SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2025 - WEDDING DISASTER
January 26, 2025 Luke 4:14-30
Deborah Laforet
“Prophetic Courage”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by
your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
Every time someone stands up and speaks from their heart is an act of courage. Today,
Shawn stood up and spoke. Thea spoke up, in her video. Those doing our welcome and offering
prayers during the service are all acting with courage, as they share of themselves with their
community, sharing stories, and sometimes sharing their vulnerability.
In the gospel story Thea shared with us, we hear of Jesus returning to his home town, and
as I read this, I wonder how long it’s been since he’s been home. He reads scripture in the
synagogue, sits down, and tells everyone that the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing. We
then read how folks start talking amongst themselves about Jesus, kind of like they hadn’t seen
him in a while. Church communities are like that. We often get folks in this space who haven't
been to church in a while, sometimes since they were young. People whisper, “Isn’t that so and
so? Isn’t that so and so’s daughter or son. Wow, how they’ve grown! I wonder what they’re up
to. Do you remember that time when...dot, dot, dot?” Then they might start gossiping. “Did
you know that such and such happened? Did you hear what they did in such and such a place?”
Jesus, in this passage is very aware of the whispers around him. He knows the people of
his hometown have heard the rumours going around of him and his miracles and they are
expecting that he will, of course, do the same and even more in his hometown.
But Jesus surprises them. He says, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his
hometown. 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,
yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also
many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was
cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” Now what I hear Jesus saying is that many prophets were
expected to perform miracles in their own homes, and in their own communities, but God always
sent the prophets elsewhere, to the stranger, to the foreigner. What I hear Jesus saying here is
that his work is not for them, not with this community in which he had grown up, maybe not
even with his family, friends, and those Israelites who thought it was their right to be a part of
this inner circle. And he was quite blunt about it. He didn’t say, “Well, actually, I’ve been called
elsewhere.” He told them, I am not here for you.
It’s no wonder the people were enraged. One of their own, with a God-given power,
rumoured to be the Messiah, has just turned his back on them.
Speaking truth to power is hard. It’s scary, and it takes courage. In this story, Jesus is
usually presented as confident, and self-assured, but I have to wonder if he was actually quaking
in his boots, or sandals, knowing his message would cause strong emotions and a threat to his
very person.
We saw a current example this week, an act of courage from an Episcopalian bishop at a
service during the inauguration events in Washington, words directed to the new US president.
Maybe you’ve seen it, but I hope you don’t mind seeing it again. Here is Bishop Mariann Butte.
(Show Clip)
Even as I watch this and applaud her for her act of bravery, I know this bishop is getting
an earful from those who are not happy with her comments. I imagine she knew she would get
flack from colleagues and haters across the nation when she crafted these words, but she spoke
them anyway.
Leaders of faith have been standing up to powers for a long time, sometimes at risk of
their lives. Martin Luther King, Jr., fought for civil rights and against poverty. He marched and
was beaten, he spoke out and had death threats against him and his family. He resisted those in
power and was assassinated. Not long before him, in the 1940’s Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor in
Germany when the Third Reich was gaining power, spoke out against Adoph Hitler and his
Nazis. He ran an underground seminary, and was eventually banned from Berlin. He was
forbidden to speak in public and was eventually banned from printing or publishing anything.
Eventually he was arrested, imprisoned, and executed.
Speaking truth to power is dangerous. We are not made to go against the grain.
Humanity has always found being part of a group the best way to survive and thrive. To go
against the group, threatens that very safety. It’s why we tremble when we gather up the courage
to speak an unpopular truth or when we act contrary to the rest of the group.
So what does this have to do with our current theme of Truth and Reconciliation? Last
week, we read the 1986 United Church apology to the Indigenous people in the church. A year
before the apology was offered, Alberta Billy, on behalf of native Ministries, asked for this
apology from the church. I want you to think back to 1985, 40 years ago now, and this country’s
attitude toward indigenous people. Even today, the racial slurs against indigenous people are
prevalent, although sometimes quieter. I want you to think about the courage it took to tell the
church that an apology was needed, and then to tell the church that the apology was not accepted
- acknowledged but not accepted - not yet.
