How Jesus Subverted Nationalist Religion and Almost Got Himself Killed
A Sermon on Luke 4:16-30 and Isaiah 61
Note: I wrote this sermon last week and preached it with (this was a participatory congregation!) the lovely Edgewood Church, in Atlanta, on Sunday, 23 March, the 3rd Sunday of Lent. The Luke 4 text was selected by the pastors of the church.
Luke 4:16-30
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 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.’ ” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 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, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 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. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Isaiah 61
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
5 Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks;
foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines,
6 but you shall be called priests of the Lord;
you shall be named ministers of our God;
you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations,
and in their riches you shall glory.
7 Because your* shame was double
and dishonor was proclaimed as your lot,
therefore in your land you shall possess a double portion;
everlasting joy shall be yours.
8 For I, the Lord, love justice,
I hate robbery and wrongdoing;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their descendants shall be known among the nations
and their offspring among the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge
that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my whole being shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to spring up before all the nations.
(*Reading “your” instead of “their” in Isa 61:7, to refer to the addressees of this text. )
It is hard to overstate the significance of this passage for those who study Christian ethics and the life of Jesus. For many of us this passage is the hermeneutical key, the crux interpretum, for understanding Jesus’ message. But a fresh reading of it this week has led me to some new conclusions about it.
There are three primary ways to contextualize the passage. In Luke, and in the Gospels as a whole.
1/ In Luke, as you have seen in your Lenten series, this passage follows Jesus’ baptism by John, the divine voice of blessing, and the harrowing 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. This is what Jesus has to say, first thing, after all that. His mission as Beloved Son. His declaration after 40 really tough days of temptation in the wilderness. You might say that after being elected by God the Father, after surviving 40 days of temptation and hunger in the wilderness, this is the Son’s inaugural address. Attention must be paid.
2/ Mk and Mt at this exact spot in the story offer a summary of Jesus’ action and message, like this in Mk 1:14-15: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God and saying, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.”
This passage in Luke feels like an expansion of this summary message. That is to say, Luke spells out further what Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God looked like. Whatever Lk 4 is doing, it is connected to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom.
3/ Third context. This happens in Nazareth. His hometown. His home synagogue. Attentive readers of the Gospels will know that Jesus had considerable trouble at home and in his hometown. Let’s look over at Mk 3:19-31. It is important that we not romanticize his relations with his family. His ministry is taking off and his family is worried! Consider that as we get into this passage.
OK, now we are ready to tackle the text.
Lk 4:14-15 He’s back in his area – Galilee – well north of Judea and Jerusalem, it’s where he’s from. And it goes well at first.
16-17 Goes to his home synagogue as was his custom. He would have had to be invited to stand up and read. Torah scrolls contained separate books – Isaiah is a very long one – he chooses to go to what scholars call 3rd Isaiah. It’s the fantastic redemptive part. Filled with promises of the rescue of Jews from exile and even bigger visions of a restored world. It’s the Jewish-prophetic vision of the healing of the world, of the kingdom of God, or at least the seedlings of that vision. Go home and read Isaiah 56-66 today. Drop everything and you will see what I mean!
18-19 Luke gives us Jesus reading just the first 1.5 verses of Isaiah 61.
20-22 Dramatic pause. Jesus then claims that today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. All spoke well of him. Whatever these words meant to them, they were happy about it. They are amazed but happy. More on that in a second. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
23-24 Is this statement from someone in the crowd what sets Jesus off? Why does it seem that he starts in after them in a confrontational way? What’s the back story? Is it like, well great, you’re happy with me now, but you weren’t before, and wait till you hear what I am about to tell you!
25-27 He tells two stories, about Elijah and Elisha. What do they have in common? This: At times of great need in Israel, great yearning for divine rescue and help, God aided gentiles, in a surprising way. The suggestion is that this is what is about to happen now.
