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<DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG>
<P>PREACHING RESOURCES FOR JANUARY 31 - Luke 4:21-30 - Part
2C</P></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><FONT size=5>PREACHING RESOURCES FOR JANUARY 31 </FONT><FONT
size=4>(7 of the 70 plus preaching resources available at GoodPreacher.com for
this Sunday)</FONT><FONT size=5>:<BR></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><STRONG>SCRIPTURE & SCREEN: Luke
4:21-30<BR><BR></STRONG>Some texts shock us, usurping our expectations. Movies
that go and do likewise can be a smart match with such texts, including this
one.<BR><BR>One of the most shocking and unsettling films is the surrealist,
silent, classic short film <I>Un Chien Andalou</I> (1929; dir. Luis Bunuel).
This sixteen-minute film opens with the infamous shot of the director slicing
open the eye of a woman (Simone Mareuil) with a straight razor. The initial
message is lacerating yet blunt: “What you, the viewer, are about to see will
assault you, including by overturning your expectations of film.” The movie
delivers on this threatening promise. With help from the Surrealist painter
Salvador Dali, Bunuel presents one bizarre and grotesque scene after another,
repeatedly catching the viewer off-guard. The plot–as much as there is one–is of
a romance between a man (Pierre Batcheff) and a woman (Simone Mareuil), who
appears to be married to someone else (Luis Bunuel). The two engage in a
relationship that is sometimes almost unsettlingly erotic, sometimes hostile.
Mixed in with this “plot” are strange, phantasmagorical images, such as a hand
that has a hole in it from which ants are crawling. One of the most famous
images from the film is that of the man dragging behind him the following items,
which are attached to him by ropes: two grand pianos, rotting donkey carcasses,
the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and two bewildered priests
(Salvador Dali and Jaime Miravilles). Even the title, which translates as “An
Andalusian Dog,” is bizarre in that it appears, at least at first, to have
nothing to do with the film.<BR><BR>What does all this mean? Beats me. The
movie’s meaning is difficult to pinpoint; indeed, the meaning’s elusiveness is
one of the movie’s key themes. Our text from Luke does contain meaning, but it
is abrasive and shocking. Jesus chastises his hometown for its rejection of him,
thereby helping to fortify the very rejection of which Jesus speaks. Thus,
Jesus’ message to his fellow Nazarenes almost seems designed to be offensive. In
any case, the harsh message is offensive, just as <I>Un Chien Andalou</I>, with
its bizarre and grotesque departures from film conventions, is at times
offensive, or at least disturbing. Just as <I>Un Chien Andalou</I> slices open
the eye of the viewer, so also does Jesus slice open the minds and hearts of the
people in his hometown, as well as, to a lesser extent, the hearts and minds of
us readers/hearers of the text.<BR><BR>Indeed, challenging societal convention
is a salient feature of Jesus’ ministry as a whole, and sharply criticizing
societal conventions, including Christianity, is a salient feature of Bunuel’s
films, including <I>Un Chien Andalou</I>. In this film, for instance, Bunuel’s
image of the man dragging the Ten Commandments and priests with rotting donkey
corpses suggests that at least mainstream religion is oppressive, a burden. In
his Surrealist 1930 masterpiece<I> L’age D’</I>or (which means The Golden Age),
Bunuel intensifies his attack on religion through such images as a bishop being
thrown out of a window and, most shocking of all, a scene near the end of the
film in which a Christ-figure is associated with a murderous orgy. The movie
also intercuts scenes of Paris and Vatican City, showing both as sick with
decay. One scene shows buildings collapsing on a Sunday and indicates through an
intertitle that such activity is typical for a Sunday.<BR><BR>Bunuel also
attacks other aspects of bourgeois Western society, giving special attention to
the bourgeois Westerner’s inability to have a fulfilling romantic relationship.
