Sermon: "Hearing God’s Call"
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
Third Bishop of East Tennessee

[This sermon by Bishop vonRosenberg was delivered using the following notes.]

My custom early each week is to consider possible topics for a sermon as I read the Bible lessons for that Sunday.  This week, I thought first about dealing with the biblical text referring to the Water Gate, in our Old Testament reading.  While there is minimal scriptural material on the subject, certainly a wealth of information exists in other places.  However, when I went on to read the difficult names in that passage, I decided to look elsewhere for a sermon topic.

Then I considered the reading from First Corinthians, referring to the exercise of gifts by individual members, for the good of the whole Body.  Since one of your former parishioners, Bailey Norman, was ordained a priest yesterday, that seemed to be an appropriate consideration.  Indeed, Bailey’s gifts are valuable ones, and the Church will benefit greatly from his exercise of those gifts, offered by this new priest of the Church. 

Eventually, though, I decided instead to focus our attention this morning on the Gospel reading.  We read there of an encounter that includes some significant drama.

In that reading, there was – after all – a considerable amount of interest among the people of Nazareth about the newly-launched career of a home-town boy.  Now, for the first time since beginning his new ministry, Jesus was returning to the area where he had been raised.  We read these words that set the stage for the drama: “A report about (Jesus) spread through all the surrounding country.  He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.  When he come to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom” (Lk 4:15-16).

Now, in the synagogue on the Sabbath, obviously the reading of scripture was customary.  However, no ordained person or designated lector would necessarily have been present.  Therefore, an elder of the congregation would typically have asked someone to read a lesson and to comment on it.  And so, given the circumstances, Jesus was an obvious choice to accomplish this task.  By the way, for that liturgy, the usual posture for a reader was to stand, and that for the preacher, to sit.

Jesus was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  In that scroll is reference to the Spirit of God coming upon a designated spokesperson for the Lord.  Proclamations directed by God himself include announcing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, allowing the oppressed to go free, and announcing the year of the Lord’s favor.  It is important to recognize the Messianic symbolism involved in these proclamations from Isaiah.  That is – according to the prophet – when these things happen, the Messiah himself will have arrived.

Jesus read that lesson to the people gathered in the synagogue.  And then, he sat down.  Remember that posture indicated that he was about to reflect on the reading.  And Jesus said – simply and directly – “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”(Lk 4:21).  A remarkable sermon that is.  Brief, in the first place … very brief indeed.  But, more importantly, Jesus makes the claim of Messiahship.  “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Now, that concludes the portion of our Gospel today.  However, the passage in St. Luke’s Gospel does not end there.  In fact – if I may offer you a bit of a preview – next week’s Gospel continues with the people’s reactions to Jesus’ remarkable claim.  You will perhaps not be surprised that there were differences of opinion among those church folks.  Some were amazed; others thought well of Jesus; and still others said something like this: “Don’t we know who this man’s people are?  He’s from around here.  Who does he think he is, saying those things!”  Jesus responds with these words: “No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown” … or, the more familiar version, in St. Matthew: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house”(4:57).

Clearly, the location of this dramatic encounter, described in the Gospel for this week and next week, explains why this moment did not become one of the truly central events recorded from Jesus’ ministry.  Indeed, in a very real way, the location of the encounter kept the people from hearing the message.  As we read the words today, we surely consider them to be very important indeed – claiming the Messianic ministry prophesied by Isaiah.  And yet, in Jesus’ day, the people sat around arguing about what this might have meant and fussing about whether some home-town fellow had the right to make such claims.  The fact that this happened in Jesus’ hometown made it difficult for the locals to understand the message with any degree of clarity.

Now, having Bailey on my mind this weekend and visiting St. Peter’s this morning, I also thought about my return visits to my home parish.  Wherever I preached there after my ordination as Deacon, Priest, or Bishop, what I said mattered a great deal less than who I was … or, more accurately, who I had been.  After church on those homecomings, many more people commented on occasions I had been an acolyte or on times in which I had gotten into trouble than on any reaction to the sermon itself.

I wonder, therefore, how Bailey will be received back home at St. Peter’s.  Now, I do not mean whether or not you’ll be nice to him.  You’ll do that just fine, I’m sure.  What I mean is whether you will listen to what he has to say, as a priest of the Church.  And, how about your Rector.  He’s been here a while now.  Does that familiarity make it more difficult for you to hear his message?  What about our spouses, our family members, our close friends – do we know them too well to hear what they really have to say?  Do we truly appreciate the important and profound messages of those closest to us?  Or, on the other hand, do we tend to discount what people familiar to us try to share with us?  Jesus had this trouble in his day, and I suspect we may have the same difficulty in our own day.

In summary, I remind us all of the words in our Collect today.  “Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works…”  And, we might add, “Make us especially sensitive to the call of our Lord and to the perception of the glory of his works as we hear and see them revealed in the people most familiar to us.”  Amen.

Copyright © 2007 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee