Perspective: How to Start a Riot at Church

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

How to Start a Riot at Church

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Romans 12:3 (NRSV)

You're right, I get it
It all makes sense, you're the perfect person
So right, so wrong
Let's all live in your imaginary life

From "I Get It" by Chevelle

Some people claim that they like to listen to preachers who step on their toes, figuratively speaking.  Those people are lying.  I suspect that what they really like is to listen to preachers who step on the toes of people they especially dislike.  Though most people probably don't really mind when someone preaches against the flaws they're willing to own, people become rather perturbed when a sermon hits a little too close to home, bringing to light the things they're trying really hard not to acknowledge.  Still, I imagine it's a rare occurrence when a preacher delivers a sermon offensive enough to incite a congregation to violence.

Jesus once preached a sermon so utterly offensive that the congregation tried to throw Him off a cliff.  What's truly remarkable about the incident is the fact that He happened to be preaching at the synagogue in His own hometown!¹

Jesus has just started His public ministry.  He has been traveling throughout the region of Galilee, preaching in synagogues and miraculously healing people.  At one point, His journeys lead Him to His hometown of Nazareth, and on the Sabbath day He goes to the local synagogue to speak.  He stands up in front of the congregation and reads a passage from the Book of Isaiah.

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;

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor...²

Jesus closes the scroll, and the congregation watches with baited breath as He sits down to preach.  He says, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."  As Jesus preaches, the congregation is clearly impressed with the beautiful words coming from this homegrown prophet, whom some people are beginning to think might actually be the long-awaited Messiah who will defeat the Romans and restore Israel to it's former glory.

As the congregation beams with pride, the sermon takes a turn for the worse when Jesus says the following:

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."  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.

And that's when the riot started.

Because we live nearly two thousand years later in a very different culture, some of the offensiveness of Jesus' words is lost on us, so I will attempt to explain why the first-century Nazarenes would have been so angry with Jesus.

One subtle but noteworthy detail is the exact point at which Jesus stops reading.  Jesus reads the prophet's proclamation of "the year of the Lord's favor," but He stops just short of reading the declaration of "the day of vengeance of our God" against the enemies of Israel.³  If Jesus had read just a little bit further, the congregation would have heard a prophecy that the Israelites would someday be served by foreigners.⁴  Basically, Jesus is declaring the fulfillment of the prophet's good news of recovery, release, and freedom, while disavowing the supremacy of the Jewish people and the subjugation of non-Jewish people.

Assuming that the prophet was truly anointed by the Holy Spirit to speak good news on behalf of God, does Jesus close the scroll when He should keep reading, or did the prophet keep speaking when he should have closed his mouth?  I suppose that's a question for another day.

More overtly offensive are the two biblical stories Jesus calls to mind.

The prophet Elijah lived in a time when the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel turned away from God because the king and queen promoted idolatry in the land.  Elijah announced that God had stricken the land with a drought as judgment for the people's unfaithfulness, and the prophet had to go into hiding.  When his own source of water dried up, God arranged for a widow to take care of him in a neighboring country.  When Elijah arrived, he found her collecting sticks so that she could cook one last meal for her son and herself before her supplies ran out.  Miraculously, the widow's flour and oil never ran out, and the three had enough food until the drought ended.⁵

Years later, another king of Israel was visited by Naaman, the general of an enemy army who had been very successful in his military campaigns because God had blessed him.  Naaman had a skin disease, and an Israelite girl he had captured as a slave told him that a prophet in Israel could cure him.  At first, the king panicked, thinking that Naaman was trying to incite a conflict.  When Elijah's successor Elisha heard about the king's problem, he sent for Naaman and instructed him to bathe in the Jordan River seven times.  After some initial objections, Naaman followed Elisha's instructions, and he was cured of his disease.⁶

These stories are offensive for two reasons.  First, the stories are offensive because they depict the Israelites in a negative light.  In both stories, the Israelites are enduring punishment because of their unfaithfulness to God.  Second, the stories are offensive because, at the same time, they depict non-Jewish people in a positive light.  The widow unknowingly became a servant of God by caring for God's prophet, and she was blessed because of her faithfulness.  The military leader became a devout believer in the God of Israel because he was miraculously healed.

The Jewish people understood themselves to be God's chosen people, but many forgot that they were blessed to be a blessing to the rest of the world.  Many saw themselves as insiders and all others as outsiders, forgetting that God promised their ancestor Abraham, "All the nations of the earth will be blessed because of your descendants."⁷  The Nazarenes, to whom Jesus is preaching, might be tempted to see themselves as insiders among the insiders if the Messiah is indeed someone who grew up in their town.  They think that Jesus will give them special treatment, but Jesus counts himself among the prophets who called their own people to repentance.

Basically, the Nazarenes become enraged with Jesus because nothing infuriates good salt-of-the-earth religious folk like an attack on their sense of superiority.

I think that a lot of the criticisms Jesus makes about first-century Jews could also be made about twenty-first-century Christians, for we too think that we're special to God.  We are right; all other people are wrong.  We're the sheep; they're the goats.  We're going to Heaven; they're going to Hell.

We all like to think that we're better than other people, but Christ calls us to surrender our pride.  We must never forget that God loves all people, and not only people of a certain religion or nationality.  We must remember that, if we are chosen by God, we are chosen for a purpose and that, if we are blessed by God, we are blessed to be a blessing to others.  The good news is that there is enough room for all people in the Kingdom of God, but the bad news is that there is no room for our inflated egos.


Notes:

1. This perspective is based primarily on Luke 4:14-30.  Quotations from this passage are taken from the NRSV.
2. Isaiah 61:1-2 (NRSV)
3. Isaiah 61:2 (NRSV)
4. Isaiah 61:5-6
5. 1 Kings 17:1-16
6. 2 Kings 5:1-14
7. Genesis 22:18 (CEB)

The photograph of the Isaiah scroll is public domain.