The film features a man (Gaston Modot) and a woman (Lya Lys) trying repeatedly
to have a love affair but butting up against one obstacle after another. For
instance, when the two try to be intimate in a garden, the man gets distracted
by a statue of Venus. Then he is summoned to deal with a phone call. While he is
absent, the woman sucks erotically on the toes of the statue. The two people,
especially the man, are inept at having any real relationship. The movie is full
of such parodies and critiques, with one of Bunuel’s main points being to expose
and deride the impotence and hypocrisy of Western, bourgeois
society.<BR><BR>Jesus, also, is providing a severe critique of the society in
front of him, his hometown. Indeed, his ministry, as we see throughout Luke,
challenges religious authority and conventional values. Jesus’ words in this
text are shocking and lead to a climax and denouement reminiscent of a
Surrealist film: The crowd devolves into a mob and tries to throw him off a
cliff, but he somehow gets away.<BR><BR>We preachers, then, can offer a new
perspective on this passage by highlighting how it resembles these
counter-cultural Surrealist films, striving to slice open our expectations with
the straight razor-side of the Good News. <BR><BR>David von
Schlichten<BR><BR><BR><BR><STRONG>"THE SPIRIT OF JESUS" <BR>Luke
4:14-30<BR><BR></STRONG>When we read the Bible, we are supposed to find
ourselves in the story. So when I read the story of Jesus’ sermon in Nazareth, I
put myself in the place of the leader of the synagogue who asked Jesus to
preach. When pastors choose someone else to preach they are particular about it.
For the most part, we want someone who will say things with which we
agreethough it is always humbling when someone asks after another
preacher’s sermon, “Have you ever thought about that?” when you know that you
preached on the same subject a week earlier. Pastors who give someone else a
turn in the pulpit are never quite sure how to respond when church members say
“Don’t you wish we could hear preaching like that every Sunday?” Pastors would
rather have a good visiting preacher, but if the guest proclaimer turns out to
be dull or long-winded, that is not a complete loss either. Maybe we will sound
more interesting by comparison.<BR> <BR>Several people had mentioned that
if Jesus came home for a weekend they hoped he would be asked to preach.
Everyone was talking about Jesus. He was preaching in synagogues all over
Galilee and making quite a name for himself.<BR><BR>The leader of the synagogue
thought, “What do I really know about Jesus?” He has no credentialsno
degrees, no ordination, but he is clearly intelligent. His speaking gifts are
remarkable. He tells compelling stories. He is a clever debater. On the
downside, Jesus is a bit dramatic. He eats with non-church people. He staged a
protest at the temple, overturning the tables of the moneychangers. Asking Jesus
to preach could lead to trouble. He has a tendency to challenge the business
community and to criticize religious people. If there had been “spin doctors” in
Jesus’ day, they would have tried to persuade Jesus to schmooze with the
important leaders in order to gain their support, but the career counselors
would have quickly given up. Jesus seemed so young and idealistic. Finally the
leader of the synagogue figured that if he did not ask Joseph and Mary’s boy he
would have to explain why he did not to fifty people fifty times, and he could
use the week off. So he asked Jesus to preach and put an announcement in the
newsletter.<BR><BR>A huge crowd shows up to hear Jesus. After the singing of a
Psalm, the quoting of the Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord
alone,” the reading of scriptureas many as seven different passages, and
the prayers, they hand Jesus the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and Jesus begins
to read, “The Spirit of God is upon me to bring good news to the poor, to
announce pardon to prisoners and sight to the blind, to set the burdened and
battered free.”<BR><BR>The people love this passage. They are the poor, and they
need good news. Several of them notice that Jesus does not read the part where
Isaiah talks about the day of vengeance on their enemies. That is disappointing.
They especially like the part about vengeance.<BR><BR>Then Jesus announces,
“This is the day God wants all of this to happen.” An older man shouts, “Amen.”
