Year C
Luke: 4:21-30
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Known, Claimed, Called, Loved
Years ago, in the amusement arcades, you could find a machine called the “Love Tester” machine. They were in existence long before the high-tech video games took over, but there still may be a few out there somewhere tucked away in a dark corner. I’m pretty sure I remember testing out that machine a time or two when I was younger. Essentially, it had a metal handgrip with an array of electric lights behind it. The harder you squeezed the handgrip, the more lights would come on. Each light symbolized a rung on the ladder of physical attractiveness: from wimp to red-hot…well, you get the drift. Somewhere on the machine written in small print, was this stern disclaimer: “For Amusement Only” as if anyone could mistake the machine for a real scientific apparatus.
Yet even so, it was a good claim for the arcade owners for they must have made a good bit of money in nickels, dimes and quarters to keep it around for many years. Today, in the texts, we have an opportunity to consider a different sort of claim. This claim is the one God has on us. From our mother’s womb, our main identity is as God’s children. All the lessons affirm this reality and illustrate the remarkable results of being known, claimed, and called by God. We belong to God and this is so appropriate to remember during this season of Epiphany, as we remember our baptisms. To be known, claimed, and called by God means we are equipped “to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.”
It means we are empowered, gifted to proclaim God’s word and embody God’s will. For example, Jeremiah, despite his objections and fears becomes “a prophet to the nations.” And today we hear an account of his divine commissioning. Next, week, we will have the similar story of the call of Isaiah. Jeremiah, known and consecrated before he was born, had many years of ministry, beginning when he was “only a boy.” The commission or call we hear today probably occurred in 627 BCE. Thereafter, he would witness all of the events leading up to the Babylonian exile in 587 BCE. He, himself was taken into exile in Egypt, where he died.
The text today gives us a good picture of what the scriptures mean by “prophet.” God says, “I have put my words in your mouth.” The prophet is not one who predicts the future, but one who speaks God’s words and who expresses God’s point of view. Therefore, the prophet’s task is to judge the past, comment on the present, and offer predictions for the future all based on God’s word and will. Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry will include not only tearing down that which is unjust, but also “building and planting” all that is godly, for at various times he will be both a prophet of doom and a prophet of hope. The love test for Jeremiah was that despite his reluctance and fear he accepts his call and serves the rest of his life speaking God’s truth and seeking God’s will for himself and for his people.
In today’s New Testament text Paul provides us with his Love Test, a test that defines that rare and selfless kind of love the Greeks call agape’. In one of the best-known passages in the NT, Paul gives us a spiritual guide to true Christian love. His point, by providing us with the marks of that kind of love, is that love is a test itself, a measuring stick, a standard: for love is the way God intends us to practice all of our spiritual gifts. It’s almost impossible to understand our passage today without referring to the passage that precedes it, of which we heard last week, where Paul, writing to those quarrelsome Corinthians, speaks about the spiritual gifts given to the Body of Christ to accomplish God’s work in the world. He encourages them to: “Strive for the greater gifts…the most wondrous gift of all being the gift of love.
Theologian Teihard de Chardin must have been reading 1 Corinthians 13 when he wrote: “Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, mankind will have discovered fire.” For as Paul says, “For if I do not have love, I gain nothing,” the love test for gaining everything is: how do our lives measure up to God’s love and ways? And the only way we will be able to measure up and understand this love that Paul is speaking about, is to remove it from being just a good thought, to action; to getting out and using it. What we discover is that love is always about others and not ourselves. Love is doing the things that Paul describes in this text.
No one understood the love Paul describes today better than Mother Teresa who began her acceptance speech for the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, by referencing to Jesus’ dictate “I was hungry—I was naked—I was homeless-I was unwanted, unloved, uncared for-and you did it to me.” She followed: “And I think that we in our family don’t need bombs and guns to destroy, to bring peace-just get together, love one another, bring peace, that joy, that presence of each other into the home….sounds like the 1960’s & 70”s doesn’t it? And, she said, we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world. “This is how they will know you are my disciples, that you have love for one another” Jesus said. And the law of God is summarized in the words, “Love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Now, I’m pretty sure Jesus was not feeling that love that day in the synagogue. Today’s text opens with the final verse of last week’s gospel lesson. Closing the Isaiah scroll, he declared, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The people find it hard to accept that this man, whom they remember as a young boy, could be set apart by God for such an extraordinary role. And, the examples Jesus cites in his comments to the people were unnerving for them to hear. God showing mercy to foreigners, not a daughter or son of Israel. Suddenly the point Jesus is making becomes painfully clear to those present that they will shun him and outsiders will receive him. They become a mob, driving Jesus to the edge of a cliff.
I believe they failed the love test that day. They certainly didn’t show the kind of love Paul speaks about and of which the gospel is clear. God’s love is always more pervasive, complete and powerful than our hatred. By the very nature of our humanity, we tend to put limits on love. God does not, and we see that love in action in the Jesus’s ministry, death, and resurrection for all people. God’s plan is love—and love will bind us together as nations, as citizens, and as one body in Christ. The good news today is: Even in those times when we have doubts or we’re not sure God is listening, we can be sure of this, God loves us and we are known, claimed, and called by God. God’s Spirit is ours, to equip and empower us in every circumstance to live and love in accordance with God’s purposes for us and the world. So, let’s grab that handgrip and squeeze with all our might so that all the lights on the “Love Tester” light up…”For the greatest of these is love.”