Series:
#3
“
Winning Over….Stress"
There
is a humorous story of a Catholic priest who visited his ancestral
home of Ireland with a group of tourists. The tour leader instructed
the group quite emphatically that they were not to be out in the
streets of Belfast after dark. One late afternoon the priest without
his clerical garb was visiting some friends in a restaurant near his
hotel. Time passed quickly and before he knew realized, it had
gotten dark. The hotel was only a few blocks away so it seemed silly
to hail a taxi. With the tour leader’s warning humming in his ear,
the priest set out for his hotel. Suddenly an arm grabbed him and
jerked him into a dark alley. As the cold steel knife pressed
against his throat, he heard the callous voice of his attacker, “I
kill for religion. What’s your religion?” The priest was
terrified. If he said Catholic, his attacker might be Protestant and
kill him. But if he said Protestant, his attacker might be Catholic
and kill him. Finally in a burst of inspiration, the priest
exclaimed, “Jewish!” His attacker looked heavenward and with a
great smile on his lips cried out, “Praise be to Allah! I am the
luckiest Moslem in all Belfast!”
In
our series on “Winning Over…” we come to the very condemning
and damning attitude that we call prejudice. Prejudice affects both
the individual and society at large. On this day when we celebrate
the life and mission of Dr. King, our focus in not only in winning
over prejudice, but defeating it as well.
In
Luke’s gospel we read the account of Jesus’ returning to his
hometown of Nazareth. His reception was anything but warm and
cordial. Understanding the cultural context of this event is crucial
to understanding Jesus.
Nazareth
is a small town on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee. While
not his birth town, Nazareth was home to Jesus’ extended family and
was his childhood home as well. David Augsburger, author, Biblical
scholar, and past President of Eastern Mennonite College, had this to
say about Nazareth: “Jesus was born into one of the most rigidly
ethnic cultures of all times. Born in a furiously nationalistic
nation. Reared in Galilee, the most bigoted backwoods of that
nation. Born into a family of snobbish, royal lineage. Born in a
time when revolutionary fanaticism seared every heart with hatred for
the Roman oppressor. Born in a country proclaiming the apartheid of
rigid segregation between the Samaritans and the Jews. Jesus was
born in a world peopled with prejudice, partisanship, fanatical
intolerance, of obstinate, opinionated, bigoted, dogmatic zealots.”
Verse
16 reads,
“He [Jesus] went to Nazareth where He had been brought up, and on
the Sabbath Day he went into the synagogue as was His custom.” The
hometown was proud of this native son. Jesus was kind of Time’s
Religious Man of the Year, a hometown boy made good. When he went
home, he went to church, the synagogue, to the place of worship where
God’s Word is proclaimed, where people come face to face with the
Living God, to the place set aside for the honor and glory of God
Himself. Jesus went to church—to a place where prejudice and
bigotry was not only allowed but encouraged to roam unfettered and
unchallenged.
How
sad and how pathetic that wars are fought over religion and that
religion is the reason why some of the most heinous and barbaric acts
are done. Religious wars can be the most vicious: Ireland, India,
Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Tibet, Lebanon, Indonesia, et al.
How
then do we win over and defeat prejudice? The truth and harsh
reality is that prejudice and intolerance are tragic realities of our
sinful natures. It is what happens when we allow our sinful nature
to control our thoughts and our behavior. Prejudice and racism have
been with us since the Fall in Genesis 3 that plunged God’s
beautiful creation into the muck and mire of sin. And yet into our
carnal world comes the Living God, the Creator of heaven and earth,
who sets forth a different standard of relationship among His
children. Still, the sad history of God’s people is filled with
prejudice, classism, racism, and ethnicism that should have no place
in people who claim the name of Jesus. It is amazing to me that
born-again people who claim Jesus as Lord and Savior could even have
prejudicial views toward Jews, Italians, blacks, Japanese, women,
Europeans, poor, men, rich, uneducated, et al. These attitudes and
views come not from Scripture and the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, not from Jesus, God’s Son and the Lamb who takes away our
sins, but comes from the very pits of Hell and of its evil that seeks
to destroy.
We
are not far removed from Jesus’ culture and synagogue experience.
Jesus came to his hometown a hero, a kind of Oprah, Dr. Phil and Dr
Oz all rolled into one and the people were excited that one of their
own had made good.
