SPECIAL DAYS: Fourth Sunday in Lent.

March 21, 2004 - Lesson: Matthew 13.54-58.

Sermon Title: Rejection

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INTRODUCTION:

Hard to Believe (1)

Ending his sermon, a preacher announced that he would preach on Noah and the Ark on the following Sunday, and gave the scriptural reference for the congregation to read ahead of time.

A couple of boys noticed something interesting about the placement of the story in the Bible. They slipped into the church and glued two pages of the pulpit Bible together.

The next Sunday, the preacher got up to read his text. "Noah took unto himself a wife," he began, "and she was" - he turned the page to continue - "three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high."

He paused, scratched his head, turned the page back, read it silently, and turned the page again.

Then he looked up at his congregation and said, "I've been reading this old Bible for near fifty years, but there are some things in it that are hard to believe."

  1. There are some things in this visit of Jesus to his home town of Nazareth that are hard to believe.

    1. This vignette provides some startling insight into the minds, thoughts, and experiences of the people who grew up with Jesus in Nazareth that are hard to believe.

      1. How could they do what they did?

      2. Why did they do what they did?

        1. This is a question that we probably ought not to ask.

        2. We were not there.

        3. We don't know.

        4. We can only speculate.

        5. That has not stopped us before.

    2. There are a few important commentators on the Bible who say that the people of Nazareth ere jealous of Jesus.

      1. They were jealous of his popularity.

      2. They were jealous of his position.

    3. There are other important commentators who say that the people of Nazareth were envious of Jesus.

      1. They were envious of his capabilities.

      2. They were envious of his power.

    4. Regardless, there is a lesson in this experience of the Nazarenes and their response to Jesus visit.

      1. We can learn from what was done.

      2. We can learn to avoid the results that the people brought upon themselves.

      3. To do this we need to look deep into the passage before us.

      4. We then may be inspired to look deep within ourselves.

    5. It is a little like going to Parfrey's Glen

      1. You can enjoy the entrance, it has its own beauty.

      2. To appreciate the full extent of the beauty of this Wisconsin's first State Natural Area, you need to go all the way to the end of the trail.

    6. If you have been to the Grand Canyon, you can see it in a rather cursory way, or you can take the time to explore more of its wonder and beauty.

    7. Let's go exploring and see what we can discover and how it may help us in our daily lives.

  2. I would like to use three words to describe the attitude of the people of Nazareth, the Nazarenes, to Jesus.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. The first word is CRITICIZE.

    1. They wanted to "Cut Jesus down to size."

    2. They attempted to deflate what they understood as his self-importance.

    3. Jesus had come to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue.

      1. You would have thought that they would have warmly greeted him.

      2. You would have thought that they would have been uplifted and blessed by what he had to say.

      3. Rather they were astonished.

      4. They were surprised.

    4. Their surprise led to an astonishing question.

      1. "Where did this man get this wisdom...?"

        1. He had not been to school.

        2. He was not approved by Good Housekeeping.

        3. He was out of favor with the leading Rabbis.

      2. "Where did this man get...these deeds of power?"

        1. He simply cannot do what is being attributed to him.

        2. What is the source of his power?

Samuel Johnson observed:

"Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense."

    1. It is at the expense of the one being criticized.

The late Indian Jesuit priest and psychologist Anthony de Mello liked to tell the story of the two taxidermists who stopped before a window in which an owl was on display.

They immediately began to criticize the way it was mounted. Its eyes were not natural; its wings were not in proportion with its head; its feathers were not neatly arranged; and its feet could certainly be improved.

When they finished critiquing the owl, the old owl slowly turned its head...and winked at them.

    1. Thom and Joani Schultz, in their recent book Why Nobody Learns Much of Anything at Church: And How to Fix It describe the destructive nature of criticism. (2)

They...suggest handing a member of the group a paper cutout of a person with these instructions: "Say something insulting to the person and then tear off one portion of the cutout's body." Passing the cutout around the circle, each person tears off a different part of the person.

Now the group is instructed to say something nice to the now torn-up cutout. As the cutout is passed around again, the group attempts to tape the torn body parts back on.

The group experiences how much more difficult it is to build up rather than tear down.

