“Straight from the Heart of God”
January 26, 2025
Luke 4:14–21
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
When 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, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And 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. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ ***
The hometown boy, Jesus, has returned to Nazareth and for the first time those who knew him as a child have the opportunity to hear him teach as an adult. Sounds like a picture of a lovely reunion, doesn’t it?
We love to picture the warmth of home. Home, sweet home. Home is where the heart is. Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home.
Norman Rockwell (1894 –1978) was an American painter and illustrator. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life and home he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades.
In his heyday, Rockwell reinforced what idyllic views of home should look like. His depictions remind us of the love, joy, and safety many feel when remembering the places that shaped us — places that live on in us even when we are far from them, and even when they no longer exist.
Yet, as beautiful and sweet as his painting were, Rockwell did not live in the nostalgic world he painted. His biographer Deborah Solomon notes that he had anything but a peaceful and loving home life. He suffered sustained bouts of depression. He married three times. At his death, his wife did not permit his sons to speak at his funeral.
Rockwell used his gift to paint idyllic worlds of home life which he never inhabited. Yet, with a discerning eye, he helped people envision human potential with his paintings. They call forth a world of peace and beauty in those places where we all yearn to reside but often do not.
I wish Rockwell had painted the scene in Luke 4 where Jesus returns home to Nazareth and the hometown people are eager to hear him teach. For his first public appearance, He chooses the synagogue, the main center of Jewish religious and social activity. After prayer, a reading from the Law of Moses and readings from the Prophets followed. Any male could volunteer to read simply by standing up. Sometimes readers were arranged in advance. Afterwards, the reader would sit down to offer his interpretation. Vigorous discussion sometimes ensued (Acts 17:2).
Luke tells us Jesus must have been arranged to read in advance. He was handed the scroll of Isaiah and he chose to read portions of some later chapters:
“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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he sat down. Next, in his interpretation, he said: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ I imagine after this statement sunk in, there were gasps and puzzled looks. What did he just say?
Today. Note that word. Jesus does not simply say, “The Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” or “The Scripture will be fulfilled in your hearing,” but rather he is pointedly present tense, “Today, the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Here in his hometown, with people who watched him grow up, he says, “I am back and let me tell you who I am and what I am about. I am telling you God is concerned about this world, its poor, blind, captive and oppressed and I am making this the year of God’s favor for all who are disenfranchised.”
Jesus is naming what God is concerned about in this world and it is quite different than the understanding of God the hometown religious folk held to be true. Those who thought they knew Jesus best simply could not accept his claim that the gifts of God’s grace and mercy are not granted because of nationality, tribal loyalty, or hometown connections.
The hometown crowd’s hopes for special favors are dashed. They wanted no part of his teaching about God as one concerned about the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. They did not want a message of God’s concern for outsiders and the overlooked.
I wonder how Rockwell would have captured the face of a hometown boy staring down a hometown crowd as it turns dangerous and deadly? Mere words seem to fail Luke’s descriptive powers.
What a gift Rockwell could have left us by capturing the contradictions and reversals of this homecoming scene. Think of how a Rockwell “Nazareth Homecoming” might have been added to art museums and cathedrals. But had such a painting been created it would have best been suited for our homes. Our hope for and love for home — even when it is not our present reality — keeps alive in us the promise of the new creation, when pain, rejection, and misunderstanding at the hands of those who should know us best shall be no more.
Next week, the reading from Luke 4 continues on to tell us how the hometown crowd reacts against Jesus proclaiming God’s favor and concern for people they don’t believe merit it. If this sounds like an issue facing the American Christian church and believers today, it is. The hatred of the Jesus’ hometown people leads to anger and a desire to even kill him, highlighting the hostility that can arise when people lose the focus on what is true and foundational to the heart of God.
