SPEAKER_01: A reading from Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
SPEAKER_01: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
SPEAKER_01: Then I said, Ah, Lord God, truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord said to me, Do not say I'm only a boy, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Now I have put my words in your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck down and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: A psalm for scouts and scouters.
SPEAKER_01: We will read responsibly by the half verse.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord God is our great scout master who provides all our needs.
SPEAKER_03: God leads us to hand and for us all in the earth's green.
SPEAKER_01: God leads us on trails beside waters deep and still, brooks babbling, streams rushing, and rivers raging.
SPEAKER_01: God encourages the Eagle Scout in their upward climb.
SPEAKER_01: Even though the trails may lead through dark valleys with towering mountains, we are courageous because the Lord God leads us onward.
SPEAKER_01: Even when our enemies dislike or distrust us, God blesses us with the gifts of love and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: And when we climb the final trail through the awesome pass that leads to the great council fire.
SPEAKER_00: And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
SPEAKER_00: If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body, so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
SPEAKER_00: It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
SPEAKER_00: It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
SPEAKER_00: Love never ends.
SPEAKER_00: But as for prophecies, they will come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: As for tongues, they will cease.
SPEAKER_00: As for knowledge, it will come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part.
SPEAKER_00: But when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
SPEAKER_00: When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
SPEAKER_00: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
SPEAKER_00: And now faith, hope, and love abide.
SPEAKER_00: These three, and the greatest of these is love.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus began to teach in the synagogue at Nazareth, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
SPEAKER_04: All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
SPEAKER_04: They said, Is not this Joseph's son?
SPEAKER_04: He said to them, Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, Doctor, cure yourself, and you will say, Do hear also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.
SPEAKER_04: And Jesus said, Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.
SPEAKER_04: But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land.
SPEAKER_04: Yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow in Zarephath in Sidon.
SPEAKER_04: There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.
SPEAKER_04: When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.
SPEAKER_04: They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
SPEAKER_04: But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
SPEAKER_04: The Gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Is that the magi, the Epiphany is perhaps that even those who we think are pretty wacky, like astrologers, get included in the story, their way essentially finds God, and they give gifts not just of luxury, but gifts of what they have.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus has this epiphany in the Jordan River with his cousin, John the Baptist, and changes the orientation of his life.
SPEAKER_04: Certainly a call we're invited to embody.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus shows up at a wedding in Cana.
SPEAKER_04: And there's this epiphany where water that could have been used to scrub each other clean is turned into wine, where God celebrates us not in spite of us, but because of who we are.
SPEAKER_04: And last week, Jesus has this epiphany that somehow the scriptures are going to be fulfilled in him, and certainly that's our invitation as well.
SPEAKER_04: We cut the story short last week, and so you'll notice this week we start right off with Jesus having his one-liner sermon.
SPEAKER_04: Today, the scripture is fulfilled in your presence.
SPEAKER_04: And the reaction is initially kind of favorable, you know.
SPEAKER_04: This story, I mean, and consider what's happened.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus went to the Jordan and got baptized, and then he does some miracles in Capernaum, and now he's come home.
SPEAKER_04: This is sort of like the college boy who has just come back with his Yale diploma, you know, and everybody says, look, look at this.
SPEAKER_04: This is our hometown boy who's come.
SPEAKER_04: He did so well up in New Haven, and now he's going to work his wonders here in town.
SPEAKER_04: And then well, Jesus says something sort of harsh, you know, and after the next three sentences, they decide they're gonna throw him off a cliff.
SPEAKER_04: And I didn't mention this to you at 8 o'clock last week, but um I did mention it at 10:30.
SPEAKER_04: This is sort of like um in the late 80s.
SPEAKER_04: I had mentioned to you a little bit about the Southern Baptist Convention last week, but in the late 80s, Tony Campolo, he ended up being the um spiritual advisor for Bill Clinton, and was the keynote speaker of the Southern Baptist Convention.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he was probably supposed to preach for like 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_04: And he got up and in front of this huge gathering of people, his sermon went exactly like this 40,000 children are going to starve to death this week throughout the world, and none of you give a damn about it.
SPEAKER_04: And more of you are upset that I said the word damn than that 40,000 children are going to starve to death this week.
SPEAKER_04: And then he left.
SPEAKER_04: That was his 45-minute keynote speech.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if they paid the guy or not.
SPEAKER_04: What was funny was in youth group, we heard this story.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I heard that story in youth group, and I sure was more upset that Tony had said the word damn in church.
SPEAKER_04: And that's kind of what Jesus does today in the synagogue.
SPEAKER_04: It's not gonna make much sense.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's really even hard to stretch this.
SPEAKER_04: Um, what's the expectation here?
