence. Then there’s Jeremiah, whose words we heard this morning. As you hear the story, I invite you to think about the response to the sermon that the Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde preached at the US National Cathedral on January 20.

Once upon a time, Jeremiah calls out a very self important above the law king named Jehoiakim . He writes a scroll and has his scribe Baruch deliver it. The king bids one of his minions read the Jeremiah’s words. The lackey reads a line or two. The king takes a the pointer knife used when reading scrolls, and slices Jeremiah’s words into strips. As the story goes, it’s winter so a fire is set in the brazier to keep the king warm. Jehoiakim chucks the strips of Jeremiah’s scroll into the brazier. The book of Jeremiah emphasizes that: Nobody protests. Nobody objects. P.S. news of the effrontery reaches Jeremiah, who seeks divine council and puts quill to parchment and writes another scroll.

On January 20, at the Inaugural worship service, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde appealed to the President to show mercy to those fearing for their lives and their future. Late that night, the U.S. President questioned the legitimacy of both the bishop’s ordination and of her church. Some minions in congress called for the bishop’s deportation—She was born in New Jersey.

Fear mongers are correct that borders are porous; ignorance and mean spiritedness flow freely back and forth blowing through checkpoints and border crossings virtually undetected.

Against such a backdrop, the church—not only the preachers—has been called to a prophetic task. As Professor Walter Brueggemann writes in his book “Prophetic Imagination”, Church’s task is tell the truth in a society that lives in an illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair

The prophet’s task arises from our common baptismal calling: to proclaim Christ in Word and deed, to care for the world that God made and to work for justice and peace. It is our call to insist that Good News of liberation and God’s favour is Good News for everyone. All really does mean all.