Nassau Presbyterian Church

January 31, 2010
Luke 4:16-30

"No Place Like Home?"
Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

You know what a Presbyterian Church gets when they invite an Episcopal preacher into the pulpit? A shorter worship service!

Even though I followed my mother into Episcopal ministry, today is a sort of a homecoming Sunday for me.
In a manner of speaking, I grew up in your basement- 21 steps below this pulpit -in the offices and storage spaces of the Crisis Ministry. As I helped my mother – packing food bags, stocking shelves, sorting clothes and sitting in the office as she worked with clients, I did not know it at the time, but I was being formed for ministry -----in your basement.
Sometimes, when I was done being helpful, I would climb 16 of those steps and find a quiet pew here in the sanctuary and try to come to grips with the confounding fact that I was a person of faith. Like a 13 year old trying to find a dance partner – I was full of awkward, fumbling attraction, searing embarrassment and pure naked fear. I wanted the relationship with Jesus and I knew it would change everything.

So today is an unexpected homecoming for me. I never expected or dared to climb all 21 steps up this pulpit. And then, as it happens, the Gospel has some interesting things to say about preaching in your hometown.
To be perfectly clear, I DID NOT CHOOSE this scripture for today. “A prophet has no authority in his hometown!” But when I read it for the first time a few months ago I laughed out loud and immediately wondered where the nearest cliff is.
Something goes horribly wrong for Jesus in his hometown synagogue. He has announced the arrival of the Kingdom of God and we will see-- as the Gospel of Luke continues -- that where ever Jesus is the Kingdom of God breaks out and transforms the order of things.

In my memory of the story I thought that Jesus was immediately rejected for his audacious announcement, but the text is clear that his neighbors initially react with joy and they speak highly of him.
So why do his neighbor turn on him?
Because Jesus provokes them,

Jesus agitates them,

Jesus clearly sees something in this celebration, that he does not like and he challenges it head on.
Jesus tells stories from scripture about God loving the enemies of Israel. In fact, he tells stories about God favoring the enemies of Israel with healing while Israel waits for attention. In my reading Jesus is saying,
“God loves you, my friends and neighbors AND (x2 what a challenging ‘and’) God loves the people you despise. There is no privilege in the Kingdom of God. There are no insiders and outsiders, no hierarchy, in the Kingdom of God.”
It might be too much time living in Chicago, but my instincts tell me that Jesus’ friends and neighbors initially celebrated because they smelled patronage jobs in the Kingdom of God. They would be insiders, the inner circle, at the right hand, a new elite!

And, when Jesus pushes back on their assumed entitlement the reaction is RAGE and VIOLENCE. We must restore the order that comforts us by purging the community of this threatening agitator, this Jesus, this dangerous form of love.

Now our culture has turned Jesus into a sort of plush toy or one of those fleece blankets with arms that you wear while watching TV. So we might miss or not be prepared for the challenge Jesus puts to us today. As my African American friends often, OFTEN, remind me, the primary privilege of being a privileged person is never having to think about how privileged you are.

But there is NO PRIVILEGE in the Kingdom of God. God love us and God loves those we despise, those we judge as inferior to ourselves.

How does this fact of the Kingdom of God rub against our non-kingdom reality? How does our world – the world as it is – compare to the world with Jesus at center – the world as it should be?

New Jersey is the number one state in the union for segregation by income. New Jersey is also the 5th most racially segregated state in the union. Education, employment, health and nutrition are unequally distributed according to this very same segregation. Even Sunday morning is the most segregated time period by class and race in one of the most segregated states in the country. The first bill slated for vote in the State Senate in 2010 is a bi-partisan effort to gut Affordable Housing requirements for New Jersey municipalities; towns will not have to set aside affordable development for low-income residents. As the mayor of Mt. Laurel said on a Sunday morning at the AME church in his town that only wished to build some decent housing for their community, “If you people can’t afford to live here then you should move somewhere else.” That was 40 years ago but it might as well be today. Summit, New Jersey is fighting Habit for Humanity tooth and nail for planning 6 units of affordable housing for that town

Privilege is prevalent in New Jersey. What does the body of Christ have to say about it? There is no privilege in the Kingdom of God. When the Kingdom of God comes the valleys will be raised up and the hills brought low. Conventional wisdom says that if we raise the hills we will raise the valleys, if the rich can get richer – and they have – then the poor will get richer. But they haven’t. Extreme poverty has only increased in NJ as median income and the income gap have risen to record levels.

Biblical wisdom says that the kingdom of God will look different depending on whether you are living on a hill or living in a valley. The first will be last and the last will be first, the poor will be filled with good things and the rich will be sent away empty , the hills will be made low and the valleys exalted. The good news is that we will meet in a level place and all be set free together. AMEN.