When Jesus Disappoints

Today we consider the second half of the text we looked at last Sunday, a text that tells about Jesus going back to the town of Nazareth where he grew up and preaching his first sermon in the synagogue there. Remember that Luke began this text by telling us that everyone praised Jesus. He read from the prophet Isaiah about the Spirit of the Lord anointing a prophet to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, healing for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. In other words, the prophet was anointed to proclaim the Lord’s blessing. Then Jesus said that all of that was being fulfilled right then. And, as we’ll read in a moment, everyone in the synagogue was amazed and spoke well of Jesus.

After all he was a hometown boy who made good and whose fame might benefit them. He promised things that sounded wonderful and the folks in the synagogue naturally assumed that the good news of what Jesus promised applied to them. But then he disappointed them by giving some specific examples, examples that showed God’s favor and care are not restricted to a special group.

In one of his examples Jesus recalled for his listeners the famine that occurred during the time of the great prophet Elijah. (1 Kings 17.1-16) In order to keep the prophet alive, God sent him to “a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.” Through the eyes of the good folk sitting in that synagogue that woman had three strikes against her: she was a woman, a widow, and a gentile. In other words, they thought she didn’t deserve God’s grace but God was gracious to her.

Then Jesus talked about Naaman. (2 Kings 5.1-14) He also had three strikes. He was a leper, a gentile, and a general in the Syrian army. Leprosy was not only a painful and debilitating medical disease but also a social stigma. Lepers were excluded from public life. Naaman was not only a gentile, but also a general in the enemy’s army. To the Jewish mind Naaman was as loathsome as Osama bin Laden is to most Americans. But Jesus said God was gracious to Naaman.

That kind of preaching upset the Nazarenes. They liked thinking that God’s blessings were for them. But the news that God’s love extended to all was offensive. And it can be offensive to us, especially if we think we are better than others and expect God to recognize our goodness. So let’s read what happened when Jesus said these things and disappointed the good folk in his hometown of Nazareth.

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.

I think Jesus must have flunked his preaching classes. You’re not supposed to get a congregation all upset, especially in your first sermon to them. But Jesus broke all the rules for good preaching. Didn’t he know that before you preach hard things you have to win over a congregation and build up their trust and affection? But, no! He just comes home to Nazareth and opens his mouth and all hell breaks loose.

At my first church I was privileged to serve with a head of staff named Dr. David Dilworth who was a most excellent preacher. David was about 30 years older then me and his son John was just a few years younger than I was at the time and just a few years behind me in seminary. When John was ordained and preached his first sermon, his father was, of course, there to hear him. I still remember David describing John’s first sermon. He used the analogy of a young pilot’s first solo flight. He said, “John took off, using most of the runway to get airborne, he circled the field carefully for 15 minutes or so, and then landed safely, bouncing a couple of times as he touched down.”

Isn’t that a neat way to describe a first sermon? And that’s the way a young preacher should preach. Didn’t someone tell Jesus that? “Go easy, man. You can get to the hard stuff later.”

What do we do with this? Isn’t that the question we need to ask? How do we deal with times when the Lord seems to be saying something to us that disappoints or challenges or offends?

Preachers complain about this problem. A seminar of preachers was talking about it one day. They lamented the way that laypeople didn’t listen to their sermons, the way their words were ignored, and their instructions not followed. “The laypeople don’t come to church to be challenged,” declared one preacher. “They come to be stroked and told a bunch of sweet sentimentalities.” Almost every preacher in the group agreed.

But unknown to them, a layperson had somehow snuck into their gathering, an older woman who stood up at that moment and said, “Speaking for all laity everywhere let me just say that if there is one thing we hate worse on a Sunday than being bumped, attacked, and challenged, it’s being bored! We live demanding lives. We find following Jesus difficult. For God’s sake, and ours, would you just tell us what God tells you to tell us?”[1]

I think in our heart of hearts we would all agree with her. At least our better selves want to know what God is really saying. But sometimes we are just unsure. We don’t like to be offended but we might even be able to take that if it was clearer. We just want to be certain about things.

Anne Lamott, one my favorite authors, wrote a column once about wanting to be more sure of things. She called a minister friend of hers and said, “My mind is on the fritz. I want God to reach down with His or Her magic wand and restore me to my former luster.”

“Good luck, Bubbie,” her friend replied. “Here’s the only thing I’m sure of: Go take care of God’s children today, and God will take care of you.”

