Sermon January 26, 2025

Sermon for January 26 th

There is a joke in seminary circles that this text from Luke is the reason

why a person can never go home and be a pastor at the church they

grew up in. Although the text for today stops a little before the blow

up, let’s just say that the people can’t see Jesus for what he truly

represents. Rather, they only see Jospeh’s son. When Jesus challenges

them on this point and suggests that they can’t really see what’s going

on right in front of him, they grow angry and actually want to throw

Jesus off the brow of a cliff. Jesus makes his exit, but it is quite clear

they aren’t happy with him. Due to this unfortunate encounter, young

seminarians are warned not to go home until much later in their career

(if they go at all). No one wants to be thrown off a cliff.

But the reality is, we are often good about finding ways to not listen to

things we don’t want to hear. The audience that Jesus was speaking to

in this text might have been a home crowd and thus couldn’t get past

Joseph’s son preaching to them, but Jesus encountered these stumbling

blocks everywhere he went. He had authorities of one type or another

on his back for saying the things he said or doing the things he did. He

had disciples who didn’t really understand what he was all about, even

after spending three years with him. Whether it was ego, or agenda, or

fear, people didn’t want to truly hear what Jesus was telling them. It

might, at times, have seemed like they did understand, but then

something would happen, and it was quickly obvious that this wasn’t

the case. The disciples worked alongside of him all that time and still

argued about who was the greatest. Peter listened intently to

everything Jesus taught, but when Jesus spoke about his imminent

death, Peter rebuked him. Peter also denied him at the trial, even after

swearing to Jesus shortly before that he would face whatever fate that

Jesus was about to encounter. Judas served with his fellow disciples but

couldn’t internalize any of it. In the end, he saw Jesus as a way to make

some money and perhaps assuage his guilty soul by “helping” to

eliminate a threat to Israel and to Rome. Jesus, he decided to believe,

was too dangerous to leave alive.

It thus becomes apparent that Jesus often hit walls when he preached.

People, it seemed, couldn’t accept what he had to tell them. And when

he faced his end on the cross, he did so almost entirely alone, with only

his mother and a handful of others there to bear witness to his

suffering and end.

I would like to say we, after having encountered these stories, would

have done better in our lives. We know the story of the disciples, and

so we pay special attention not to miss the point that Jesus is teaching

us. I wish that was the case. But like the disciples, we are good at

missing the point. We take texts that have real world application, and

we spiritualize them. We think that calls to live life in service to the

other are not meant to ever impinge upon our personal time and

freedom. Surely Jesus means for us to do these things as we are able.

We ignore parts of Jesus’ teaching that would have us love our enemy

or be open to all we may meet or speak truth to power. Why? Because

those kinds of things don’t really work in our world. Or because it is

easier to hate our enemies than to love them. Honestly, sometimes its

even nice just to have enemies. It makes everything so easy. Jesus

would have us accept that the truth of the world is complex and

nuanced. But when the world feels like it is spiralling out of control, it is

so much easier just to have an enemy to blame for all the bad things

that are happening.

We are good at even turning the tables on the lost and least in our own

midst. When we see someone who is obviously struggling, we are so

good at finding reasons to avoid engaging with them. We say things like

“Its their own fault,” or “they might be dangerous”, or “I just don’t have

the time, the resources, the energy”. While there may be times where

these reasons are legitimate, we use them far too often to get around

the teachings of Jesus. We are good at finding ways around or finding

ways to block the things Jesus would have us do in the world.

It would be so easy for Jesus to throw up his arms and give up. The

disciples never got it. He could have decided, after a year or so, to just

find other disciples and start again. But he didn’t. He went back to

them, time and time again. Even after his death, when they all had

deserted him, he went back to them and gifted them the Holy Spirit

and then sent them into the world. Through that Spirit, they were

gifted the strength to journey through even the most difficult of

moments in their ministry.

We can be rather obtuse when it comes to the message of the Gospel.

We can find ways to skirt what Jesus is trying to say. We can think it is

enough just to come to church, that our faith is a one-hour event most

weeks, with a few extra hours allotted for seasons like Christmas and

Easter. But this moment is a starting point. It is where we find our hope

again before going into the world. It is where we find our grounding

before going to follow Jesus.

I would love to say that we will figure this out one day and we won’t

keep throwing roadblocks in the way of Christ’s message. But

unfortunately, that isn’t the case. We may, until the day we die, find

ways to ignore or circumvent Christ’s teachings. I wish it were

otherwise.

But the good news is that as stubborn as we are, Jesus is even more so.

He won’t give up on us. He keeps offering up his message of love and

service throughout our lives. And that message may be encountered at

a church service, or a bible study, or in some completely unrelated way.

But the message keeps coming and because of this, there may be times,

maybe moments only, when we actually follow Jesus. These might be

moments where we put away our ego, our agenda, or our fear and we

just serve. We serve with a pureness of heart that could only be

accomplished by the work of the Spirit. These moments may not be

many, but they show us that Jesus is still very much at work in our lives

and will never give up on us, no matter how stubborn we are.

I take comfort in that fact. I take comfort in the fact that I may be a

stubborn bonehead, but Jesus is even stubborn and thus will never give

up on any of us. Amen