Words for the Journey - January 19, 2025

[These are the readings & “words for the journey” shared during our Sunday, January 19th gathering.]

We are beloved children of God, created by Love and for love.

We are choosing to let go of shame,

judgment, greed, pride, superiority, hatred,

and anything else that keeps us from

loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

—from The Well’s baptism reading

Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been raised. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue as he normally did and stood up to read. The synagogue assistant gave him the scroll from the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because the Lord has anointed me.

He has sent me to preach good news to the poor,

    to proclaim release to the prisoners

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

    to liberate the oppressed,

    and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the synagogue assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the synagogue was fixed on him. He began to explain to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.” Everyone was raving about Jesus, so impressed were they by the gracious words flowing from his lips. They said, “This is Joseph’s son, isn’t it?”

He said, “I assure you that no prophet is welcome in the prophet’s hometown. And I can assure you that there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it didn’t rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land. Yet Elijah was sent to none of them but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon. There were also many persons with skin diseases in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha, but none of them were cleansed. Instead, Naaman the Syrian was cleansed.” When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with anger. They rose up and ran him out of town. They led him to the crest of the hill on which their town had been built so that they could throw him off the cliff. But he passed through the crowd and went on his way.

—Luke 4:16-22, 24-30

The antidote to the world’s exclusions is to be anchored in a transcendent inclusion. …Authentic Christianity never circles the wagons. It always widens the circle. 

—Gregory Boyle

——

In January each year, Lake Superior State University comes out with its list of banished words. The suggestion is that we stop including these overused, misused, or unnecessary words or phrases in our conversations, social media posts and any other place we might be tempted to use them. There was one phrase I was especially glad to see on the list.

It was not the word “cringe” although I wasn’t mad to see it on the list; nor was it “gamechanger” because I stand by that one and will continue to use it (sparingly though because as was stated, if everything is a gamechanger, nothing is a gamechanger!).

No, the word or phrase that I am not sad to see go is: “If you know, you know”. Sometimes reduced to its acronym IYKYK, this trendy little phrase has run its course in making sure those who know, know they know and those who sense they are left out of the loop know yes, they have indeed been left out.

I will be the first to tell you it is hard to keep up with the evolution of language. What was once cool or correct is suddenly canceled, and if you are like me, you are almost always behind the curve.

I think we all agree that words are wildly important and must be chosen wisely. Even still, having to be mindful of our language can be a hard pill to swallow. We don’t like to be schooled or corrected or made to feel like we are on the wrong side of things, especially those of us who pride ourselves on being in the know or being in control or being right … or those of us who are White.

Robin Diangelo wrote a book about our tendency as White people to let our defensiveness at being corrected get the best of us. She calls it “White Fragility”. She explains how quickly our fragile egos get defensive at any insinuation that we need to change. Even when we are presented with clear evidence that racism exists in or around us, instead of letting it be a doorway into the kind of self-reflection that can spark change, we take the door out - which can look like denial, anger, or worse yet, retaliation.

Maybe that’s why real change is so hard - it almost always involves discomfort.

Richard Rohr says this aversion to change probably explains why by and large most Christians have ignored Jesus’s major teachings on nonviolence, forgiveness, inclusivity, love of enemies or the poor. ”The ego”, he explains, “diverts our attention from anything that would ask us to change, to righteous causes that invariably ask others to change” (The Naked Now, p. 94). What we end up with are moral superiority stances and belief systems more than any real transformation.

To that end there are many, including many in our community, who prefer to call ourselves “spiritual” rather than religious. We know that religion so often falls short, but does calling ourselves “spiritual” do a better job of sparking change?

Although the word spiritual is not found in the first 4 chapters of Luke, spirit keeps coming up. Spirit or “pneuma” in the Greek means breath. When I stop to take a few slow, deep breaths or pause to catch my breath, something happens. I can feel myself calm, expand, and sense a spaciousness I had not noticed before (pause & try it for yourself).

There’s more to pneuma than that though. Pneuma can also mean “wind”. It can move us from where we are now to somewhere unexpected or new.

This spirit/breath/wind shows up a bunch in the story Luke has been telling us. Spirit arrived at Jesus’s baptism through a Voice that announced he is a beloved being before doing anything; Spirit was a Presence in the wilderness as Jesus was tempted to prove his worth, and just before today’s story, Spirit was the Nudge for Jesus to return home to Nazareth.

It’s not clear how long he had been gone, but when Jesus returns to Nazareth he is met with a hometown hero’s welcome. The word is out that he has turned out to be a fine young man, doing good in the world. You can almost feel his family and firends beaming with pride as Jesus preaches his inaugural sermon through words selected from the prophet Isaiah.

When he is done, they rave at what they have just heard! His community pats good ole Jesus on the back. You can almost here their amens from here: Yes! Release US! liberate US! Bring favor on US! Amen brother Jesus!

Jesus knows immediately they do not get it. For one thing, they don’t seem to notice that Jesus had just made a radical revision to the text of Isaiah. He ends his reading with “the day of the Lord’s favor” (a reference to Jubliee when all will released of their debts), but he leaves off the retributive ending - "the day of vengeance of our God” that would rid them of their pesky enemies once and for all.

They still struggle to see that their saving grace will not come through a violent overtake that lands them on top and others beneath. It will not come by making Jesus their national mascot or even by putting him on a pedestal and worshipping him. It will not come by circling the wagons, only through widening the circle. Only as they too are led by Spirit to a more and more spacious place will they know the Life they were being invited into.

Jesus could have delivered the news a little gentler.

After all, didn’t they just want to feel special? But there’s something else too - you know, Jesus had left home and was returning to that same place most assuredly changed by what he had seen and experienced in other places. Change can be especially hard for those who have never left home or never had the opportunity to leave. It is difficult to broaden your perspectives when you only see the same people and place day after day after day.

Whether it was their having never left home or their preference for the religious sorting system that helped them feel superior to “those other people”, they are not having it. They are so discomforted - so disturbed - by Jesus disrupting their categories that they are ready to throw him off a cliff. His reference to God choosing outsiders like the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian instead of religious insiders to deliver care was too much. They would rather kill than be led by Spirit to a more spacious place.

In remembering the life of Dr. King who preached and lived this inclusive gospel of Jesus, we know all too well this reaction is still prevalent. Most people alive during Dr. King’s day were unable to go where he was going. We are still trying to catch up to his vision for a more just and loving world. We White people then and now tend to care more about policing tone than making space to tend to the pain People of Color have been carrying for far too long.

The same Spirit that nudged Jesus home seems to be with him as he is rejected by his neighbors. At the end of the story, Jesus is seen winding his way through the angry mob.

He could have faced them head-on or returned their hateful rhetoric. He could have proven he was superior. He could have used his superpowers to wipe them from the face of the earth. As painful as this rejection must have been, he does none of that.

The story-teller Luke has to rush on because he is writing with a mission in mind, but I want to invite us to linger here in this monumental moment in Jesus’s journey. It was a moment full of pain, anger, and violence, and yet Jesus refused to become these things. He was there to bring life, not take it. He was there to make more and more space for those who’d been left out, discarded, or othered to know their worth.

In the moment in which we find ourselves both personally & as a nation, what invitation do you hear?

Would you listen to the readings above one more time and pay attention to a word, phrase or image that invites you to go deeper?