His wife whispers, “Jesus has such a nice voice.” The neighbors are so proud of
Jesus. The leader of the synagogue relaxes a little.<BR><BR>At this point, the
reasonable thing for Jesus to do is tell them what they want to hear. He should
work verse-by-verse, phrase-by-phrase through this passage talking about what it
meant to the people to whom Isaiah preached 500 years earlier. He should
politely encourage them to care for each other. If Jesus does that, everything
will be fine. At lunch, they will talk about what a fine preacher Jesus
is.<BR><BR>But Jesus is no politician. He refuses to be the hometown boy
offering a feel-good sermon. If Nazareth had hopes for their local boy come
home, it seems likely Jesus also had hopes for this visit. These were the people
with whom he grew uphis Sunday school teachers, friends who were in the
youth group with him. Surely they will hear what he is saying. But Jesus
understands that they do not believe the words he read from Isaiah. He knows too
well the small compass of his neighbors’ understanding, and the way they assume
that they are at the center of the world.<BR><BR>There before those who know him
best, Jesus suddenly goes on the offensive: “Let me tell you something, no
prophet is ever welcome in the prophet’s hometown.” Then Jesus makes certain
that prophecy comes true. “You don’t get this. The Spirit of God blows in more
places than you’ve imagined. When Elijah the prophet was in trouble, he didn’t
go to one of your widows, but to a foreignersomeone you would never invite
to dinner, someone you would cross the street to avoid.” The sanctuary is
silent. “There were a lot of people sick during Elisha’s time, some of them
lived around here, but Elisha didn’t heal any of themonly an enemy who
wouldn’t be welcome in this synagogue. The Spirit doesn’t belong to you. It’s
God’s Spirit. God is for the people you look down on.”<BR><BR>When they hear
that, the whole congregation blows a gasket. When the invitation hymn is sung,
they all come forward, but it is not because the tenth verse of “Just as I Am”
finally gets to them. When they realize that Jesus’ good news is going to
benefit people they don’t like, they take Jesus to a cliff and come close to
throwing him over the edge. They fail to do it, of course, but not many miles or
many months away, after a few more sermons, they succeed.<BR><BR>It is easy to
think the people in Nazareth were violent, primitive people, but part of the
truth is that they took Jesus’ words more seriously than we do. If Jesus
preached this sermon today, we would not ignore him, but we might make fun of
him at lunch. If we really hear these words we will be offended. Do we want
everyone to have a place at the table? Who wants to hear good news for people we
do not like?<BR> <BR>“Good news to the poor” Jesus promised. Do we want all
the accumulated inequities wiped out? Do we want our wealth redistributed, for
everyone to have equal opportunities when we have more than our share of the
money?<BR> <BR>“Release to the captives”a few Christian magazines list
prison inmates who have asked to receive mail from Christians. Would you write a
letter to a prisoner and give him your address? Would you let your
daughter?<BR><BR>“Freedom to the oppressed”there are so many hurting people
that it seems foolish to grieve for all of them. How can God expect us to hurt
for all the burdened and battered people in the world? There are too many
tragedies to feel bad about.<BR><BR>We all have our prejudices. Who is that
makes us uncomfortable? Who is not included in our circle of friends? Who does
not quite fit in? There are people whom we have difficulty loving. Maybe we look
down on members of certain races or maybe our prejudice is reserved for people
we think are prejudiced. Maybe we cannot stand being around people who think Fox
News is fair and balanced or perhaps it is people who think Keith Olbermann is
fair and balanced that bother us most. Maybe it is those who think Arrested
Development should never have been cancelled or maybe it is people who think
Lebron James is overrated. Maybe we are bothered by anyone who does not think or
speak or look enough like us.<BR><BR>Have you heard the word lookism? It is a
sociological term that is defined as “the prejudice of judging people by how
they look.” The word lookism is new, at least it is to me, but the concept is
familiar. We constantly decide what we think about other people on the basis of
how they look. Maybe the people we look down on are poorly dressedshoes
beyond broken in or maybe it is the ones too perfectly manicuredshoes that
are too shiny. Maybe the people we have the most trouble with are the ones who
talk too much or the ones who do not talk at all, the in-law we would rather not
have, the neighbors to whom we do not speak, the church member we think does not
quite belong in our Sunday school class, or the lonely person who wants more of
our time than we are willing to give. We all have trouble loving somebody. That
is why good news for people we do not like is hard to hear.<BR><BR>In fact it
would be impossible to hear Jesus’ words as good news were it not for one thing.