  1. The second word that we can use to describe the people of Nazareth is Characterize

    1. A synonym is compartmentalize

      1. It mean to put in a box

      2. It means to be enabled to easily define.

    2. This they did with ease.

      1. 55Is not this the carpenter's son?

        1. An insult.

        2. They would not even use his name.

      2. Is not his mother called Mary?

      3. And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

      4. 56And are not all his sisters with us?

    3. Where then did this man get all this?"

      1. They were really not interested in answering their own question.

      2. They simply were seeking to take care of the offense to which they believed they had been subjected.

      3. It was Jesus who was being put down.

A few years ago, one of America's biggest department stores tried marketing a doll in the form of the baby Jesus. (3)

The advertisements described it as being washable, cuddly and unbreakable, and it was neatly packaged in straw, satin and plastic.

To complete the package, the manufacturer added biblical texts appropriate to the baby Jesus.

To the department store executives, it looked like a sure-fire winner, a real moneymaker. But they were wrong. It didn't sell.

In a last-ditch effort to get rid of the dolls, one of the store managers placed a huge sign in a prominent display window. It read:

Jesus Christ, Marked down 50%, Get him while you can.

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  1. The third word which may be used to describe the Nazarenes is:

    1. Compromise

      1. It can mean to expose or make liable to danger, suspicion or disrepute.

      2. They were in a dangerous position and did not realize it.

      3. It brings to mind the words of Jesus in Luke 20:17-18"

"17But he looked at them and said, "What then does this text mean: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'? 18Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls," (Luke 20:17-18, NRSVA).

    1. Their criticism and compartmentalization led them to compromise and give expression of the evil nature of their thoughts and actions.

Scott Peck points out that evil is often subtle. Evil resides in the mother of three next door and the deacon in the church down the street. It is not their sins per se, he writes, that characterize evil people, rather it is the subtlety and persistence and consistency of their sins. Sin is not so much the evil as it is the refusal to acknowledge it. And left unacknowledged, evil numbs our conscience. (4)

"A theology which takes failure seriously does not encourage fatalism, passivity, indifference to the world; rather it affirms that the man who cannot freely lay down his life is one whose ideals and values are already compromised. The man who cannot accept the possibility of complete, radical, personal failure in the carrying out of this Christian mission is not sharing that absolute poverty of spirit which characterized the freedom of Jesus to accept the divinely appointed means for his mission." (5)

  1. Now they are paralyzed

    1. To impair the progress or functioning of life

    2. They have become inoperative and powerless.

  2. Jesus is now weary and sad.

    1. He is powerless to assist.

    2. He says to them, "Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house."

    3. 58And he did not do many deeds of power there,

    4. ...because of their unbelief.

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CONCLUSION

There's an old story about the 20th-century violin virtuoso, Fritz Kreisler. It animates an important point.

Setting out from Hamburg, Germany, one day to give a concert in London, violinist Fritz Kreisler had an hour before his boat sailed.

He wandered into a music shop, where the proprietor asked if he might look at the violin Kreisler was carrying.

He then vanished and returned with two policemen, one of whom told the violinist, "You are under arrest."

"What for?" asked Kreisler.

"You have Fritz Kreisler's violin."

"I am Fritz Kreisler," protested the musician.

"No you're not. Come along."

As Kreisler's boat was sailing soon, there was no time for prolonged explanations. Kreisler asked for his violin and played a piece he was well known for.

"Now are you satisfied? he asked.

The policemen let the musician go because he had done what only Fritz Kreisler could do.

  1. What may we learn from this experience?

  1. I think that you already know what may be learned.

  2. If we do learn it will truly help us to make progress in the development of our spiritual lives.

  3. It will enable us to gain immediate access to the power that Jesus would share with us.

  1. Think about what might have happened in Nazareth if they had let Jesus do only what he could have done?

1. Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

2. --Schultz, Why Nobody Learns Much of Anything at Church: And How to Fix It (Loveland, Colo.: Group Publishing, 1993).

3. --As quoted in Sunday Sermons, 4 September 1994, 1.

4. --Brenda Wilbee, Taming the Dragons (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 23.

5. John Narrone, A Theology of Failure [New York: Paulist Press, 1974], 11).

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