Epiphany 4, Year C -- Sunday Sermon

Luke 4:21-30

Shortly after I was ordained to the priesthood, I had the opportunity to return to the parish that had sponsored me for ordination: as it happens, another Saint Stephen’s. I’d been a member of that parish for about twelve years, from my early twenties. There I’d learned a great deal of the faith and practice of the Church, and had gradually become aware of my own vocation to the priesthood. The congregation had been warmly and prayerfully supportive as I negotiated the various steps in the process along the way to seminary and ordination.

In some ways, returning there after ordination to say Mass and preach the sermon was a bittersweet experience. Everyone there who remembered me seemed happy and proud. Our John is now a priest. At the same time, I knew I could never go back there. In the Episcopal Church, with very few exceptions, it’s forbidden for priests to return and serve as the rector or clergy on the staff of the parish that raised them up and sponsored them for ordination.

When you offer yourself to the Church for ordination as a deacon or priest, the default assumption is that you will exercise your ministry in another parish, or series of parishes, to which you will come initially as someone sent from outside. This is one reason why the ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons is called the apostolic ministry. The word apostolic comes from the Greek verb “to send,” and apostles are by definition “those who are sent.”

I’m pleased to report that this post-ordination visit to my parish-of-origin went smoothly and pleasantly, with no blow-ups of the sort that today’s Gospel records of our Lord’s visit to the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth. But there are some parallels between the two situations. Just as the Church has discerned that priests and deacons exercise their ministries most effectively in places other than where they came from, so our Lord proclaims to the people of Nazareth, “No prophet is accepted in his own country.”

So far, everything has been going well in what appears to be the first return visit of Jesus to Nazareth after his baptism and the beginning of his public ministry. As we heard last Sunday, on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue, read from the scroll of the Torah, and commented on the text. Today’s Gospel picks up with the townspeople responding with approval: “all spoke well of him and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’” The text gives us no reason to suppose that this last question, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” indicates anything other than pride in a hometown boy who has done well.

Strangely, then, perhaps knowing that they’re not saying everything that they’re thinking, Jesus challenges them: “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb: Physician, heal yourself.” Actually, we do have independent attestation of such a proverb in the ancient world, among both Jews and Greeks. It was something one might to say to a meddlesome person offering unwanted advice or assistance: attend to your own problems before you try to solve mine. One Greek version reads: “Physician, see to the sores on your own body.”

But immediately our Lord makes it clear that he means something else, when he adds: “What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here also in your own country.” In other words: “Physician, why are you devoting your time and attention to those outsiders? Heal your own people, here in your own home town!”

To these imputed thoughts, Our Lord makes the response: “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” In other words: “You’re speaking well of me now, but if I were to do here what I have done in Capernaum and the other places to which I’ve been sent, you wouldn’t accept me.”

And then he expands his point by citing the prophets Elijah and Elisha. There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, but Elijah was sent only to a Gentile widow in the land of Sidon. There were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha, but Elisha cleansed only the Gentile leper Naaman the Syrian. In this way, our Lord implicitly identifies himself as a prophet after the fashion of Elijah and Elisha; and he also implies that his mission, too, will reach in some fashion beyond Israel to embrace the Gentiles. At these words, the people’s approval turns into outrage. Barely escaping with his life, Jesus continues on his way.

The early Church community for which Luke was writing his Gospel would have recognized this episode as prefiguring some of their own experiences. In their lifetime, the Church has begun reaching out to the Gentiles and has established missions throughout the Mediterranean world. This opening to the Gentiles has occasioned outrage among many, however, who think that the apostles – and remember that all the original apostles were Jews – have not concentrated their efforts in sufficiently in the Jewish community and have instead taken their ministry and message to the outside world.

One implication of this episode in the Gospels is that as the Church we’re always called to conceive of our mission in global terms. For example, speaking personally, I’m never impressed when charitable fund raising organizations make the boast that every cent one gives them will go to help people here in this country, or indeed here in this state – as though people in other parts of the world are less worthy and less deserving of our assistance.

Likewise, in our efforts at parish development, we need to beware the temptation to focus our attention inward, on ourselves and on the needs of our own community, to the exclusion of those outside. A significant part of our mission as the church is to reach out beyond our walls to those who may need our help, regardless of what’s in it for us. Paradoxically, study after study shows that churches grow most when they stop focusing inwardly on their own needs and start thinking about how to discern and fulfill their mission in the wider community.

Just as bishops, priests, and deacons are called to exercise an apostolic ministry as those sent to new communities, so all of us together, as the Church, are called to be an apostolic community, sent out to share the good news of Christ with all people. Pray, then, for the grace and courage to embrace that call.