When Luke tells this story he begins by saying “Jesus was filled with the
Spirit.” The first words Jesus reads are “the Spirit of God is upon me.” The key
to understanding the compassion of Christ is recognizing that Jesus lived in the
Spirit of God.<BR><BR>The Spirit led Jesus to see that every life is sacred. The
poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed matter to God, because beaten,
bruised, broken lives are no less holy than any other lives. Jesus recognized
that the presence of God is here for all of us. The Spirit is all around
us.<BR><BR>Jesus was merciful because Jesus was open to the Spirit of mercy.
Jesus was loving, because he was open to the Spirit of love. Jesus was hopeful,
because he was open to the Spirit of hope. Jesus had eyes open enough to see the
heavens part at his baptism and the Spirit descending like a dove. Jesus was
open enough to address God as Abba, the Aramaic word that toddlers use for their
fathers, “daddy” or “papa.” Why would a first century Jewish person, used to
formal ways of addressing God, talk to God in such an informal way? Jesus
experienced the closeness of the Spirit in whom we live and move and have our
being.<BR><BR>Jesus’ openness to God’s Spirit got him into trouble by leading
him to love. Jesus’ life was a response to the Spirit’s call for compassion for
the hurting. It is interesting to note that at the service in which Jesus
preached in Nazareth, there were no Gentiles present. As far as I know, there is
not one of us here today who would have been allowed in that worship service. We
are the outsiders Jesus wanted to includepoor, blind captives that we are.
The Spirit teaches us that the good news Jesus shares with others is the good
news Jesus offers us.<BR><BR>Christ can invite us to love the unlovable only
because we can live in the same Spirit Jesus knew. The Christian life moves
beyond the impossible task of trying to love people we do not like to the joyous
hope of living in the Spirit. Jesus’ message to us is not primarily about
avoiding bad things or doing good things. Jesus’ word is that we can live in the
Spirit in which Jesus lived. Trying to follow Jesus’ example is so overwhelming
that it leads to frustration, but knowing the presence of God that Jesus knew
leads to life.<BR><BR>The Spirit is quietly acting in our lives right now. Faith
is hearing the Spirit speak in the ordinary circumstances of our days,
recognizing that we are never far from God. The difference between moments of
grace and moments of feeling lost is that at times we are open to the Spirit and
at other times we are completely closed off from anything beyond what we
understand. We have the capacity to see the extraordinary in the ordinary and to
acknowledge the presence of the Spirit, but we are also capable of completely
missing God’s presence.<BR><BR>The Spirit leads from anxiety to trust, from the
bondage of self-preoccupation to the freedom of self-forgetfulness, from our
attempts to be good enough to the celebration of the Spirit.<BR><BR>The
invitation I heard when I was a child was to believe in Jesus. I took that to
mean believing what the Bible and the church says about Jesus and trying to do
the things Jesus did. Now I understand that believing is more than that.
Believing is giving ourselves to the Spirit Christ knew, to the God who is
Spirit.<BR><BR>Brett Younger<BR>McAfee School of Theology<BR>Atlanta,
GA<BR><BR><STRONG>SERMON REVIEWS: Luke 4:21-30<BR><BR>Robert F.
