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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
28 January 2007Lk. 4“Doctor, Cure Yourself”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Our assistant minister, Amanda Kucik Rinas, is in Virginia this Sunday; she's preparing for her ordination next Saturday.
Amanda's upcoming ceremony reminds me that, many years ago, when I myself was ordained, I was once offered the same position she now holds. As it happened, I was also offered another job at the same time, and since the second position was at the parish where I had served as a seminarian, I took that one instead.
What is interesting in retrospect is that if I had come to work here, my life would have been quite different. Among other things, I almost certainly would never have been rector of Incarnation.
Assistants are rarely called to lead the same congregation. It happens once in a great while, but not often.
I'm not sure why this is the case. A colleague of mine once speculated that when a congregation comes to know a priest as their "assistant," that perception sticks.
Even years later, when the assistant clergy go on to prominent positions in the church, members of their first parishes still think of them as "assistants."
Now perhaps a similar feeling prevailed in the hometown of Jesus. There Jesus was simply, a local boy. Notice in today's Gospel Lesson, residents of Nazareth don't refer to Jesus as a person in his own right — but as, "Joseph's son."
No wonder Jesus couldn't get respect in the place where he grew up. As he remarks, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown."
To the citizens of Nazareth, Jesus couldn't be a prophet. That was impossible. Only a few years ago, he was a child, running around with other children. How could this local boy have grown up to be someone with special knowledge of God?
The people of Nazareth didn't expect one of their own to have healing power; indeed, they were ready to shout the proverb: "Doctor, cure yourself!"
And, in a sense, Christ's former neighbors were right. In Nazareth, Jesus wasn't able to do the things that religious prophets were expected to do. Prophets in those days performed healing miracles; they preached convincingly; they conveyed to their hearers a sense that God was alive in their midst.
Christ's neighbors aren't inspired: they're disappointed and angry. They menace and threaten Jesus; they even prepare to throw him off a cliff!
Ironically, the story ends by suggesting that Christ did have extraordinary powers, after all. When his neighbors try to throw him off a cliff, Jesus is able to escape by walking through the crowd.
Yet the citizens of Galilee do raise an interesting question. Why couldn't Christ heal everyone who came to him?
Jesus wasn't the first prophet in the Bible to find that there were the limits to his power. Christ himself notes that in the midst of a famine, the great Prophet Elijah could only provide food to one widow. And at a later time when many Hebrews were afflicted with the disease of leprosy, Elijah's successor, the Prophet Elisha found that he could heal only one leper out of many. (And that leper wasn't even Hebrew.)
We might expect more from prophets who are truly called by God. We might think that if prophets could summon up the divine power at all, they could summon it up as often as the power was needed. If Elisha could cure Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy, then he could also go on and cure all the other lepers in Israel.
But, first, we should note that Elisha could do that only if God made a very different universe than the one we now have. In our actual universe, we humans are to be free to do good — to fight against poverty and disease in God's name. Because of our freedom, though, God can't intervene to fix every problem with a miraculous solution that would leave no room for humans to work.
Because this is how the world is, miracles don't upset the world order; rather, they serve a different purpose, miracles point to truths beyond the ordinary.
So the Prophets performed acts of healing to give signs: signs of God's compassion for those who suffer. The healing miracles of Jesus are in the same tradition; Jesus didn't heal everyone; for only a limited number of miracles were necessary to point to the power of God.
There is another lesson to be learned here, however. This lesson explains a key element of our own lives of faith: our need to look beyond ourselves when things aren't going the way we want them to.
Have you ever felt as Jesus must have felt? Have you ever felt discouraged when you tried to help somebody out — and your efforts weren't appreciated? For example, have you had an aged relative who refused to follow medical advice and who was therefore a constant source of worry to you?
While our Crisis Support Group will be looking today at ways to address such problems, there are no easy strategies if you want to help someone who refuses to accept your help. Christ's fellow citizens of Nazareth kept Jesus from ministering to them because they didn't want to admit that he had received God's call.
And even when we have good intentions to respond to the pain of the world, our acts of charity may still seem far too small. Even the rich and powerful are unable to stop the forces of evil. What can we who aren't powerful do? How can we relieve the suffering of victims of tyranny, and war, and prejudice?
When we feel discouraged about the state of the world, maybe we can take guidance from Christ's failure to help his neighbors in Galilee. For even Jesus wasn't able to heal everyone.
And when Christ's powers were blocked, he had to be satisfied with saying what he knew to be true, and he had to be satisfied with symbolic actions such as standing up to the angry mob.
In times of failure, we, too, have to be content with symbolic gestures. After all, any actions we make on behalf of those we care about do some good.
Visiting the lonely, making small donations to charities, volunteering for an outreach project: such acts are signs that remind you that your life is about more than yourself. While these good deeds are no substitute for more comprehensive solutions to the larger problems of the world, still, as Jesus himself recognized, doing these things is better than doing nothing.
Very much better. They are signs of a greater power, the spirit of God at work in our world. Such habits remind us that there is more to life than pleasing ourselves.
For the crowd that taunted Jesus, "Doctor, cure yourself!" had a point. We can't cure ourselves. But by symbolic acts of kindness, by gestures that point to the love of the transcendent God, we can share in God's work of healing.
And, at the same time, we can remind ourselves that, as St. James says, "All good gifts come from above, from the Father of lights" ...
So, if sometime, you're having trouble making progress on a problem, and you're frustrated and dissatisfied, and you feel the negative forces of inertia and decay closing in around you, as the crowd surrounded Jesus on that cliff: don't give up.
Don't surrender to the voice within you that says, "You can't win" ... "You can't fight city hall" ... "You can't change the world" ...
Instead make that gesture of good will and be thankful you could do that. Don't try to cure yourself. Do what you can with what you have, and leave the rest to the Father of lights!
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.