SPEAKER_04: Maybe it is, in fact, that Jesus who has done this great stuff is now gonna go back and live there and be very insular and just do it for his own community.
SPEAKER_04: And Jesus sort of says something like, Listen, I get that we all love uh what I've got to offer and what just happened and what God's doing, but I want you to remember, folks, that way back in 9-11 there were a lot of sick people in the United States, and God's only healing happened in Saudi Arabia.
SPEAKER_04: Well, Mike, that's a stretch.
SPEAKER_04: It's not really a stretch in the text.
SPEAKER_04: You have to figure out here what could Jesus say that would make you want to throw him off a cliff?
SPEAKER_04: Who would Jesus have to tell you to love so that you would want him thrown off a cliff?
SPEAKER_04: And you might say, there's nobody.
SPEAKER_04: I know I'm supposed to love everybody.
SPEAKER_04: We do know we're supposed to love everybody, and maybe that's why we get to hear the Corinthians text today talk about what love is.
SPEAKER_04: Now, I don't want to be a dead uh horse here, but I'm very, very confident we read this poem a lot about weddings, and it is a poem.
SPEAKER_04: In fact, a lot of scholars aren't sure whether Paul wrote this or not, but what Paul does is uses this in a letter to really locate the greatest of all virtues.
SPEAKER_04: And I do think we are so stuck up on love being something that we feel instead of something that we practice.
SPEAKER_04: And I want you to contrast those because to be honest, love is patient.
SPEAKER_04: My feelings are not very patient.
SPEAKER_04: My planning can be, but my feelings are not always patient.
SPEAKER_04: Now I will tell you, I can be patient when I'm plotting revenge.
SPEAKER_04: So that's why we go to the next thing that love is also kind.
SPEAKER_04: So it's not only patient, it's kind.
SPEAKER_04: Boy, I'll tell you what, um, I sometimes do feel like being kind, but um, is my kindness always patient?
SPEAKER_04: Actually, when I feel like being kind and people frustrate it, um, my patience usually goes right out the window.
SPEAKER_04: It does not envy, it doesn't boast.
SPEAKER_04: You see now how you start compiling these adjectives, and well, feeling alone might not just embody these.
SPEAKER_04: This is a deep set of practices.
SPEAKER_04: And Paul's writing this to a community that's having a lot of disagreements among itself.
SPEAKER_04: We got to hear last week, a part of the body says they're more important than the other part.
SPEAKER_04: They can do without the rest.
SPEAKER_04: Everybody needs to have what I've got, and then we'll really function.
SPEAKER_04: And then Paul is writing: listen, you may think that speaking some prophetic words is the most important.
SPEAKER_04: It isn't.
SPEAKER_04: You may think that speaking in tongues is the most important thing, it isn't.
SPEAKER_04: You may think that being able to predict the future or turn water into wine is the most important.
SPEAKER_04: It isn't.
SPEAKER_04: Paul says that the greatest gift is this kind of love, and thereby he differentiates, I think, what we often confuse between things like feeling and easy love, and these difficult practices, particularly when people don't agree with us, particularly when people frustrate our hopes.
SPEAKER_04: Now we could read what Paul says that love endures all things and hopes all things, and say, listen, Paul's just saying that love is just blind optimism, it's just naivety, but no, I think what Paul's saying is that love is able to find hope in hell.
SPEAKER_04: If you're like me, you have a really hard time loving like that.
SPEAKER_04: And that's why we read this letter.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not talking about eternal hells, although I do want you to know, if you if you want to read a good imaginative exercise on that, I commend to you, C.
SPEAKER_04: S.
SPEAKER_04: Lewis's book, The Great Divorce.
SPEAKER_04: It's 90 pages.
SPEAKER_04: You could probably read it in a week.
SPEAKER_04: Easily.
SPEAKER_04: In that book, C.
SPEAKER_04: S.
SPEAKER_04: Lewis says that hell is only eternal if we choose that, but that God beckons us out of hell constantly.
SPEAKER_04: What he doesn't say that I think Paul is actually suggesting as well, is that many of us know hells in this life.
SPEAKER_04: Hells of things like abuse and addiction, and living with either one of those people.
SPEAKER_04: And God beckons us out of those hells now, and love hopes in all things.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes my brain cannot imagine hope in places like that.
SPEAKER_04: Which is why we come to church.
SPEAKER_04: Because somehow God can.
SPEAKER_04: And with God's help, maybe we can as well.
SPEAKER_04: And this is the path of love that Paul invites us to.
SPEAKER_04: Invites us to practice.
SPEAKER_04: And what's interesting in Jeremiah, we get to hear Jeremiah's call today.
SPEAKER_04: He's called to speak words that he doesn't want to speak.
SPEAKER_04: And notice in his call, he's given four things he's supposed to do according to the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: He is supposed to pluck up, pull down, destroy and overthrow to build and plant.
SPEAKER_04: He's called to deconstruct before he raises something else.
SPEAKER_04: And this is what I think is perhaps the epiphany Jesus might experience himself today.
SPEAKER_04: He's sitting there in Nazareth and he looks out at these people who have helped raise him, and he sees that their love is very shallow.
SPEAKER_04: They love what he might do for them.
SPEAKER_04: But do they love him?
SPEAKER_04: Gosh, that's a great question, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04: And I want to stop for a second and say in parentheses that often when I'm maddest at somebody who I thought I loved, I'm mad because they've disappointed what I wanted them to do instead of just loving them.
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna close that parentheses.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus looks out and sees that, and he does something that boy, I learned how to do really well as a kid, which is speak some tough love.
SPEAKER_04: You know about this speaking tough love?
SPEAKER_04: That's where we set limits and say enough is enough.
SPEAKER_04: The thing that perhaps Jesus does and learns to do, that is so hard for me.
SPEAKER_04: I'm just using my imagination, I guess, is that Jesus is able to do that and actually still love the people.
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna tell you about myself.
SPEAKER_04: When I speak words about tough love, like you're gonna do this, or blank's going to happen, or I'm setting this boundary.
SPEAKER_04: Whether it's with my co-workers or family members, or even people who come to me asking for money.
SPEAKER_04: That happens, by the way, usually about once a week here.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes we'll take a week off and I'll have three in one week and none or two.
SPEAKER_04: I set this tough love boundary and in the middle of doing that.
SPEAKER_04: I usually rest in the toughness.
SPEAKER_04: And somehow the love just I can't seem to find it.
SPEAKER_04: You're probably better people than I am.
SPEAKER_04: But sometimes when I say things like, the next time you blank, you're going to lose, or I'm going to do blank, where my emotional energy goes is what I'm going to do next time.
SPEAKER_04: And not hoping in all things.
SPEAKER_04: When disappointed, I usually think, here's what you deserve instead of.
SPEAKER_04: Now listen, Jesus doesn't fail to set the boundary.
SPEAKER_04: That's obvious here.
SPEAKER_04: He calls these people to the carpet.
SPEAKER_04: He has literally a come to Jesus meeting.
SPEAKER_04: And they come to Jesus to throw him off a cliff.
SPEAKER_04: Notice how they come.
SPEAKER_04: They don't.
SPEAKER_04: This is really confusing why they don't.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, they bring him to the cliff and he just sort of walks through them, and that's strange.
SPEAKER_04: But I wonder if Jesus isn't able in that moment of calling people to the carpet to be deeply in love with them, even while he does it.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe you have figured out how to do that already, but I can tell you that often eludes me.
SPEAKER_04: Often when I set the boundary, often when I'm upset, that's where I stay.
SPEAKER_04: And I don't practice being patient.
SPEAKER_04: Or if I do, I don't practice being kind.
SPEAKER_04: I often hope people get what they deserve when I have to set the boundary instead of hoping they turn it around.
SPEAKER_04: I didn't know about being proud in those moments, but I sure do know about being rude.
SPEAKER_04: I know because my voice has a tone and an inflection that is neither kind nor patient nor hopeful.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how Jesus sounded in the synagogue, but I wonder if Jesus didn't this day find that in the middle of plucking down and pulling up, he was really just there to build and to plant.
SPEAKER_04: I wonder if Jesus wasn't trying to do what John the Baptist says, which is to separate the chaff out so that the wheat can grow, to pull down the shanties that we live in, so that we can build a mansion for God's presence.
SPEAKER_04: And I am positive that our feelings will never take us there.
SPEAKER_04: Or if they do, that they won't last.
SPEAKER_04: I'm positive that we're being invited to practice the kind of love that call that Paul calls us to if we ever want to see that transformation in our lives and in our world.
SPEAKER_04: I don't think I need to say it would be amazing to see Congress be patient.
SPEAKER_04: It would be amazing to see our political leaders be kind, don't you think?
SPEAKER_04: And as much as I'd like to hope that, I suppose I'm not able to control their practices.
SPEAKER_04: So this week I'm invited to control my own.
SPEAKER_04: And to start with patience and kindness.
SPEAKER_04: If those are the only two things we could do, if we miss the other seven, how much brighter would our lives shine with God's love.
SPEAKER_04: The double message is that we're not to be afraid to set boundaries, but that we're to set them with empathy, with hope.
SPEAKER_04: That when our own imagination fails, that's why we come and ask God every week to give us energy and nourishment so we can grow.
SPEAKER_04: Again, the opportunity here is not just to hear about epiphanies Jesus might have had, but to have our own and to be like Jesus.