LESSON: Matthew 2.19-23, NRSVA

SERMON TITLE: Exodus

INTRODUCTION

1. Alternatives exist to bless us or vex us.
1. We have to choose.
2. The results of choice must be assessed and accepted.
3. The text for today provides for two foci
1. Egypt and Exodus
2. The Man from Nazareth, the Nazorean.
2. This is the fifth of five opening stories describes the return of Mary and Joseph from Egypt after Herod's death, and their subsequent move to Nazareth. ⁽¹⁾
1. Archelaus. Son of Herod, ruler of Judea from 4 BCE to 6 CE, when the Romans deposed him for incompetence.
1. He was a cruel image of his father.
2. He had 3,000 people killed in one day.
3. His territory is to be avoided.
3. Joseph is told in a dream to settle someplace else.
1. So he settles in Nazareth.
2. Nazareth is the place in which Joseph and Mary lived in the beginning.

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MAIN BODY:

1. My original intention with this sermon was to concentrate on the exodus of Joseph, Mary and Jesus from Egypt.
1. The story invokes vivid and significant memories.
1. There is another Joseph.
1. He also is a man of integrity who determines to use what is available for the benefit of his family.
2. He is concerned not only with the present, but also with the future.
2. There is another Exodus.
1. People leaving for the journey to the Promised Land.
2. They also have to deal with a cruel and dominating tyrant of a ruler.
3. Egypt is a dominating force in the life not only of ancient Israel, but even of people living in the time of Jesus.
1. It is at once a physical place.
2. It is also a spiritual reality.
4. There is a sense in which the ties with Egypt remained strong.
1. Not so much for the location but for the spiritual reality.
1. The Romans have recreated the oppression of Egypt.
2. The Romans have established a form of worship similar to that which existed in Egypt.
5. There is a parallel to our own place and time.
1. We in a sense live in Egypt.
2. We have not yet reached the promised land.
3. Grandmother's story.

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My Grandmother Edith Shultz was a minister's and missionary's wife. She was a missionary. Edith and her husband James were returning from a mission in Japan. The ship in which they were sailing was overtaken by a Pacific typhoon. As the ship was sinking, the passengers were settled into lifeboats to await rescue. Grandmother likened life to a ship sinking and rescue in a lifeboat. The earth is the ship. Jesus provides the lifeboat, salvation, the church. We are not entirely safe until we reach the other shore, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

1. The Kingdom exists in our future.
2. The acquirement of the Kingdom includes another exodus.
1. A second theme is the Man from Nazareth, the Nazorean.
1. Nazareth. According one source was an obscure village near Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee during the Roman period. ⁽²⁾
1. Nazareth was not such an obscure isolated village as we might have come to believe
2. It is with seeing distance of Sepphoris.
1. Sepphoris was an important city on the trade route between Egypt and Mesopotamia.
2. It was wealthy, cultured and sophisticated.
3. Speaking with an archeologist who was uncovering Sepphoris.
4. Tradition tells the story of the death of Joseph taking place in Sepphoris when a scaffolding collapsed as he was working on a building.
2. He will be called a Nazorean refers to the town of his early life and the location from whence Jesus came to preach, teach, heal and reveal the nature and character of God.
3. What this has to do with is with our constant desire and necessity to engage in naming and the liabilities and benefits evoked by a name.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Calvin Miller tells the story of a first-grader in a rather counter-cultural community who came a few days late for the beginning of school. ⁽³⁾

His teacher was pleased that his parents had filled out all the appropriate forms, including putting his name on a name tag around his neck.

Still, though the teacher was used to names like "Sea Foam," "Precious Promise," and "Peek-a-Boo," she was startled by the name on this small boy's tag, "Fruitstand."

She went with the flow, though, and throughout the day it was, "Fruitstand, would you like to color a picture?" "Fruitstand, it is time for recess."

When it was time to put the children on the buses that afternoon, she said, "Now, don't you worry, Fruitstand, the bus driver will know where to drop you off because all of the parents write where their child should get off on the back of the name tag." Turning over Fruitstand's name tag, she found the word "Anthony."

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ILLUSTRATION:

I wrote a letter to the editor of the Home News. I was startled to see that I was a citizen of Arena. Don't get me wrong this is a fine town and anyone would be proud to live here. I appeared before the Spring Green village board and again I was listed as a citizen of Arena. Now this would not be a problem except that I am seeking to generate interest to preserve the Spring Green Congregational Church.

The congregation wants to build a new facility. You probably saw the plans in the Home News. You may have even read the letter that I wrote. Why should we preserve our history and our heritage. Because it connects us with the means for discovering who and what we are and where we have come from.

1. The response to Jesus of Nazareth is at best conflicted.
2. There are those who question as well as appreciate.
3. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth

John 1:45-46 (NRSVA) ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

1. The response of people in Jesus' home town was negative.

Luke 4:16-29 (NRSVA)¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸"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, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" ²³He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" ²⁴And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. ²⁵But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; ²⁶yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." ²⁸When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.

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1. Unclean spirits sought to diminish his influence and power.

Mark 1:21-28 (NRSVA) ²¹They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. ²²They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. ²³Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, ²⁴and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." ²⁵But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" ²⁶And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. ²⁷They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching--with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." ²⁸At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

1. Jesus heals a blind beggar near Jericho

Luke 18:35-43 (NRSVA) ³⁵As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. ³⁶When he heard a crowd going by, he asked what was happening. ³⁷They told him, "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by." ³⁸Then he shouted, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" ³⁹Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet; but he shouted even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" ⁴⁰Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, ⁴¹"What do you want me to do for you?" He said, "Lord, let me see again." ⁴²Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has saved you." ⁴³Immediately he regained his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, praised God.

1. In Acts 4, Peter and John are before the Sanhedrin to answer charges and accusations.

Acts 4:710 (NRSVA) ⁷When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, "By what power or by what name did you do this?" ⁸Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders, ⁹if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, ¹⁰let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.

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1. Remember the story of Fruitstand.
1. One side of his name tag read Fruitstand.
2. The other side said Anthony.
2. One side of Jesus' name tag reads "Jesus of Nazareth;" the other, "Emmanuel, God is with us."

CONCLUSION:

1. Isn't the text marvelous for the facets of Jesus life which it demonstrates.
1. Look at what we can learn
2. Egypt and Nazareth.
3. We live in Egypt and can go to Nazareth.
4. Jesus does not live there anymore
5. Nazareth point to the one who love us and has the capacity to save us.
2. Amen.

   1. Cambridge Annotated Study Bible NRSV with Apocrypha

   2. Cambridge Annotated Study Bible NRSV with Apocrypha

   3. As cited by Dr. Philip Amerson, "The Holy Work of Encouragement," Address Given at Wesley Theological Seminary, April 15, 1998, 8.

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