Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio
Grace, mercy, and peace be upon you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Beloved, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated.
Now, last Sunday, if you remember, Jairus’ daughter was raised from the dead, and the woman who had a blood discharge for twelve years and had only grown worse was healed. Glorious miracles. A resurrection from the dead and then a healing of someone who had suffered for twelve long years. And then Jesus comes to His own hometown, and the reception and the results are quite different.
Notice today’s reception. As soon as He teaches in the synagogue, people begin to judge and judge completely by what they see and by what their mind is able to put together. Notice the questions they ask. “Where did this man get these things?” “What is the wisdom given to Him?” Because He had expounded some of the Scriptures. “How are such mighty works done by His hands?” Referring to miracles that Jesus had already done, which had been proclaimed around the region. “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not His sisters here with us?” “How can He who does not appear to be anything out of the ordinary, how does He who looks like all of us be God in the flesh? And for that matter, we saw Him grow up. We remember when He was toddling on his mother’s knee.” It still is the same as today, isn’t it? People ask the same exact questions. And they’re offended. They’re offended because they cannot believe with their mind, which makes perfect sense to us as believers, they cannot make sense in their mind that this is real. And Jesus’ response is quite unusual indeed. He says in verse 5 “He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief.”
It’s all fun and games until that happens. It’s interesting. When you and I are involved in proclaiming God’s message, when we’re inviting people to come to church, when we have had a wonderful conversation about spiritual things with someone and it kept a good even timbre and they thought…you could tell that your words were being absorbed by them. And that excites us. It excites us to see new people join the church, to see adults baptized, to see kids come forward and talk about their faith in their confirmation. But then when there is rejection or suffering because of connection to Christ, and then it’s not so fun and it’s not so joyful and it’s not so triumphant. And that is the kind of work that God has given unto us.
No, this is not one of those texts that says in a very negative and grumpy manner, “Go out there and preach the Gospel, because you’re gonna get rejected. It’s gonna be horrible. It’s gonna be bad. It’s going to not be received.” And it’s just a complete downer to hear such message. This is not what Jesus is saying, but this is a great temperer to your and my faith. We have heard all the excuses probably in the world when someone whom we have asked several times or someone we have talked to about the Lord has given us their litany of reasons. And then we’ve created some of our own reasons, which is kind of interesting. We’ve created reasons of our own why people aren’t coming in through the doors, and there are a whole host of reasons that are given. And none of them have anything to do with why you and I have been brought in through those doors. It’s all about why they’re not, as if they’re cut from a different bolt of cloth than we. Not at all. We are cut from the same bolt.
In the collect, did you hear what Pastor prayed? God’s power is revealed chiefly in showing mercy. Mercy. And did you hear the psalm? It talked about the difficulty of others that have oppressed the psalmist and then he revels in the mercy shown. The people of Nazareth weren’t about mercy. They were about ensuring that everything appeared copacetic. It’s supposed to be a certain way. God’s mercy is shown in your life. You are the reason God wishes to send you out with such good news.
Consider Paul in the second reading this morning in 2nd Corinthians. Paul has had unbelievable revelation. Look at the other eleven apostles. None of them had a conversion experience, but Paul, oh my goodness, Paul had the penultimate conversion experience. He had the experience on the road to Damascus where he was struck down with blindness, heard God speak to him, had his eyes cleared by someone, and then is whisked off to the wilderness to be instructed by our Lord and then is sent back to continue the work. Now if those aren’t believable, miraculous things, there’s not a lot left. And yet, having been revealed in such a dramatic way, Paul in this reading talks about this thorn in his flesh unto which he has prayed to God numerous times, not just three as if that was all that he prayed. Prayed to God and God did not deliver him from that adversity, and rather instructed Paul through such adversity that power is made perfect in your weakness.
So don’t give up. This isn’t about a downer. Satan wants you and me to think in terms of, well, if it gets rejected and we get spurned and it’s not received and it’s pushed away, we must not be doing something right, or our message must need to be tweaked and adjusted, or we must need to change something. Go back to why you are sitting in the pew this morning. You have been shown mercy. You have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. You have reveled in His great grace shown to a sinner such as you. You have been given all that is needed, but know that not everyone will receive such good news in the manner by the mercy that which you have received it. And that is difficult for our flesh to deal with.
All of us want to be liked. Pastors are no different. All people want to be liked. We want to put our ….I mean, of course, there’s always those grumpy ones. You’ve kinda got to shake your head at and scratch and go, “Their life is just lived in a grump.” For the most part, most of us wish to be and desire to be enjoyed in life by someone else, and we wish to give that back to them. But when God’s message and our great gift of faith gets in the way, then we wish to do something so that it’s not rejected, because we feel like, if it’s rejected, then we’re rejected, and that’s completely too self-centered. It will be rejected.
Notice Ezekiel. Can you imagine if you got the job that Ezekiel got? “Ezekiel, go and preach to this people during this time of fairly peaceful era,” and it was, prior to Ezekiel’s preaching, fairly peaceful. “You go there and you preach that there’s gonna be some bad stuff coming, that the entire nation of Israel is going to be exiled to Babylon for seventy years.” And notice what God says to him. “Whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house, they will know that a prophet has been among them.”
No, you don’t come at any difficult, challenging situation with someone that you’re trying to bring them into the church and encourage them to come and hear what God has done. No, you don’t want to take that and say, “Well, I’m going to just throw it at them and if they reject me, great, because now I can at least say to myself I’ve done my job.” Checking a block. That’s guilt driven, isn’t it, and that’s not what God wishes. God wishes to drive you out to those people with joy. Joy not because you might get rejected, but joy because of what God has done in you, how God has shaped you, culled you, set you apart, and the most miraculous of all, that He keeps calling you back. Calling you back when you’re stubborn, selfish, grumpy. Calling you back when you’re angry. Putting balm on your wounds. Binding up those hearts that get broken and torn apart so easily by ourselves and others. You’ve received such mercy and that does produce and yield joy. That’s what drives you and me out. And do not fear, “Well, our service is too long. It’s too formal.” We have close communion. Do not fear these things, brothers and sisters. God does His work through His Word, and none of those things about which we can get wrapped up kept you away or me away. We were drawn near because of mercy and faith that apprehended and trusted in such gloriously given mercy, knowing full well we desired it, without God, no, but we learned of what we lacked and He fulfilled it in Christ. That’s what we send out in our message.
Yes, it will be fun and games at times and great joy, and it’ll be hard and arduous like Ezekiel. Christ Himself met with it, didn’t He, in His own hometown where you would think they who knew the Scriptures that Jesus spoke and turned their back on it. You see, we live in a nation that’s very fat with this message. Yes, there are still several people out there who have no idea about Christianity, but for the most part we live in a nation that’s fat with Christianity. And being so fat with Christianity, there will be rejection and complete disavowal of such a message of mercy in Christ. That is the world in which God has sent you and me into. He’s not called us to go overseas. He’s called us here to do the work that He’s given you and me to accomplish, and He promises power will be shown in our weakness. And the greatest power shown in weakness was God allowing the sinful creature to curse Him, crucify Him, mock and kill Him. And yet, that is your and my power; is it not? And yet that is your and my hope; is it not? And yet, that is your and my confidence; is it not? It is fun and games in Christ, and we will not be thwarted.
Go in peace. Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting.
Amen.
