“Home Field Advantage”
4 Epiphany C –
Luke 4:21-30
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
During the sports season, no matter what the sport, there is always a lot of talk about “home field advantage.” The term refers to the benefits the home team receives just because it is playing on its own field, court, or ice. When people are trying predict who is going to win a particular game, home field advantage is always in the mix.
It may not decide the game, but the home field can be a key factor. The home team has less travel time so they are more rested. Playing at home, players know the quirks and “secrets” of the field. Knowing how to play a fly ball sailing high against the white backdrop of the Metrodome, or caroming off the Green Monster at
But the most important home field advantage is the crowd. If you’ve to Lambeau or the Dome, you know what the noise factor can do to an opposing team’s ability to communicate or concentrate. You know how the home crowd can keep the team in a game. You’ve felt it almost will the Pack back into contention when they are trailing. That’s why visiting teams always want to “take the crowd out of the game”. It eliminates a huge part of the home field advantage.
In our gospel today we hear an interesting variation on home field advantage. A situation where a friendly, supportive home crowd turns ugly, murderous. Of course, we are not talking about sporting event here. We are hearing about Jesus, just returned from his temptation by the devil in the wilderness (a whole ‘nother kind of home field advantage). He has returned to his hometown,
Luke does say, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Wow, talk about home field advantage: he’s in a familiar place. It sounds like the crowd is on his side, even though he has just made an astonishingly radical claim.
Jesus told them that he is the fulfillment of the words of the prophets. The Spirit of the Lord is upon him and he is bringing good news to the poor. He will release the captives, give sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free, forgive all debts in the year of the Lord’s favor. And that these things will be for all people of all nations -- not just for
And what is the response of the people in the synagogue? “Isn’t that nice? Good guy. Sure speaks well. Say, isn’t he Joseph’s son? Yeah, I thought so. Hmm. imagine that.”
And then Jesus surprises them -- and us. Jesus drags the narrow, self-centered attitudes and thinking behind their polite words out into the light of the gospel. Which, like a mirror, shows the people who they really are -- and it’s not pretty. He shows them that they, who know him only as Joseph’s son, do not know Jesus’ real father, nor do they know him.
Jesus has claimed he is the fulfillment of the Scriptures who has come for them, ALL PEOPLE -- not just the folks in
Jesus does not let them off the hook In verse 23 through 27 he reminds them how God has worked through the Prophets for the good of the outsider, or, if you will, the non-member. And now, because he is one of them, the good people of
I like the way Brian Stoffregen puts it when he writes of this episode: “What Jesus proclaims, he will not experience. He embodies the unconditional love of God, but he will be hated. He extends God’s love beyond
If you think about it, there’s something very child-like about the people in the synagogue. Who hasn’t seen a child break a toy rather than give it to another child, or even share it? How many of us haven’t felt a pang of anger and resentment when we’ve seen a special friend ours making friends with somebody new?
But somehow, when it comes to faith, to God’s care for us, who are the saved and who are the damned to put it in salvational terms, the emotions may be similar, but the results, the actions people take, can be something very different, something very much more ugly or violent.
How many times have you seen today’s drama played out in a congregation -- here or elsewhere? The clash between self-preservation and surrender to God? Between circling the wagons where we are and leading the wagons out into the unknown? Between judging who is in and who is out of the circle of salvation? A circle whose circumference we -- not God -- have defined.
This understanding of God comes uncomfortably close to that of he radical Islamists, the theologians of 9/11 and their ilk. They have drawn a very tight circle indeed. And impatient or not trusting the judgment of their God, they issue orders that all people outside their self-defined circle must die. On official Palestinian Authority television, Sheikh Ahmad Abu Halabiya, said: "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them – and those who stand by them . . .
Compare that to what Jesus encountered today from his own people, people who try to kill the Son of God because he claimed the possibility of salvation for all people, not just our people.
But we, today our ways of dealing with the inconvenient freedom of God’s grace and love may be less bloodthirsty, but they are equally destructive and idolatrous. If you’ve ever seen someone shunned by a congregation you know what I mean. Where a person or family is shunned they become invisible -- no one talks to them, acknowledges them, or sits by them (if they can help it). The hope is that after a while they will get the message and quietly go somewhere else. It is a quiet death, a murder of faith, with no messy bloodstains or body to dispose of.
Our desire to define for ourselves how God will work sometimes expresses itself in times of financial stress. “We need to take care of ourselves first.” It is a tempting proposition. But this too, is itself a form of shunning -- shunning the neighbor, and a shunning of the God who called us to love your neighbor as yourself. Whatever form it takes, shunning, while much less dramatic than throwing someone off a cliff, is just as fatal. Not only for the object of the shunning, but for the congregation as well. Home field advantage can quickly become a home field disadvantage.
But not if we remember that Jesus Christ is our home field. And the home field advantage is the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ. This is a home field advantage that calls us to get up from our seats and sends us out of this building bearing witness to that good news. Where that advantage will take us, only God knows. All we need to know is that we go together, as a community of faith, in His name. Amen.
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