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I don’t have to guess what most of you will be doing this afternoon and evening. It’s a pretty important night for those of us who are true fans. I can expect that, like me, you’ll try to get home in time to get the TV set warmed up. Maybe you’ll have some friends over to join in the fun. Maybe you’ll have some special TV watching snacks at the ready.
If you’re like me, you’ll make sure you’ve got good command of the remote in case any instant replays are needed. Because, as I don’t have to tell you, tonight all across the nation, millions of us will be tuning in to see who will be the winners and who will be the losers… on another episode of Downton Abbey.
What, was that not what you were expecting?
Well, neither was the death in childbirth last week of Lady Sybil. But such is the nature of life at Downton Abbey. I mean, how many fortunes is Matthew Crowley going to inherit? He’s up to two now, and still counting… You never know what’s going to happen next at Downton, who’s going to be this week’s loser or next week’s winner.
Well, the people at Downton Abbey aren’t alone. They have something in common with some very surprised Nazoreans from our gospel reading today.
Our gospel today takes up immediately after last week’s gospel -- it even overlaps by a verse or two. As we know, Jesus is on the rota as a lector -- and he has read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, his hometown. The section of Isaiah that he reads is one in which the anointed messiah has come to give comfort to the poor and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Instead of ending his reading with, “The Word of the Lord” as you just heard our lectors do, Jesus makes a bold declaration. Jesus says, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He proclaims here in his hometown, among those who’ve known him all his life, that he is God’s anointed messiah.
In addition to Luke, Matthew and Mark also recount this incident. And in the other two synoptic gospels, the Nazoreans seem to take umbrage with Jesus’ proclamation because of their familiarity with him. Their reaction is sort of, “Who does this guy think he is? He’s not messiah, he’s just a carpenter, not a scholar, and certainly not the messiah.”
In Luke’s version, it seems that the Nazoreans’ umbrage is based more on the fact that they expect something from Jesus. If he’s going to make these miraculous claims, well, OK. But what’s in it for us? Jesus recognizes the Nazoreans’ self-centeredness right off and he calls them on it. “I’ll bet you’re thinking, ‘What’s in this for us?’ I’ll bet you’re thinking, “Let’s see if he can make a big splash here like we hear he has done in Capernaum.”
Jesus points out to the Nazoreans that God’s healing and life-saving works have not always been directed toward and visited upon the people of Israel to the exclusion of all others. He cites two examples from Scripture that show how the prophets of old worked their wonders, not for Israelites, but for foreigners -- for a widow of Zarephath and a general of the Syrian army.
And remember, we’re in Ephiphanytide, when our readings emphasize the revelation of Jesus’ identity as the messiah, and not just a messiah for the people of Israel, but a messiah for all the world. In our gospel reading today, Jesus points out that throughout salvation history, God’s mercy and grace has been extended beyond the Hebrew people, to those who might be, to some, beyond God’s grace and love.
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This week’s gospel overlaps with last week’s, as we’ve noted. And this week’s epistle reading follows directly after last week’s. Last week, Paul urged the Corinthians to be members of the same body, to be one in Christ. Now comes Paul’s famous hymn to love, as beautiful a piece of Scripture as any in the New Testament. It’s one of the selections most often used at weddings. But that’s a bit of a misuse of this passage. Paul is not speaking about individual love, Paul is speaking about the love that is or should be part of community life. There is one part that we’ve skipped over in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians from last week. Not even a whole verse even but one-half of a verse that concludes chapter 12. Paul writes, “I will show you a still more excellent way.”
The verses that follow that we read today remind us that, really, it’s all about love. That no matter our talents, if we don’t use them out of love for God, in a reflection of the love God has for us, they are meaningless. We must be mature in the faith, to use our mature reason alongside a humble acceptance of the limits of our knowledge. This is the still more excellent way to live together as a community that in some wise, in some dimly shimmering image, reflects the great love that Christ bears for us -- and not only us, but for the whole world.
This broad, accepting, loving community that Jesus and Paul seem so sure about… it’s quite a challenge to bring about. The very idea of it angered the Nazoreans to the point of violence, as it still does some today. It was clearly beyond the reach of the Corinthians, else Paul would not have had to write to them -- and so often -- to exhort them to live together with their several gifts, and several claims to authority, as one body in Christ.
They struggle with it at Downton Abbey too. There are Irish rebels sitting at table with English aristocrats, reformed prostitutes brought into good homes as respectable cooks and maids. There are lowly law clerks set to become earls, no less. It’s a new world breaking into being that troubles many of the old guard in the early 20th century. And herein lies the fascination for us, I think -- it’s not unlike the world we live in, that so often troubles us today. When lesbian and gay folk are allowed to marry and take positions of leadership in the church, when an African-American can be elected president of one of the last nations on earth to abolish race-based slavery, there is a new world coming into being. One that, we hope, in some darkly reflected way is a reflection the great and good community of the body of Christ that Paul urges on us, and that Jesus proclaimed at Nazareth.
Like the folks at Downton Abbey, and at Corinth and at Nazareth, we all struggle to live into, and to live with, such a sweepingly broad and accepting image of community. It’s not easy, it’s never going to be. But we do struggle forward towards it, I believe, in fits and starts. But by with the light of our faith, and with the enduring hope that we know, and compelled onwards by the compelling love of Christ that we know, and that we try to manifest in the world, for the world, we try, we try to see through the glass darkly, and to bring about the vision we see there.
The still more excellent way is still a ways off. But we’ll get there. Our faith will abide until we do, and our hope will hold out, and most of all, the love of God will not abandon us, will not leave us orphan. So we strive still to follow the still more excellent way, in faith, and in hope, and above all, in love. +Amen.
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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