Loving God, you know us better than we even know ourselves, yet you shower us with your love and grace.  Help us to recognize the gifts that you have given us, even as we hear and answer your call to service; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    In the readings that we have heard today, we learn an awful lot about human nature, as well as about the ways in which God works.  For the most part the things that we learn about human nature are not particularly good.  Take, for example, the second reading that we heard today from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  It is known as the “love chapter” and is often read at weddings.  Yet, quite often we read it without realizing what was going on at the time.

    You see, the people at Corinth had taken the amazing gifts of the Spirit and had turned them into something to fight over (1 Cor. 12-14).  Some had been given the gift of speaking in tongues.  Some had been given the gift of healing or the gift of wisdom.  Some had been given the gift of faith or the gift of prophecy.  And, rather than rejoicing in the gifts that God had given to all of them, some people were claiming that their gifts were better than the others.  This was particularly true of those who were able to speak in tongues.  They were filled with pride and thought themselves to be more faithful than those who could not speak in tongues.

    This is why Paul writes a whole chapter about love.  He is basically saying, “Listen, people!  I don’t care how great you think your gifts are.  Unless you are filled with the love of Christ, you’re missing the point.  The greatest gift is not to speak in tongues or to prophesy, or even to have wisdom and knowledge.  The greatest gift is love, which must be there with any other gifts.”  Leave it to us to focus instead on who is the greatest!

    Human nature also doesn’t come out looking so good in today’s first reading.  What we heard was the call of Jeremiah, who was still quite young at the time.  He, like many of us, heard God’s call and immediately started to give excuses why he couldn’t do it.  It doesn’t seem to matter that God knows Jeremiah intimately or even that God will empower Jeremiah to do what God has called him to do.  Jeremiah protests that he’s too young and he doesn’t know how to speak.  And wouldn’t we have the same protest if we were in Jeremiah’s position?

    Yet, whether God is calling Jeremiah to be a prophet or calling us to make use of our gifts and share the good news about Jesus, our God provides the gifts and the words and the strength to do whatever God is calling us to do.  Human nature, though, refuses to trust that God will give all that is needed or to believe that God can do anything through us when we open ourselves to God’s power.

    A little bit more about human nature from today’s gospel: Did you notice how quickly the people of Nazareth changed their attitude?  One minute they are amazed at Jesus’ gracious words and are speaking well of him.  The next minute, they are so enraged that they want to kill him.  What on earth would make people change so quickly?

    The crux of the matter seems to be that they want special treatment from Jesus, and he refuses to give it to them.  They want to see some special miracles.  They want Jesus to do exactly as they tell him.  They want Jesus to look after his own.  They want their own private Messiah who won’t waste his time on outsiders, or on the hated Gentiles.  And so, as soon as they perceive that the benefits of Jesus’ mission will accrue to others and not to them, they are filled with rage.

    I can’t help but think of the ongoing conversation in many congregations about whether we are truly in mission for others or simply here to “look after our own.”  Do we, like the people in Nazareth, want our own private Jesus?  Do we want a Jesus who does what we tell him, rather than the other way around?  Do we want to have everything for our own benefit, rather than for the benefit of others?  It would seem that selfishness is also a common feature of human nature!

    We are invited today to look at ourselves and to see if some of the same characteristics presented in the Scriptures are present in us.  However, at the same time we are asked to listen to God’s perspective.  You see, at least twice in today’s readings we are reminded that God knows us through and through (Jer. 1:5; 1 Cor. 13:12).  God knows what our human nature is, and God also knows who and what he has created us to be.

    Above all, God loves us, and sent Jesus Christ in order to deal with the sinfulness and the self-centeredness that is within us.  When we grasp this truth and put our trust in Jesus, we learn that the power of God for salvation and forgiveness is far greater than our sinful nature.  We have the capacity within us to slip into all of the undesirable behaviour that was part of our readings today.  Yet, we also have the capacity to open ourselves to God’s Holy Spirit, and recognize the gifts that God has given us, and allow God to work within us and through us in order to bring healing and new life.

    You may recall from last week - from the part that comes just before today’s gospel in Luke - that Jesus’ primary mission is to those who need him the most.  The Scripture that Jesus read from Isaiah was this:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour (Lk. 4:18-19).

These are the people who concern Jesus the most: the poor, the oppressed, the blind and the captives.  Of course, we could also say that those who are blinded by sin and captive to sin are primary concerns for Jesus.

    When we are the ones who are in need, God comes to us bringing healing and new life.  God comes to us bringing forgiveness and life and salvation.  However, once renewed, we are called to pass on those same gifts to others – and especially to those who need them the most.  This is part of allowing Jesus to direct us, and not the other way around.

    Our God loves us and saves us and empowers us for life and for service.  Let us then answer God’s call, turning from ourselves to serve God by serving others.  After all, God has supplied all the gifts that are needed – especially faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is love.  Amen.

Epiphany 4(C)                            1 Corinthians 13:1-13
January 31, 2010                            Jeremiah 1:4-10
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church                    Luke 4:21-30
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2010 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved