Episode Details

Christ For All, Third Sunday After EpiphanyLuke 4:14-22A Confrontation in the SynagogueIn our reading today from Luke’s Gospel we’ve got half a story. These readings are taken from the Church’s lectionary and so we have to preach on what we’re given, but the selection today I have to say is somewhat odd and could be quite misleading. In the translation that you just heard, the English Standard Version, Jesus stands up in a synagogue in Nazareth, which was his hometown. He reads from the scroll, quoting the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61. He sits down and then tells them the Scripture, which is about the Messiah – God’s anointed one who would come to deliver his people in some way – is in fact him, Jesus. ‘And all spoke well of him and marvelled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth’.In itself this comes across as a quaint tale of Jesus coming back to the place he grew up, reading a bit of Scripture, proclaiming himself to be the Messiah, and people accepting it.In my view, this is not what happened at all. And I think we are dealing with a poor translation choice. For, verse 22, which I just quoted, tells us that the people initially accepted Jesus’ claims and were happy about them. But then they turned on him just as quickly: “Is this not Joseph’s son?” And they took offence at him. The whole conversation climaxes with their driving him to the brow of a hill and attempting to throw him down the cliff. Why the sudden change of heart?The answer is that the people did not speak well of him and marvel at his gracious words. As I say, I think this is a bad translation, and I am not alone. Without going into linguistic details, a better translation would be something like, ‘And all witnessed against him and were amazed at the words of mercy that came out of his mouth.’ This would make far more sense of the context.Then the question becomes: Why did they witness against him? Why did the people of his hometown reject him and his teaching and try and kill him?The answer comes if we look at the Scripture he read and the way he read it. For, he chose a Scripture, Isaiah 61, that may very well have been a favourite in the Synagogue at Nazareth. Nazareth was a very small town and for historical reasons would have been highly nationalistic and anti-Gentile. They were expecting the Messiah to come and to deliver them from Roman occupation. Number one. But, even more than this, they were expecting the Gentile nations to be made into their servants. And they were expecting this partly because of what it says in Isaiah 61. For it says that the Messiah would come ‘to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God’. Slightly later on in Isaiah 61, it says, ‘Aliens shall feed your flocks, foreigners shall be your ploughmen and vinedressers…you shall eat the wealth of the nations (or the Gentiles) and in their riches you shall glory’.So, what’s the problem? Put quite simply, Jesus chose not to read those bits out. He intentionally left out the bits that spoke about judgment on the Gentile nations, and instead left in all the bits about God bringing liberty and healing. Now, this was not Jesus putting himself above the Scripture. It was in fact a common practice to read the Scriptures in a synagogue in a selective way, shortening texts or even bringing in other bits of Scripture to supplement the main passage that was being read. So here, Jesus specifically leaves out the words ‘the day of the vengeance of our God’ and cuts the passage short before the bit about the Gentile nations serving the Jews.The great Middle-Eastern scholar Kenneth Bailey imagines what the people in the synagogue must have been thinking:What is the matter with this boy? He has quoted one of our favorite texts, but he has omitted some of its most important verses. In the process he has turned a text of judgment into a text of mercy. This is outrageous! The messianic age is a golden age for us and a day of God’s vengeance upon them. How