"Sez Who?"

Luke 4:21-30

In the summer of 1940, after Dunkirk, the British government instituted emergency measures to meet the expected Nazi invasion from across the channel. Military museums were stripped of their displays of old field guns. Hitched to trucks, these light pieces served as useful mobile units in the coastal offense. Middle-aged veterans who had last used these guns twenty years before in the First World War were called upon to man this makeshift artillery battery. Although these men were familiar with the routine of loading and firing, the pace of discharge was not as rapid as it should have been. So the home defense called in a time and motion expert to suggest ways to simplify firing procedures. He studied one of the five-man crews in practice for several days. He took slow-motion pictures of the crews as they practiced in the field, and pondered over them, trying to understand a puzzling movement - just before firing, three of the five men stepped away from the gun, and stood at attention for no apparent reason. Confused by this, the time-and-motion man called in an old colonel in the artillery and pointed out this strange behavior to him, asking him what it might mean. The colonel puzzled over the pictures for a while, and suddenly laughed, "Why, they're steadying the horses, to keep them from shying!" During the First World War, you see, horses were used for hauling the cannon; now, although they were no longer used, the men continued the movement, as if the horses were still present.

It was a service pretty much like every other - the people sang hymns and prayed - then a young man, a guest preacher, stood up to read the lesson: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."

Then, with dramatic effect, he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down, which is the position rabbis took when they were about to teach. The scripture records that every eye was fixed on him. . As he spoke, many scooted to the edge of their pews, ready to listen attentively to what he said. Of course, others scooted back, settling in for a little nap. But the sermon was short that day - short, and to the point: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled, even as you are listening." I imagine there were goose bumps on every person in that room. The people were amazing at his confidence, his delivery, his teaching ability. They started saying, "Isn't this Joseph's son?" "How did he get all this?" They were impressed that one of their own had made it as a popular rabbi. A lot of the folks were proud of him. He was a hometown boy who had acquired a national reputation as a fine preacher. It took a moment for what he was saying to sink in, for them to understand what he was telling them. Then, they began to realize what he was claiming: "What's that? We know who he is - he's Joseph's son. He's the one who used to throw spit balls in the back of the church! Him - the Messiah? Sez who?!"

As we look at the crowd around Jesus, we can see that they are engaged in a bit of "horse-holding." They reach out for the familiar Jesus, the one they knew as the son of Joseph. They want a word from the local kid-made-good, the carpenter's kid who used to live down the block, who used to frolic in the neighborhood with the rest of the youngsters. It was difficult for them to understand that the Son of God, the bread of heaven, could be contained in the familiar form of this young man, whom they were used to seeing standing beside his father in the carpenter's shop. They couldn't see Him as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy - a prophecy they understood to be messianic- about how God was going to send a king to help them, heal them. We can understand their reticence, can't we? If someone here in the congregation was to suddenly get up and claimed to be the Son of God, wouldn't we have a few questions for them?

"Sez who?!" Sounds familiar. Two kids are out in the back lot, playing a game, and one says, "You can't do that!" And the other replies, "Sez who?!" Someone tells us what we ought to do, and our immediate reply to them is, "Oh, yeah? Sez who?!"

It's important to know where the authority in our life lies – who we go to as the source of our facts. Advertisers know this - that's why they identify their products with people we admire and trust. Think of Bill Cosby and you still think of Jello pudding. It's even that way with religion. If Tevo or Joe Paterno came here and gave their testimony, we'd have twenty people afterwards saying, "Wow! Is that what it's all about? Why didn't Pastor Roth ever say that?" I know - I was one of those. I sat at my dad's feet for twenty years, but it never quite penetrated, until after college - when I heard it from someone else. Then it was like a revelation to me. "Wow - how come my dad never said that?" Well, of course he did. For over twenty years. I just wasn't listening. Our relationship got in the way. After all those years relating to him as his kid, it never struck me that he might actually have something important to say! We despise the familiar. We have our own sources we look to for “the facts.”

"Sez who?!" The people demanded to know the basis of Jesus' authority. They despised the familiar. Just a few paragraphs before, Jesus had come out of the waters of the Jordan, and the voice of God said, "This is my Son, the beloved." A few pages later, he will take the disciples up on the mountaintop, and that same voice will again say, "This is my Son. Listen to Him!" But now, those whom we would think know Him best refuse to believe, refuse to hear.

