Pentecost 5, July 9, 2006:

Business was terrible.  The fellow had put everything into his business, but no matter what he tried, he fell deeper and deeper into a dark hole.  He even thought for a moment about just ending it all.  Almost as a last resort, he decided to talk to the minister where he attended occasionally.  He poured out his story of trying everything to make his business go.

When he had finished, the minister said, “Here’s what I want you to do.  Put a beach chair and your Bible in your car and drive to the beach.  Take the beach chair and the Bible to the water’s edge, sit down in the chair, and put the Bible in your lap.  The wind will rifle the pages, but finally the open Bible will come to rest on a page.  Look down at the page and read the first line.  That will be your answer and will tell you what to do.”

A year later the businessman went back to the minister and brought his wife and children.  He was wearing a Brook’s Brothers suit; his wife had on a fur coat and was dripping in diamonds.  The children were shining.  The businessman pulled an envelope stuffed with money out of his pocket and handed it to the minister as a donation in thanks for his advice.

The minister recognized the benefactor and asked, “So, you did as I suggested?”

“Absolutely,” said the businessman.

“You went to the beach?”

“Absolutely.”

“You sat in a beach chair with the Bible on your lap?”

“Absolutely.”

“You let the wind rifle the pages until they stopped?”

“Absolutely.”

“And what were the first words you saw?”

“Chapter 11.”

I don’t think that’s what is meant by the Collect in the Prayer Book that says, “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.”  But, we live in an age that seems to require genuine believers to prove their point of view or interpretation by quoting particular scriptures and rolling them up and using them like a club on any and all who might offer a contrary opinion or interpretation. 

It is probably true that most things can be proven by quoting scripture.  I know, for example, that God prefers baseball over any other game we might play.  The scripture says, “The woman when to the well with a pitcher.”  I am also very thankful that I drive one of the two cars that are mentioned in the Bible.  The scripture says, “The disciples were together in one Accord.”  The other, of course, is in the Old Testament.  The scripture says, “The roar of David’s Triumph was heard throughout the land.”  There are many other things, some of them far more crucial for our wellbeing, in the Bible.

The Gospel today is about one of the most interesting experiences Jesus had in his preaching days.  He went home, went to church on the Sabbath, and was invited to teach and preach in the synagogue.  People were astounded and some of them said, “Who does he think he is?  We know his Momma and Daddy and his sisters and brothers.  We watched him grow up.  He even stayed for dinner a few times at our house.  I think he has risen above his raisin’.”  His response was that a prophet was not without honor except in his own hometown, among his own people, and in his own house.  It may have been that some of his brothers and sisters were among those asking the questions.

I can tell you that it isn’t easy to preach and teach in your hometown.  I tried it.  I was always “L’il Tommy, the boy from Thompson Valley.”  I had courted that cute Snider girl from down North Tazewell, had gone to school, married that cute girl, fathered a couple of equally cute girls who gratefully took after their mother, had felt the call to ordained ministry, attended seminary, received my shingle, and was told that I knew something.  Then God, with an amazing sense of humor, sent me to Tazewell to get me off that self-made pedestal.  There are few things as humbling as trying to say something profound in front of people who “knew you when.”  What I learned from that experience is that the only authority we can have, whether in our hometown or anywhere else, comes from service.  We do what we do because God asks us to do it.  Our claims to love God are always followed by instructions.  “Feed my sheep.  Tend my flock.  Love your enemies.  Do good to those who wish you harm.  Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers.”

The problem with the hometown folks in Nazareth was not that they knew Jesus.  It was that they did not want their usual way of thinking and believing disturbed.  It was their lack of faith that limited what Jesus could do with them and for them.

We are sometimes guilty of that same thing.  Why can’t things be like they were?  What will need to change in my behavior if I change what I believe?  We become skeptical of any message that sounds different from what we have grown accustomed to hearing.  But, when we stop long enough to think it through, we realize that problems (our own or those in the world beyond us) are not solved by staying with what makes us comfortable.  We grow and become more of the person God in Christ wants us to be when our thinking is challenged.  We grow in our caring and in our love for neighbors when we become willing to give up cherished beliefs.  Fundamentalism, Christian or otherwise, without a willingness to be open to the “God of the much more,” stops conversation, people resort to shouting matches, and that which is meant to edify and enlighten becomes a club used to subdue the other.  It never works!

So, what do we make of this man who returned to his hometown to preach and teach?  His understanding of God had moved him beyond just a blind adherence to his own traditions.  He saw that his ministry was to teach people new insights into the possibilities of the human spirit without abandoning the law or the prophets.  He simply asked that they make love the new measure of orthodoxy.  He asks that we do the same.

Will Jesus be able to do miracles here?  I believe he has, he does in the present, and will in the future.  That’s because I believe we will struggle to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  I do not believe our “faith” will be something that stops us from growing spiritually.  If we choose to learn from history, one of the things we find over and over is that yesterday’s heresy tends to become today’s Gospel. 

These are challenging times for us.  I pray we will be open to each other and will continue the conversation.  It does little good to shout.  That sells newspapers and increases the ratings for “talking-heads TV programs,” but it does nothing for the mission God has given us to perform.  I pray we will get back to that work, be open to each other, give love a change to work in us and through us, and not cause Jesus the Christ to be amazed by our unbelief.  And even if we cannot honor the prophets who may come among us from time to time, we can at least welcome them.  Amen.