Browning</STRONG> quotes a Flannnery O’Conner short story entitled “Revelation,”
about Ruby Turpin, a woman with an attitude. Sitting in a doctor’s waiting room,
she judged everyone around her, including a very poor and unkempt teenager named
Mary Grace. Ruby wondered aloud about the girl’s looks and manners until Mary
Grace could stand it no longer and hurled the book she was reading, hitting Ruby
in the head causing her to fall to the floor. “Go back to hell where you came
from, you old wart hog!” Mary Grace called out to her. This violent action awoke
Ruby’s better self and in that moment began an attitude adjustment.<BR><BR>“In
the synagogue that day, Jesus threw the book, or should I say scroll, at his
childhood neighbors and friends.” Jesus declared that he was the fulfillment of
the Isaiah prophecy. He then spoke of Elijah and Elisha as people of God who
eventually bypassed the Jews and ministered instead to Gentiles. Through them,
God became more loving and inclusive than God’s listeners had ever considered
being. Jesus believed it was time that these listeners changed to “reflect God’s
heart.” This made the listeners furious and anxious to kill
Jesus.<BR><BR>Browning asks whether Jesus was surprised by or expecting this
reaction. Most likely Jesus was trying to open their minds and hearts “to new
ways of thinking, “seeking to help them build bridges and not barriers.” This
approach was incomprehensible to them. They became extremely
agitated.<BR><BR>Has the gospel ever offended us? We cannot sit idly by. The
gospel demands change in our “beliefs, attitudes, values, priorities,
relationships and behavior” and calls us to move beyond our own well-being and
desires. Gospel compassion presses us to consider the starving widow and the
sickly outsider. The gospel is a bridge building word urging us to move away
from our comfort zones and into the arms and hearts of folks worse off than
ourselves. Jesus encourages his listeners “to declare hope instead of
condemnation, to promote freedom in place of slavery and to heal wounds rather
than inflict them.” He challenged them to become trendsetters, “courageous,
humble and inclusive,” even confrontational when necessary.<BR><BR>Browning
illustrates this with President Jimmy Carter’s 1978 Camp David talks when
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat refused to negotiate a second longer. His bags
were packed, and he had called for a driver. Carter went immediately into a
nearby room and prayed, asking God for wisdom and guidance. Then he assertively
asked Sadat not to leave. If he left, he would betray his own people and betray
Carter’s friendship as well. With tears in his eyes, Carter shared that Sadat
walked off for a few moments and then came back informing Carter that he was
staying. A peace agreement followed.<BR><BR>“Sometimes the gospel is assertive
and offensive“ throwing a book in our face. “It’s called tough
love.”1<BR><BR><STRONG>Father John Dear</STRONG> emphasizes the audience’s
hostility as they cry out against Jesus’ criticism. Bringing the passage into
our century, Jesus would be saying that we Americans think we are holy, and God
should consistently bless us. Instead, God is not paying any attention to us for
God is helping a widow in Baghdad whose families were killed by our fire, and a
child in Afghanistan killed by our military, and a family in Palestine who lost
their home due to American military aid to Israel. Dear believes we too would
have been hostile hearing Jesus speak openly and frankly to us with such advice.
In our day, Jesus, would be trying to shock us into a new awareness, which
should lead us to humbly accept his judgments, leading us to repentance and
obedience. “We need Jesus to tell us the truth, to call us to justice and
liberation, [and] to summon us to his way of loving nonviolence.”<FONT
size=1>2<BR><BR></FONT><FONT size=4><STRONG>Russell Campbell</STRONG> stresses
Jesus’ prophetic role of calling people into accountability and away from their
selfishness and faithlessness. Jesus’ integrity moved him to call the people of
Nazareth to become servants of light. Instead, their narrowness led them to miss
a great opportunity “to participate in a new future.” The listeners were only
“willing to settle for a God just small enough to meet [their] own needs.”
Likewise, we too, are often so preoccupied with our perception of mission that
we become “limited to maintenance rather than mission.” We become so enamored
with security that we fail to move forward in the power of the Holy Spirit to
places and callings that leave our comfort zones behind.</FONT><FONT
size=1>3<BR><BR></FONT><FONT size=4>Christopher Davis Carlisle
<BR><BR>Notes<BR>1. Dr. Robert F. Browning, “Can the Gospel be Offensive?”
January 28, 2007.<BR>2. Father John Dear, “A Prophet Is Not Welcome,” February
1, 2004,.<BR>3. Rev. Russell Campbell, Luke 4:21-30,“Me Too!,“ January 28,
2007.<BR></FONT><STRONG>SCRIPTURE & SCREEN: Luke
4:21-30<BR><BR></STRONG>Some texts shock us, usurping our expectations. Movies
that go and do likewise can be a smart match with such texts, including this
one.<BR><BR>One of the most shocking and unsettling films is the surrealist,
silent, classic short film <I>Un Chien Andalou</I> (1929; dir. Luis Bunuel).
