Good News is Bad News is Good News
Good News is Bad News Is Good News (Part 2 Jesus’ Inaugural Address)
Luke 4: 21-30
February 2, 2025
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" 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.' "
And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. 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; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."
When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 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. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Jesus was making his way around the region, teaching in all the synagogues. He was impressive enough to create a buzz in his hometown. Last week, we heard him announce the Good news, the Day of Jubilee is right here, right now. His words stirred the hearts of every listener in the room. He read with powerful words of the prophet Isaiah – “The Spirit of God is upon me.” Jesus makes it clear - God has finally come to release captives, restore sight, and empower the demeaned.
Everybody nodded in approval. They were ready for a new day. Jesus dipped into the well of God’s ancient promises and lifted a cup of refreshing grace. They could taste it. Back in the corner, one of the town fathers said, “Can you believe this is Joseph’s son?”
But as we heard today, the sermon took a turn. Or at least the response did. The smiles turn into snarls. The happy buzz descends into a growl. As Jesus winds up what sounds to us like a favorably brief sermon, a tidal wave surges from the back of the room, sweeps him out the door, and thrusts him to the edge of a cliff.
The sermon took a turn when Jesus seems to say, “Yes, I am back home in Nazareth and so good to see all of you, but I don’t think you heard me. You don’t get it.” It’s as if he’s saying. “When I talk about God’s good news means coming to free the oppressed and bless the poor, I’m talking about God’s blessing the people you can’t stand, the people you think are your enemies, people you think are unacceptable to you and God.” And so he reminds them of a two stories where God blessed not Israel, but Israel’s enemies: the widow from Sidon, Naaman the Syrian. After that, they’re so boiling mad that they’re ready to throw him over a cliff.
I started thinking how dangerous it is to preach. I’ve never been threatened with my life. I have people tell me my sermons were too political and that I should stick to the Bible and spiritual truths. I have had people tell me I am not political enough or progressive enough in my preaching. People have told me that they want to hear more sermons that are not about God but draw them close to God. I listened. I pondered. Some truth in all of this feedback.
I have had friends who were threatened after a sermon. I have friends who received threatening anonymous letters after a sermon. But I’ve never been mobbed by people who want to throw me over a cliff.
Why did the people feel that way? What set them off? His sermon began so pleasantly. His words gave them delight. They were proud of him. Things turned when he anticipated their resistance.
Jesus anticipates what the crowd will say. He digs in. “I know what you’re going to say: Doctor, cure yourself. You’re going to try to dismiss and deflect by making this about me, and not the message. Then you’re going to say, ‘Why don’t you do for us what we’ve heard you do over in Capernaum?” They said that with a sneer. Capernaum. They almost spit when they said the name. That little fishing village was full of misfits, low life, criminals. “Why don’t you do for us what you’ve done over in Capernaum?”
He knows their hearts, their prejudices. He names this before he starts. The congregation begins to twitch. Then he tells them two stories out of their own Bible.
Story Number One: It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the power of God. But there was a man named Elijah. He could do whatever God called him to do. A famine hit the land, the crops dried up, the food disappeared, everybody was starving. God didn’t send Elijah to feed the people of Israel. No, God sent him to feed a hungry widow in Sidon, up in what we would call “Lebanon.” She was a foreigner. A Gentile.
Story Number Two: After Elijah, there was another great man named Elisha. Like Elijah, Elisha had the power of God. In that time, a pestilence spread across the land, a skin disease called leprosy. Those who got this illness were as good as dead. Everybody feared they might catch it. And God sent Elisha to cure a leper named Na’aman. He was a commander in the Syrian army, a foreigner, a Gentile. Elisha didn’t heal any of the lepers in Israel, but God sent him to heal the outsider.
With that, the good people of Nazareth were furious. They began to shout. They started to grind their teeth. They grabbed Jesus the preacher and pushed him to the brink of Mount Precipice. They were going to get rid of him, toss him over, purge him from their midst.
Why are they so angry? Could it be that Jesus told them the truth about their own prejudices, their fear, their shame, their clinging to their egos and false selves? Nobody else had the guts to tell them what Jesus told them, and us: “You won’t be able to claim God’s blessings for your life unless you claim them for other people’s lives at the same time.”
If there’s one line that sums up the Jesus we encounter in Luke’s gospel, it’s this: God came to redeem everyone, to offer grace and an invitation to have your mind and heart transformed, to invite everyone to the banquet table of abundant life. When we focus on “everyone,” and call to mind those we believe have done us wrong, who frighten us, whose lives or “lifestyles” we just can’t understand, or who voted for the other candidate, that description can be terrifying.
On the one hand, many of us would nod in agreement at the message that the grace of God is not confined to one people, one religion, or one set of creeds or doctrines.
On the other hand, we all draw our lines somewhere. We all tend to have our ways of thinking about who’s an insider and who’s an outsider, who deserves justice, healing, and well-being, and who does not.
One of the most consistent themes of Jesus’ ministry is the message that God’s love is not just for a few favorites. It starts here in the Nazareth synagogue and continues right through to the end as he persists in proclaiming and demonstrating God’s welcoming grace to the unclean, the marginalized, the foreigner – precisely those people his culture excluded. Jesus’ main concern is not who we’re letting in, but who is being left out.
It’s the kind of message that can get a guy thrown off a cliff. The hard, uncomfortable thing about the God we know in Jesus is that whenever you and I draw a line between who’s in and who’s out, we will find Jesus on the other side.
The other…. The other who will be scapegoated and denied help and demeaned. More “us and them.” “We need to keep more or there won’t be enough for us… enough food, enough resources.” It is a human tendency. But when leaders of our country do this and bring suffering to so many vulnerable people, it is a moment to point again to Jesus the prophet, the truth teller, the one who kept saying – God’s grace and care is for all. All people are beloved and worthy. When federal funds and grants were frozen, when leaders say gay and lesbian and trans folks are unacceptable and don’t really exist, when foreign aid is frozen and thousands of vulnerable people will go hungry because they live over there and not here, then we say, “No.”
We know we are beloved and the Holy One is in us and around us. We are masterpieces in the making. Every one of us has infinite value, just as God has made us. It’s mercy and love, embodied. The world does not understand this. The world hears a sermon on mercy and criticizes the preacher. The world hears a call for compassion and responds with more meanness. The world hears deep concern for the weak and says, “The weak are expendable.”
Yet we are the living body of Christ within the world. We know there is another way to live together. We know this table welcomes all people. We will say it and live it and know it is good news and hard news and really good news now and forever. Amen.
Rev. William G. Carter, “It Could Get You Thrown Off a Cliff,” 1.30.22
https://billcartersermons.blogspot.com/2022/01/it-could-get-you-thrown-off-cliff.html
Rev. Joanne Whitt, “The Hometown Crowd,” solve by walking blog 1.27.25