And that is enraging for a reason that can only be clear if we go back and read Isaiah 61 more fully. Look at what it actually says, especially the parts that Luke does not have Jesus quote:
61:2 day of vengeance of our God – Jesus left that out
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion
4 to rebuild the ruined cities of Israel
5 others will be there to serve Israel
6 you will enjoy “the wealth of nations” – you get their stuff, after they had dispossessed you
7 justice will come, which looks like bringing them low, in proportion to how God’s people had been brought low by their gentile conquerors. Here the your/their translation decision in v. 7 really matters
8 justice looks like punishing the bad guys and rewarding Israel
11 you will be vindicated before all the nations
I had not fully noticed how much Isaiah 61 is clearly about the vindication of the Jewish people in the sight of the gentiles who had so harmed them. This particular text does not offer a cosmic tikkun olam (healing of the whole world) vision. This is a narrower vision addressed to an aggrieved Jewish people.
Back to LK 4 – Jesus is saying NONE OF THAT. In fact, his use of the stories of the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian communicate just the opposite message, really. Fulfillment, then, if this is the fulfillment that Jesus is promising, is, shockingly enough, not good news — at least from a certain perspective, the perspective of a once again aggrieved people yearning for national deliverance and triumph over the enemies of the moment.
And that is why THIS happens:
28-29 The crowd turns on him in its entirety and runs him out of the synagogue and almost off a cliff. In his home synagogue. Was his family there? What did they say? This is exceedingly terrifying and violent.
30 Somehow he brazens it out. He gets out. Miracle? Toughness? Last minute flinch? So he survives the day. But what a day it was!
TAKEAWAYS
1/ The title I was offered – “An Old Blueprint” is wrong. Or only half-right. Jesus actually takes Isaiah 61 and reads it against itself. A close reading of Isa 61 shows that the hope in this text was for national deliverance and vindication. While you can read the first 1.5 verses more cosmically, as Jesus perhaps did as he cited it that day, the rest of it is not cosmic. It is national. Jesus quotes only the plausibly cosmic part, then turns the overall Isaiah 61 text inside out – and that is the fulfillment he is talking about. This is so enraging that the crowd turns on him violently.
2/ Let’s zero in a bit more and give some language to this. The hope of redemption found in this particular text and perhaps in the crowd at the Nazareth synague that day could be described as Jewish religious nationalist. God is on our side and will not just rescue us but lead us to triumph over our national enemies. This was in response to calamity, war, exile, so much suffering, so much death. It is the most natural thing in the world to end up with this version of redemption hope — with this version of God.
3/ Jesus’ vision was instead of a kingdom for everyone. Even gentiles receive God’s grace. They did back in the day, Jesus says, and they will in the redemption that is now coming. Everyone is included. Indeed, if we Jewish folks orient ourselves wrongly, implies Jesus, we might just miss God’s grace. That is so outrageous! How dare he say that!?
4/ Perhaps you are aware of some trends operating in our land today where some folks are dreaming of national redemption, with the Christian God being on (half of) America’s side rescuing (half of) America from their domestic enemies in a vengeful divine triumph led by God’s anointed man. Perhaps you know some folks who believe that their long-awaited kingdom has now dawned. Ring any bells?
5/ Jesus negated that vision. He said God is not the God of our group or our nation or any nation but of the whole world. And God offers grace to unlikely people like gentile widows in Zarephath and a leprous military commander of another nation.
6/ Every time we try to domesticate God, turning God into our tribal deity, we get it exactly wrong. God is always bigger than we imagine. God’s dream is always bigger than our dreams.
7/ And behold Jesus, brave, dear Jesus, knowing that by saying what he said, he risked immediate death. And though he survived that particular day, he knew that a Cross was coming. To stand for a redemption that includes everyone is a very dangerous thing to do. Let us not forget that on this 3rd Sunday of Lent.
David P. Gushee is the Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University since 2007, Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit (Free University), and Senior Research Fellow at its partner school, International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 30 books, including the bestsellers Kingdom Ethics and Changing Our Mind. His other most notable works are Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies, After Evangelicalism, and most recently, The Moral Teachings of Jesus. Learn more at davidpgushee.com.
Interesting
So much truth that needs to be heard especially now. Thank you