During our ministry trip to the Middle East we toured around Nazareth one day. The Church of the Annunciation was like a massive modern European cathedral to the second power—phenomenal art from many nations decorating the walls and very intriguing architecture. As we wandered about we came to a small medieval church structure that is supposed to be the site of the 1st century synagogue where Jesus entered after coming back from his wilderness temptation and read from Isaiah 61.
Luke 4: 16He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 20Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
The amazing thing to me was that despite all the pilgrims who were roaming everywhere around the site, no one came into this little stone church for close to 45 minutes while our team read from these scriptures and prayed for one another. I think we all had a sense in those minutes of being re-commissioned by the Spirit of God with essentially the same mission given to Jesus. As his Body, we are empowered to carry on his continuing work as his kingdom agents (sometimes even like secret agents!) in this broken world that he so dearly loves.
One of the points that hit us so powerfully that day was the fact that the people of Nazareth spoke so glowingly of Jesus after he read the above passage, but that just moments later they were so filled with rage against him that they tried to throw him down from the precipice of the hill upon which Nazareth was built (see actually saw this place as we initially drove into the area). What was it that drove these fellow townspeople of Jesus into such hatred and anger? It was Jesus’ decision to not bask in the praise they were heaping upon him, but to instead challenge the religious and ethnic pride that was hiding just beneath the surface of their conscious lives. Jesus had come to intentionally export the good news of God beyond the religious and ethnic boundaries that the Jewish people had artificially drawn around the love of God for all people groups (professed Christians of our day take note!). And to make his point, he didn’t even have to say that this was a new idea in the mind of God, but he simply referred to a couple of Old Testament stories that revealed that this kind of trans-nationalism has always dwelt in the Father’s heart.
Luke 4: 25I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian." 28All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. 30But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
If I understand my geo-history correctly, the widow that Elijah blessed was a Philistine (a Palestinian! one of the very people groups our team had come to learn from and bless.) with 'bad theology' and 'bad blood' flowing in her veins. And Naaman… he was a pagan military commander! Jesus decided from the very start of his ministry that he was going to challenge head-on the racism and spiritual pride that lurks in our broken hearts and fallen minds.
The book of Luke goes on to tell the story of Jesus that can be viewed as an aggressive divine mission to bless people that the religious elite of his day viewed as cursed by God and ‘unblessable’. Following are the example from Luke’s gospel:
5.1f—Common fisherman chosen as apostles
5.12—A Leper
5.27—Levi—a tax-collector
5.31—Sinners and unrighteous who repent
5.33—Those who celebrate life (party-ers)
6.20f—The “beatitudes” of Luke—the needy, hungry, sad, rejected, slandered
6.35—Evil and ungrateful people
7.1—A Roman soldier
7.11—A dead boy and his mom (the dead seem really unblessable!)
7.36—A prostitute
8.26—An insane and demonized man
9.54—The Samaritans
11.31—The Egyptian queen
11.32—The Ninevites
14.15—The outcasts of society
15.1f.—One lost sheep
15.11—A wayward son who knew better
18.1—A persistent widow
18.9—A penitent tax-collector
18.15—Little children
19.1—A greedy tax-collector
20.20—People living under Roman occupation
And…we mustn’t forget…24.25—Unbelieving and doubting disciples. There’s still hope for me too!
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