Good News, Bad News, Good News: Part Two
Luke 4:14-32 as literature can be seen as the entire “gospel in miniature,” a sort of summary of the whole story that follows. It is bracketed by announcements that Jesus is teaching in towns and synagogues, and that people are “astonished” at his teaching.[i] Between these twin announcements Jesus proclaims the Good News that, as the prophet Isaiah proclaimed, God promises a Jubilee Year of release from debts and oppression, and that this promise, this hope, is fulfilled “in your hearing.” This is followed by what is heard as Bad News – that the Day of the Lord’s favor may come to those outside Israel before coming to Israel, seemingly enraging the hometown crowd to drive Jesus out of the synagogue, out of the town, and they attempt to toss Jesus over a cliff. And yet, in the unexpected way in which the God of Israel often operates, the Good News is that Jesus escapes unharmed, and once again sets off to another town, Capernaum, where people are astonished at his teaching.
It seems strange that Jesus appears to intentionally rile up the crowd with his interpretation of the Elijah and Elisha sagas – whose prophetic activities did begin among Gentiles, and were often unappreciated by the respective kings under which they served their prophetic lives. Yet, most of their vocations were served in Israel as critics of those in power.
It seems that Luke wants us to see, in this otherwise perplexing episode that swings from astonishment to rage for reasons that only those familiar with the sort of “inside baseball” knowledge that a Jewish audience would understand. They know that God’s “faithfulness always includes God’s freedom to make good on God’s promises in unexpected – and even unwanted – ways.”[ii] That is, from a literary and theological perspective, in this one story, Luke foreshadows the rest of the Jesus saga, from Astonishment to Resistance to Resurrection in which, we often forget, God, not Jesus, is the main character. That would appear to be the very point Jesus himself is always trying to make.
That is, just as the hometown crowd cannot get rid of Jesus, crucifixion will also fail to have the last word. As Paul might say, the Principalities and Powers resident in Jerusalem and Rome are ultimately no match for the likes of Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah and Jesus. This is always Good News!
Yet, we need to acknowledge that more typical Christian interpretations of this, and stories like it scattered throughout the four gospels, fail to see God as the central character, and that Luke ends the episode on the note of Good News that Jesus Lives. This has caused much mischief and tragedy as interpreters often see this as a story of Jewish rejection of Jesus and Christianity, which in turn has led to and fueled Christian anti-Semitism right up to the present day.
This week The International Holocaust Remembrance Day was observed, January 27th, the day in 1945 the Auschwitz Concentration and Death Camp was liberated by allied troops. During this week there was yet another synagogue attack in Colleyville, Texas; swastikas were graffitied all over Union Station; Robert Kennedy, Jr. likened public health measures for the current pandemic as more prohibitive than Nazi restrictions during the Holocaust; a woman in New York City made anti-Semitic slurs and spit on several 8-year-old Jewish Children; Arthur Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, a true Holocaust tale, was banned in a Tennessee school district; we were reminded that in the United States, Europe and elsewhere around the world anti-Semitic attacks and activities are on the rise. It was only four years ago that Unite the Right protesters were carrying torches and chanting the Nazi “Blood and Soil” slogan along with “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, VA.
To interpret Luke chapter four to justify such anti-Semitism is to ignore the core elements of the story as Luke tells it. Jesus is Jewish as is everyone in his hometown synagogue. It was his “custom” to publicly identify himself as Jewish, observing all Jewish customs and rituals. Jesus was never a Christian. Christianity did not even exist yet, so the townspeople are not rejecting Christianity. Jesus, like the townspeople, had preserved and cherished the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus, like the townspeople, holds onto the hope for the Year of the Lord’s favor, a year of redemption and release from the brutality of Rome. They are astonished that Jesus speaks as one with authority even though he is simply one of them, the son of a tradesman in their town. There is true pride in who this hometown boy has become. This is a family matter, not an interfaith story.
Too often Gentile Christians define ourselves by what Richard Swanson calls our “over-against-ness” – that somehow, we are utterly unlike any other ethnic, cultural or religious group on God’s green earth.[iii] We often defend our “over-against-ness” by setting up straw-figures, in this case the Jewish people, and distort stories like this one which after two weeks can begin to sound anti-Semitic. We need to admit that such anti-Semitism was preached in the very earliest days of the Church and has been right down to this very day. And, we need to repent of such distortions of the story of Jesus the Jew. Jesus, who teaches all who will listen that the Love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.[iv] That perfect Love casts out fear, fear which so often turns to hate.[v]
Several days a week, I walk the grounds of the Shrine of Saint Anthony, a Franciscan Friary. There is a memorial to Saint Maximillian Kolbe, a Catholic priest who died voluntarily in a Nazi death camp, taking the place of another prisoner. On the outer wall of the Kolbe memorial it says, “Hate Destroys, Love Alone Creates.”[vi]
In these challenging times in which we live, we need to remember this truth, and live this truth, calling out distortions of the Gospel whenever we encounter them. Our very survival depends on the careful reading and handling of our sacred texts. Amen.
[i]
Luke 4:14-15, 31-32
[ii]
Sharon Ringe, Luke (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville:1995)
p.70-71
[iii]
Richard Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Luke, (Pilgrim Press,
Cleveland, OH: 2006) p.95
[iv]
Romans 5:5
[v] 1
John 4:18
[vi]
Martin Luther King, Jr: “By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by
its very nature love creates and builds up.”
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