“Yes, it’s right here, under ‘Secret of Life’ in my Owner’s Manual.”

Then her friend told her an old joke to cheer her up. “A godly woman dies and goes to her reward, and is being shown around heaven by St. Peter. They walk through meadows and fields filled with people of all ages and colors, warmed by a gentle sun, lulled by the strains of soft sweet music — black and white and Asian and Indian people, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, all of a family, laughing, resting by ponds, playing, listening — just being. And then they come to a great walled portion of heaven, miles of land surrounded by tall thick walls.

“‘Oh, that’s where the fundamentalists stay,’ said Peter. ‘It’s only nice for them when they think they’re the only ones here.’”[2]

Now that’s an old joke and lots of groups tell it with other groups being the ones behind the wall. But I like the joke as it is because I grew up fundamentalist and my mother was a card-carrying fundamentalist most of her life — proudly so. In her head she was absolutely sure about everything, especially about what God was doing.

But there was something about my mother that softened the rigid fundamentalism of her head. You see, in the church in which I was baptized, taught, and confirmed, where I preached my first sermon, and was married and later ordained into ministry, in that church for 30 years, maybe longer, there was one “nursery lady” — my mother. Almost every Sunday she took care of the babies in the nursery. Imagine how many crying kids she hugged and made smile. Imagine how many anxious parents were reassured each week by her smiling presence. Imagine — and here is where it makes the most sense — how many dirty diapers she changed. Without seeking anything for herself, she quite consciously did all of that for Jesus. My mom’s theology left a whole lot to be desired but her manner of life speaks to me still. Cleaning dirty bottoms for the Lord is a pretty good example to follow.

“Take care of God’s children today, and God will take care of you,” Anne’s friend told her. Why? Because God cares for all. My mother took care of all. Her thinking wasn’t that way but her living was.

Sometimes it takes a shock to see that God cares for all. This is the point of a wonderful short story by Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). Miss O’Connor was an author born and raised in the South of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. She was a deeply committed Christian and wrote stories filled with religious and moral questions. She wrote in an earthy style, reflecting the people and times she knew, especially the rigid classifications of people so prevalent in her time in the South.

In this story she tells about a woman named Ruby Turpin. As far as Mrs. Turpin knows, there are only three kinds of people in the world. She calls them “white trash,” “niggers,” and “good church-going folk” like her. One day while sitting in the waiting room of her doctor’s office, Ruby Turpin saw a fat, ugly girl with a bad complexion reading a book. The girl kept staring at Mrs. Turpin which was making her extremely uncomfortable. The girl didn’t fit any of Ruby’s rigid classifications but mostly it was the staring. It was driving Ruby crazy.

All of sudden without warning, the girl threw her book at Ruby, hitting her right between the eyes. Then the girl jumped at her, grabbed Ruby by the throat, and yelled, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.” The girl was quickly sedated and taken away, while respectable old Ruby Turpin bit her lip, her world deeply shaken.

On towards evening that day, she was still overcome by what had happened. She had always told Jesus that she was real happy with the way he had made her — not like other people. But she couldn’t shake the notion that somehow it had been Jesus talking to her through the lunatic girl. So she went out to the hog pen on her farm and in a rage she let Jesus have it. “How am I a hog?” she demanded. “Exactly how am I like them?” And in a final rage she roared, “Who do you think you are [calling me that]?”

Maybe sometimes we should be so angry at Jesus. For then the vision came. She stood transfixed beneath a crimson sky and noticed it was marked by a long purple streak. A visionary light settled in her eyes and she saw as she had never seen before. Here’s how Miss O’Connor wrote the story.

“She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself … had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.”[3]

The vision faded. Mrs. Turpin walked back on the darkening path to the house. “In the woods around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah.”

Flannery O’Connor called her story “Revelation.” The “revelation” to Mrs. Turpin was that God is bigger than she thought, God’s salvation is grander than she believed, and God is at work in the world in ways more wonderful than she could see.

Sometimes the Lord is going to disappoint us. In fact, sometimes he will make us angry. So when you’re upset, pay attention. It may be a moment of revelation.

[1] William H. Willimon, “Jesus the Preacher,” Pulpit Resource 35.1 (2007): 18.

[2] Anne Lamott, “My Advent Adventure,” online, Salon, 10 Dec. 1998.

[3] Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Stories (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971) 507, 508-509.