“What Voice Gets Your Attention?”

Text:  Luke 4:21-30                January 31, 2010             Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
A few of you are old enough to remember what was called a record player.  There was a company called RCA and they used the image of a dog sitting attentively next to a record player with the caption “His master’s voice.”  The idea was that the dog was tuning out everything else and giving all of his attention to that one thing, listening to the voice of his master.
Jesus begins his ministry and clearly ignores the voice of the people.  Instead he focuses solely on God’s voice, “he passed though the midst of them and went on his way.”  As you go on your way, what voice gets your attention?
Certainly the voice of Jesus got the people’s attention.  He had read the words from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor….and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  He rolls up the scroll and says, “Now is the time for all of this to happen.”  One of the men in the back shouts “Amen.” A wife says to her husband “Oh, Jesus has such a nice voice.”  The neighbors are so proud of him.  If he would have just told them what they wanted to hear things would have been magnificent.
These were the people he grew up with, his Sunday school teachers, friends from the youth group, some of them probably had furniture that he had built.  He looked like them, dressed like them, worshipped like them, but he listened to a different voice, God’s voice, and what comes out of this mouth? “Let me tell you something.  No prophet is ever welcome in the prophet’s hometown.  You don’t get it.  The Spirit of God blows in more places than you’ve ever imagined.  When Elijah the prophet was in trouble, he didn’t go to one of your widows, but to a foreigner, someone you would never invite to dinner.”  You could hear a pin drop, what was he doing? He will be out of a job like Conan.  “And Oh yeah, I almost forgot, during Elisha’s time, there were many around here that were sick, but he didn’t heal any of them, instead he goes to one of your enemies, someone you wouldn’t even welcome in your synagogue.”
This is not the voice they expected from Joseph’s son, a messiah should not talk like this.  They could understand how he had grown from a child to a teenager, to an adult, the physical growth, but they did not understand this spiritual change.  Obviously he was not going to take over dad’s carpenter’s shop.  He did not fit into their picture.  He said you are probably going to say something like “Doctor, cure yourself!”  Which means “If you could cure all those undeserving people in Capernaum, you will do an even better job here.”  This good news he talks about is going to benefit the people they don’t even like.  They went from liking what they heard to disliking, so they get angry. “Let’s throw him off the cliff.”  “This is not the Joseph we knew.”  They fail of course, at least for now, but in a few months they will accomplish that.
So what is the difference in the voices?  God’s voice, God’s love knows no borders or boundaries.  At first they were proud and excited at what Jesus had become, soon they realized he had changed, grown, learned things they had not been taught.  Jesus had broadened his horizons and experienced God in new ways.
The voices the people had listened to had convinced them that the Messiah would liberate them from bondage.
So as they listened to Jesus, what he said did not correspond with their thinking. “Let’s get rid of him.”  We have this beautiful chapter on love for our 2nd reading, which believe it or not was not written for weddings, but for how we are to live as Christians.  A self-giving love toward others, not just a select group.  With this love no one or no situation is ever beyond hope; you are never beyond the love of God in Christ Jesus.  We might not understand this or be able to explain it, but there is no limit to it, no end. This love never fails because it is always bearing, and believing, hoping and enduring, forgiving and welcoming, embracing and redeeming.  This is the love the Messiah brought. What a voice. How can you not listen to it?  It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  This is what passed through the midst of them and went on its way.
Too often we put boundaries around this love of Christ, we make it exclusive.  For many it is as though there is a huge paper clip around your life, which prevents you from maturing, growing, and expanding.  But God in this great love keeps working on you, liberating you from your narrowness until that giant paper clip is removed.  It’s kind of like Jonah not wanting to proclaim God’s love and mercy to the people of Nineveh.  This good news, this love, this voice is for the rich and the poor, the seeing and the blind, the Jew and the non-Jew.
Jesus believed it was time that these listeners changed to reflect God’s heart.  This voice demands a change in beliefs, attitudes, values, priorities, relationships and behavior.  A move beyond your own well being and desires.  He passed through the midst of them and went on his way, and so must you.