It may be that we, also, have trouble hearing Him. We've grown up in the church. We've heard the message so often that it just rolls off our backs. The voices of our culture, the talking heads on television, or other voices seem to drown him out. For most people today – even for many Christians – Jesus is not their primary source for information.

The good people of Nazareth want Jesus to be the person they had always assumed him to be - the kid playing in the street, Joseph's son. They wanted to hear a message that would comfort them and make them feel good about themselves, and about how God was blessing them. Congregations, too, tend to want business as usual - "the way we've always done it." There is a tendency for churches to become self-centered and inwardly focused. They want to hear messages of comfort - nothing too challenging, thank you. We want our church to care for the members, have inspiring services, good Bible studies, good fellowship. And it is important for a congregation to do those things. Care of members is important. But that is not our congregation’s primary calling. It's nice when the congregation knows the hymns and enjoys their worship. But that is not why we are here on a fine Sunday morning. It's nice to have fellowship, and when we get together, usually around some good food, with people whom we love and who love us, it can almost be like heaven. But that's not why the Spirit has called us together. Those are side benefits of being the Body of Christ, but they are not why we are here. The reason God has gathered us is to be the body of Christ, to fulfill, as Jesus did, the call of Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, because He has anointed us to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent us to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."

"Sez who?!" we ask. Sez Jesus. Jesus later tells the disciples, "Having eyes, they do not see. Having ears, they do not hear." That can be a problem. We don't want to hear what he says. He goes on to tell the people of his hometown that a prophet is not without honor except in his own town. And Luke reports that Jesus could do no mighty works there because of the people's unbelief. The promise would be given to someone else - not his hometown. Not the people who had a history with him. Not the people whom he loved best and longest. Unfortunately, the same can happen to us. Maybe we need to pick up our Bible once again, lay aside our own preconceptions regarding what "church" is all about – what its mission is all about - and let Jesus speak the authoritative Word of life to us. The Father says, "This is my Son, the Beloved One. Listen to Him." He alone knows God's will and purpose for your life. He alone can show you the way to peace and joy. Only He can lead us back to the arms of our waiting Father. There is no other way home. "No one," He says, "can come to the Father, except through me."

It is Jesus who defines our ministry, who tells us the purpose of our being here. We are his body, called to minister in his name, called out of the waters of our baptism, to go to a world full of people who are dying for some good news, of the broken-hearted, of those desperately in need of healing, of people enslaved by chains of addiction, materialism and hedonism, of those struggling for relief and release. Our world full to overflowing with those who are stumbling in the darkness, who need recovery of clear sight, of oppressed people who need freeing, of those who have yet to hear and understand that God has called them into his rest.

Do we dare refuse when He calls our name? Do we dare turn aside when He tells us to forgive one another, to love one another, to care for one another? Do we dare say, "No - I don't want to – I just want to sit in my pew and sing some familiar hymns?" When He tells us to proclaim Him to the nations, do we dare say: "I don't feel like it right now." "Let someone else do it?" "I'm retired." "I'm too busy."

The Word of God is not something concocted by some professor sitting up in his ivory tower. It's not an idea invented by the church. The only idea ever invented by the church was it's "Seven Last Words:" "We've never done it that way before." That, incidentally, is not the Gospel. People don't make up stuff like this. Marx was wrong when he called the Gospel the "opiate of the masses." God's Word is life-changing; it is world-changing. It challenges everything that we are tempted to put in place of God. It challenges our tendency to go along and get along. It challenges the way we live for ourselves alone. It challenges our limited, safe vision of life, of the world, and of our desires.

The only real truth in this world is the truth of Jesus Christ. All other truth merely points to Him; all other truth is just facts, sign-posts that point to the Great Truth, the one who is, "the Way, the Truth and the Life." By that same authority, I call on you to believe, to respond to His call, to live in faith, and minister in His name, as the living body of Jesus Christ: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon you, because He has anointed you to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent you to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach that this is the day for freedom, this is the day of healing, this is the day of release - the acceptable year of the Lord."