It
was custom in the synagogue to have a layperson read the Scripture
and Jesus was so honored. Jesus was handed the scroll of Isaiah.
Please note verse 17, “Unscrolling
it He found the place where it was written.” Jesus
didn’t just read a random passage; rather He looked for a specific
package. It is interesting to note what Jesus didn’t read. He
didn’t turn to Isaiah 13:9 and read “Behold,
the day of the Lord comes with wrath and fierce anger to destroy
sinners from it.” His
listeners would have loved that because to them ‘sinners’ were
synonymous with Gentiles and how they loved to hate the Gentiles. We
also note that Jesus did not read Isaiah 30:15 either which says “In
repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your
strength.”
Certainly a powerfully comforting verse that we need to hear at
times, and it is one that a lot of people want to hear—a call to
quiet rest, to be passive, don’t rock the boat because it will
“disturb our peace.” Jesus wasn’t a politician saying those
things that tickled people’s ears nor taking a poll to find out
which Scripture would be most popular.
Rather
Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah words about the coming Messiah,
“The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the
prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the
oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus added, “Today
this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus choose a Scripture not of wrath and judgment nor of quiet
repose, but rather a call to mission and ministry, to reach out to
those who were on the outside of God’s Kingdom looking in. If
Jesus had stopped there, everything would have been fine, but He
didn’t.
Jesus
then began to pick at the scabs of their elitism and prejudices. He
told them that the prophet Elijah could have gone to many starving
Jewish widows, but he went to the widow of Zarephath, a Gentile. He
added that there were many in the prophet Elisha’s time that had
incurable leprosy, but only Namaan the Syrian, a Gentile, was healed.
Something
happened to this hometown hero. The celebration and pride quickly
dissipated. Look at verse 17, “All
the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.”
Oops!
Jesus didn’t make them happy, he made them mad! He stepped on
their toes. He sliced and diced their ‘comfortable’ style of
‘doing church.’ Jesus had the gall to tell these hometown folk
that they should be reaching out to people they didn’t like, those
they considered beneath them. His call was to break out of our ivory
palaces and the four walls of our churches and go where the people
are. It was a call to get out of our comfortable pews and to break
away from our comfortable lifestyles and do something real and
meaningful for God’s Kingdom with people. Jesus came to save
people…not traditions, not committees, not programs, not buildings,
not lifestyles, not our pet projects, not governments, not
institutions, but people!
The
hometown crowd wanted this ‘local hero’ to affirm them in their
prejudices and in their nationalistic religion. It is my opinion
that in America today we need more flag wavers, but I also strongly
believe that we need to hold our flag accountable to the cross!
Let’s not fall into the trap of wanting God on OUR side, but rather
make sure that we are on God’s side!
The
hero became such a villain that they were going to throw Him over a
cliff to kill him, but because the Spirit of God was with Him, he
walked right through the crowd and went on His way (verse 30).
Human
prejudice is seductive and runs deep. Some of those who claim that
they aren’t prejudiced are some of the most prejudiced of people.
You see, if your prejudices are my prejudices then you aren’t
prejudiced! I have learned in my 59 years that prejudices are not
limited to certain people or certain nationalities or even certain
religions. The sin of prejudice is pervasive and affects each and
every one of us.
So
many of us use Jesus to rubber stamp our agenda, our prejudice, our
racism and our beliefs instead of letting Jesus use us for His
kingdom and living by His agenda.
Do
you want to defeat prejudice in our world and win over prejudice in
your life? Here’s the answer: so simple and yet so difficult.
Live according to God’s agenda. Be open to the Holy Spirit so that
He can anoint you with the power to proclaim the Good News of
Jesus—deliverance from sin and prejudice, hope to the poor, the
broken-hearted, the powerless and depressed; to bring new sight to
the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and possessed.
Instead
of throwing Jesus over a cliff enthrone Him as Lord of your life and
let His Spirit cleanse and heal your own prejudices. Then we can be
channels of His redeeming and transforming grace in the face of
demonic prejudice. It is holiness that counts. It is righteous
living that counts. Dr. King simply reminds us of the Biblical
standard that we judge people not by the color of their skin, but by
the content of their character.
May
God’s Spirit anoint us with His oil that we might defeat our
prejudices and win people to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.