Epiphany 4 | Ordinary Time 4, Cycle C

The connection is rather tenuous. Nevertheless, there is a point of contact in all four of these texts in the concept of prophetic powers. In Psalm 71 an old man in distress relies on the Lord to continue the prophetic powers of inspiration that the Lord has given to him since the time of his birth. In the call story in Jeremiah 1:4-10 prophetic powers are said to have been virtually forced upon the reluctant young man Jeremiah. He is said to have been known, consecrated, and appointed to be a prophet even before he had been born. For the Apostle Paul, prophetic powers, important as they are, are of no avail unless they are accompanied by God’s kind of self-giving love. In the Lukan writer’s story about Jesus in his hometown, prophetic powers are said to have gone unrecognized not only at the time of Elijah and Elisha, but also in Jesus himself. As we read and use these texts, we are called to consider the concept of prophetic powers in our own lives and in our own ministries.

Psalm 71:1-6

This psalm is the lament of an old man who asks the Lord for deliverance from personal enemies. Although there is no specific reference to the expression of prophetic powers in the old man, his need for deliverance from personal enemies is characteristic of any person who is given and demonstrates prophetic powers. There is an important connection with the Jeremiah 1:4-10 call story in the psalmist’s claim to have been taken from his mother’s womb by the Lord. The psalm is noteworthy for its vivid images and for its emphasis on proclamation of the mighty deeds of the Lord. These are exactly what is typically associated with the exercise of prophetic powers.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

The two principal purposes of a prophetic call story are to establish the credentials of the prophet and to indicate the major themes of the prophet’s life and message. Particularly significant in this Jeremiah call story is its emphasis on the power of the prophetic word over the nations. We should perhaps tie this to the concern for the nations implied in the Luke 4:21-30 account. In Jeremiah 1:17-19 it is said that Jeremiah will be given prophetic powers to stand up against the powers and people of his own land. Jeremiah is given no choice; he is impelled by the Lord into his life situation. Nevertheless, there is a promise that ultimately the Lord will deliver him.

Perhaps as we ponder our own God-given call and responsibilities as we prepare for the worship service next Sunday, we should think more about our own personal call story in relation to the principal motifs of our particular ministry. To what themes are we driven by the Lord? Into what areas of ministry are we impelled? How does the Lord validate our credentials in these areas of ministry? When our credentials are challenged in these areas, what is our defense? What can we say about our call from the Lord? How can our sharing of our call from the Lord help other people to recognize and to accept their call from the Lord?

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

The individual members of the “Body of Christ” have various and diverse charismata (spiritual gifts). None of the members are able to perform the functions of all of the others. All are urged, however, to desire the higher gifts and to follow the way that Paul will show, the way of agape-type love, God’s kind of love, revealed by God through Jesus the Christ and through Paul. While Jesus and Paul are our most important role models for Christian ministry, we also as inspired individuals within the Church are called to be reflective role models to demonstrate and to proclaim the same kind of self-giving love that Jesus and Paul exemplified. This call to reflect God’s kind of self-giving love is experienced not merely to those who are clergy. It comes to all of us.

Luke 4:21-30

This is the rejection portion of the acclaim and rejection drama composed by the Lukan writer to present the principal motifs of the Third Gospel and of Acts. The violent reaction of the men of the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown is almost certainly somewhat of an exaggeration and of an anachronism. This story about the vicious wrath of all of the men of the synagogue and their abortive attempts to lynch and to kill Jesus (and on the Sabbath!) is much more likely a Lukan composition late in the first century CE than it is the reporting of an historical occurrence from the time of the Jesus of history. After the atrocities committed by Christians against Jews during the Christian Crusades, after the abuse and execution of Jews ordered by the Christian Inquisition courts, after the horrendous pogroms in Eastern Europe during which over a period of several centuries more than six million Jews were killed, and after the death of an additional more than six million Jews in lands dominated by Christians during the Holocaust, as inspired people within the Church today it is unconscionable for us to include Luke 4:28-30 in our lectionaries and to read these three verses during our worship services.

Those who included Luke 4:28-30 in the Roman Catholic three year lectionary commissioned by Vatican II and used within the Lutheran and Common lectionaries derived from the Roman Catholic lectionary, and those who continued to include verses 28-30 in The Revised Common Lectionary were inexcusably insensitive. Those during the first few centuries of the early Church who through usage and decree accepted Luke 4:28-30 and similar materials into the New Testament canon were callous. The Lukan writer who composed Luke 4:28-30 was guided by that writer’s own anti-Jewish bias and prejudice and as a result perpetrated much greater violence against the Jesus of history than did the fictitious people of the synagogue in Nazareth created to be characters in this story. As inspired people in the Church today, we must not perpetuate the destructive polemic of texts such as Luke 4:28-30 by continuing to include them in our lectionary. We are well aware that when we speak out against the reading of texts such as Luke 4:28-30 within our congregations we will be attacked and condemned by well-meaning traditionalists within the Church who will say that we must not object to these verses, because what is written in Luke 4:28-30 “is what those Jews did to our Jesus.” We are fully aware that we are speaking against material that has been perceived as a part of the “Word of God” within our Christian tradition for many centuries.

Nevertheless, we speak because, like Jeremiah, we are called and compelled by God to do so; we cannot be silent. We speak for the sake of our children and for the sake of the children of others. We cannot continue to be silent bystanders and spectators. We, along with the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, consider the Word of God to be living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the every essence of our being. The Word of God is an excellent sword, but we are aware that there are serious “nicks” in that sword. We must, therefore, appeal beyond canonical scripture and tradition directly to God. We must appeal because we believe in God, not in the Bible as if it were God, and not in the Church as if it were God, and because we perceive that God is “a consuming fire” to whom we are ultimately accountable.

As inspired people, we have no power of our own. We are captive to the unwanted gift of prophetic powers, the “red thread” that runs through the four texts chosen for this day. May these prophetic powers be accompanied by what the Apostle Paul called “God’s kind of self-giving love!” (For a much more extensive rationale for the necessity of our repudiation of the content of Luke 4:28-30 and similar texts, see my Mature Christianity: The Recognition and Repudiation of the Anti-Jewish Polemic of the New Testament (Susquehanna University Press, 1985), or my Mature Christianity in the 21st Century: The Recognition and Repudiation of the Anti-Jewish Polemic of the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1994). (For an extensive article in which The Revised Common Lectionary: The Consultation on Common Texts and other lectionaries are analyzed regarding anti-Jewish polemic in their selections, see my “Removing Anti-Jewish Polemic from our Christian Lectionaries: A Proposal” at http://jcrelations.net. Select “English,” “Articles,” and “Beck, Norman A.”).