Rejection

Epiphany IV - C
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, I Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30

I moved out of my childhood home just a few weeks after graduating high school. Now granted, I moved in with my grandmother but it was still two hours away from all my friends, off to the farm to help her through the summer, and to take up my first job at King’s Island Amusement Park.

There was still a semblance of “home” but I was also diving into developing my independent life. From that point forward,  my definition of the home began to change, and my definition of self began to change with it. In one sense this is what's happening in today’s Gospel.

Jesus has returned to his home town, the place where everyone knew him. They had watched him grow up, at least since he was about six or seven. They knew his parents, his brothers, and sisters, his cousins, and his friends. They knew the craftsmanship he had learned in Joseph’s workshop. And they knew him to be a bit of a dreamer, an intuitive, an introvert. He would go off into the countryside by himself at times. This last trip he was gone for nearly two and a half months. But for a young man in his twenties, this was not all that unusual.

In Talmudic tradition, the age of thirty is when a young man is finally considered grounded in life and ready to take up leadership roles within the community. So Jesus’ latest journey as he ends his twenties, could be seen as a gap year. He was traveling around learning who he is and is developing his own identity.

Unlike most gap years, this one involved confirmation by The Spirit and The Voice of God, that he was the Messiah. Imagine coming back from your soul searching trip to Thailand, only to tell everyone in your small town that you are the Savior of the World. Yeah, that’s pretty much what’s going on.

This reading and teaching by Jesus in the Synagogue was pretty much his inaugural address. Well, as we finish the story this week, we can clearly see that the assembly does not like the agenda he has laid out. They reject him outright. Luke tells us that they grew angry with him, chased him out of town, and threatened to throw him off the cliff. I’m super glad no one threatened to throw me off a cliff when I went home and told them I was feeling called to the priesthood, though a few of them may have thought I’d already fallen off one and hit my head pretty hard.

This initial rejection by those closest to him, in a way, sets Jesus and his followers on a reoriented trajectory. Home has changed. Following Jesus requires changes in accustomed ways of thinking about the world and about home. It requires a readiness for transformation and a new Spirit that embraces the exiled and the outcast as cherished members of the family. Why? Because Jesus himself was homeless -- exiled from his own town. As he says in another Gospel passage, “Foxes have holes, and the birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Most of us readily identify with the sentiment expressed in sayings such as “there’€™s no place like home,” But amid an epidemic of violence and rejection at homes, or in towns, and unfortunately even in church communities, we must recognize that for many people there is nothing at all sweet about that place called home. The old expression, €”home is where the heart is,” perhaps best conveys a Gospel outlook, because it recognizes that our true home is not a house or a town or a dot on the map, but a dwelling and abode found only in our hearts, only with God. No matter our connections to our place of origin or current physical surroundings, it is only the geography of the human heart that matters. As Jesus reminds us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Ultimately for followers of Christ, anyplace and everyplace can be home.
There is a comfort in this because following the way of Jesus, the Way of Love is going to be full of struggle and rejection.

Strange as it may seem, the message of hope, and love, and acceptance among the people of God, is not always easy to live into, and is not always accepted by the world, especially by those who hold power over others. Especially for those who feel secure in their abode, and fearful of the rejection one might expect by the world through living the Gospel. But this is our calling. By becoming followers of Jesus, we are to expect rejection. We are to identify with and support the forgotten and rejected; the misused and oppressed; the lonely and unloved.

We are called to live a life in–––but not of this world. The early Christians sensed this as they referred to their newly embraced faith not as a home or shelter but as the way or the path. As followers of Jesus, we are all spiritual nomads, bathed in baptism at the Jordan, making our way out across the desert of the soul, and seeking acceptance and welcome at the nearest oasis or village. We offer in return the Gospel message of life and freedom.

Yes, we may have roots in a place. But once we accept the challenge to follow Jesus, we can never truly go “home” again. We now wander through life and invite those we meet to wonder with us. Because of this, we are now the perpetual “guest” in this world. This is why we feel a strong urge to care for each other. We can see that we are all on a journey.

As followers of Jesus we must expect rejection, we must be open to those we meet along the way, we must always be inviting and aware of those who make the journey with us. And we must be ever ready to pull up the stakes and break camp when Jesus calls us in another direction along the Way. In this life and in the next, may our home always be with God!

Rev. J. Nelson - Epiphany 4C Sermon - February 3, 2019
St. David of Wales Episcopal Church - Elkhart, Indiana