This sixteen-minute film opens with the infamous shot of the director slicing
open the eye of a woman (Simone Mareuil) with a straight razor. The initial
message is lacerating yet blunt: “What you, the viewer, are about to see will
assault you, including by overturning your expectations of film.” The movie
delivers on this threatening promise. With help from the Surrealist painter
Salvador Dali, Bunuel presents one bizarre and grotesque scene after another,
repeatedly catching the viewer off-guard. The plot–as much as there is one–is of
a romance between a man (Pierre Batcheff) and a woman (Simone Mareuil), who
appears to be married to someone else (Luis Bunuel). The two engage in a
relationship that is sometimes almost unsettlingly erotic, sometimes hostile.
Mixed in with this “plot” are strange, phantasmagorical images, such as a hand
that has a hole in it from which ants are crawling. One of the most famous
images from the film is that of the man dragging behind him the following items,
which are attached to him by ropes: two grand pianos, rotting donkey carcasses,
the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and two bewildered priests
(Salvador Dali and Jaime Miravilles). Even the title, which translates as “An
Andalusian Dog,” is bizarre in that it appears, at least at first, to have
nothing to do with the film.<BR><BR>What does all this mean? Beats me. The
movie’s meaning is difficult to pinpoint; indeed, the meaning’s elusiveness is
one of the movie’s key themes. Our text from Luke does contain meaning, but it
is abrasive and shocking. Jesus chastises his hometown for its rejection of him,
thereby helping to fortify the very rejection of which Jesus speaks. Thus,
Jesus’ message to his fellow Nazarenes almost seems designed to be offensive. In
any case, the harsh message is offensive, just as <I>Un Chien Andalou</I>, with
its bizarre and grotesque departures from film conventions, is at times
offensive, or at least disturbing. Just as <I>Un Chien Andalou</I> slices open
the eye of the viewer, so also does Jesus slice open the minds and hearts of the
people in his hometown, as well as, to a lesser extent, the hearts and minds of
us readers/hearers of the text.<BR><BR>Indeed, challenging societal convention
is a salient feature of Jesus’ ministry as a whole, and sharply criticizing
societal conventions, including Christianity, is a salient feature of Bunuel’s
films, including <I>Un Chien Andalou</I>. In this film, for instance, Bunuel’s
image of the man dragging the Ten Commandments and priests with rotting donkey
corpses suggests that at least mainstream religion is oppressive, a burden. In
his Surrealist 1930 masterpiece<I> L’age D’</I>or (which means The Golden Age),
Bunuel intensifies his attack on religion through such images as a bishop being
thrown out of a window and, most shocking of all, a scene near the end of the
film in which a Christ-figure is associated with a murderous orgy. The movie
also intercuts scenes of Paris and Vatican City, showing both as sick with
decay. One scene shows buildings collapsing on a Sunday and indicates through an
intertitle that such activity is typical for a Sunday.<BR><BR>Bunuel also
attacks other aspects of bourgeois Western society, giving special attention to
the bourgeois Westerner’s inability to have a fulfilling romantic relationship.
The film features a man (Gaston Modot) and a woman (Lya Lys) trying repeatedly
to have a love affair but butting up against one obstacle after another. For
instance, when the two try to be intimate in a garden, the man gets distracted
by a statue of Venus. Then he is summoned to deal with a phone call. While he is
absent, the woman sucks erotically on the toes of the statue. The two people,
especially the man, are inept at having any real relationship. The movie is full
of such parodies and critiques, with one of Bunuel’s main points being to expose
and deride the impotence and hypocrisy of Western, bourgeois
society.<BR><BR>Jesus, also, is providing a severe critique of the society in
front of him, his hometown. Indeed, his ministry, as we see throughout Luke,
challenges religious authority and conventional values. Jesus’ words in this
text are shocking and lead to a climax and denouement reminiscent of a
Surrealist film: The crowd devolves into a mob and tries to throw him off a
cliff, but he somehow gets away.<BR><BR>We preachers, then, can offer a new
perspective on this passage by highlighting how it resembles these
counter-cultural Surrealist films, striving to slice open our expectations with
the straight razor-side of the Good News. <BR><BR>David von
Schlichten<BR><BR><BR><BR></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>