The courage to stand up to the white man, especially for those traumatized within
residential schools, must be enormous. The damages inflicted by residential schools continue to
this day, and for a great many Survivors, talking about their experiences in residential schools
means reliving the traumas they experienced. For years, many told no one about what they had
endured. We have lost a lot of stories because of the amount of time it took to break this silence,
but with courage, survivors are now sharing their stories and demanding to be heard, and
insisting on change, sometimes in the way of policy changes, and sometimes seeking
reconciliation, the restoration of relationship among all peoples living on this land.
I have heard Bishop Butte criticized for being political in her sermon. It’s OK to talk
about mercy, but she should have stayed in her lane, kept it to mercy within the faith tradition
and its practice within the church. I have to disagree. As a Christian, I follow Jesus, and if you
have truly read the gospels, you will note the number of times he was political, mentioning the
religious authorities, talking about mercy for the poor and love of the enemy, even being critical
of Rome and its empire. That took courage, speaking truth to power, and it cost him his life.
Indigenous people in Canada have been abused, and neglected, beaten and imprisoned.
The trauma of residential schools has caused the suffering of thousands of individuals and whole
communities. For many years, speaking up and sharing their stories of abuse meant hitting a
wall of denial, disbelief, and disdain.
A court case against the government is what prompted the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission that began it’s work in 2009. It’s the first of it’s kind, exploring the lives of
children, the abuses and the losses in residential schools. I can’t imagine the courage it took to
stand up during these community hearings and speaking of the abuses endured decades ago,
abuses that people had tried for so long to forget, abuses that had negatively impacted their lives
and the lives of their loved ones, and yet, more than 7,000 survivors came forward, with tears,
with hurt, with rage, and sometimes with mercy and forgiveness.
Courage - “Stand up for yourself and what you believe. When you draw on your inner
strength you can overcome obstacles. The bear represents courage because a mother bear is not
afraid to stand up for and protect her cubs from any threat.”
The spirit of the bear surrounded these adults, Survivors of childhood physical,
emotional, and sexual abuse, and gave them the courage to speak their truth, bringing light into
places of darkness, bringing healing and compassion to so much suffering, and creating a circle
of trust and care.
Now, it's up to us. It's up to us to hear these stories, to acknowledge the abuses of the
Canadian government and churches, and then to discern what reconciliation means for us. In the
report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there are two calls to action that directly
affect churches. I’ll share the first one today - Call to Action, #59.
59. We call upon church parties to the Settlement Agreement [which included the United Church
of Canada] to develop ongoing education strategies to ensure that their respective congregations
learn about their church's role in colonization, the history and legacy of residential schools, and
why apologies to former residential school students, their families, and communities were
necessary.
What we’re doing these seven weeks, focusing on Truth and Reconciliation - the book
study, the song we’re practicing in choir, what the children are learning in Sunday School, and
more - is all part of meeting this call to action, learning of our role in the history and legacy of
residential schools and understanding why apologizing is necessary and why reconciliation is
how we heal long time wounds and build respect for one another
May we, with God's strength, learn to what we are being called. May we, with the
wisdom of Christ, carry mercy and compassion with us as we learn about past wrongs and long
time suffering. May the Spirit guide us in this work, building relationship and working towards
God’s kingdom on earth. May it be so. Amen.
Luke 4:14-30
(Introduce yourself. - Do not move or tap microphone.)
This morning we are hearing a story from the gospel of Luke. In this story, Jesus,
just after his temptation in the desert, begins his ministry by speaking in different
synagogues in Galilee. The first town we hear about is Nazareth, where Jesus had
been raised. I’m reading from the fourth chapter, verses fourteen to twenty-one.
14 Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about
him spread through all the surrounding region. 15 He began to teach in their
synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the
synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the
scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the
place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes
of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them,
“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from
his mouth. They said, “Is this not Mary and Joseph’s son?” 23 He said to them,
“Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will
say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at
Capernaum.’ ”
24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 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, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath
in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the
prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”
28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 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. 30 But he passed through the
midst of them and went on his way.
May the Spirit guide our understanding of this holy scripture.