The Message and the Messenger

Pastors, do your messages sometimes get you in trouble?  They should, if you are imitating Jesus Christ.

The following comments will be based primarily on The Message translation of the Bible which has no verse divisions.

In Luke 4, after Jesus began his public ministry, we find a variety of human reactions to both his message and his person.  Sometimes both the message and the messenger were accepted; sometimes both were rejected; sometimes there was a mixed response.  I recently discovered this when I reread Luke 4, my favorite chapter in all of Scripture.

Luke 4:14  "Jesus returned to Galilee powerful in the Spirit. . . .  He taught in their meeting places to everyone's acclaim and pleasure."  Very good news to all---message and messenger.

Luke 4:16-24  "He came to Nazareth where he had been reared."  He read from Isaiah 61.  What was the reaction?  "All spoke well of him" (NIV).  The message was good news to their ears, but they questioned the messenger; he was only Joseph's son.  Could lowly Jesus bring in Jubilee justice, the kingdom of God?

Luke 4:25-30  In essence, Jesus said he loved and cared about the despised Gentiles as much as he did the chosen people Israel.  Sermon B got Jesus in a lot of trouble; the Nazareth Jews who shortly before has praised Jesus, now turned on him, "seething with anger . . . throw him to his doom."

Luke 4:31-44 "He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee.  He was teaching the people on the Sabbath.  They were surprised and impressed---his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative,"  verse 42  As he preached the kingdom, people "clung to him."

Contrast this reaction to the Pharisee's reaction in chapter 5; they rejected Jesus' teaching as "blasphemous talk."

Pastors, what kind of a response does your preaching provoke?  Has anyone ever hit you in the face after a sermon?  Has your church ever threatened to fire you?  Or do you always receive only a good, polite response?  If you are a white pastor, have you ever challenged your parishioner's ethnocentrism and asked them to repent of their superiority and privilege?