TEXT: Jeremiah 1:4-10; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

Jeremiah 1:4-10
4 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
6 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."
7 But the LORD said to me,
"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the LORD."
9 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.
10 See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant."

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.2 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.
3 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.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Luke 4:21-30
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 not this 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 the prophet's 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 lepers 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.

IN PRAISE OF HANDS
Blessed be the works of your Hands, O Holy One. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that have touched life. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that have nurtured creativity. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that have embraced with passion. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that have planted new seeds. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that have cleaned, washed, mopped, scrubbed. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that have become knotty with age. (echo)

Blessed be these hands that are wrinkled and scarred from doing justice. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that have reached out and been received. (echo)
Blessed be these hands that hold the promise of the future. (echo)
Blessed be the works of your hands, O Holy One. (echo)

(The congregation is invited to leave their hand print in the tray of clay as a tangible expression of the imprint their hands make on others.)

MESSAGE:

What was it about is it about Jesus that causes him to "stir the nest" and get religious folk so upset? I'm pretty sure that he could do it here as well.

Here at Metro the cover of our bulletin reads: "Expressing God's love the city and for all who live within it."

Gene Maston's home church, Gambrell Street Baptist in Ft. Worth, TX, has as this theme printed on the cover of their weekly bulletin: "To love God… and to love people."

Noble and, I might add, ambitious themes. And you know, Jesus' home synagogue could have used it on their weekly programs. They seek to embody the thrust of the mission which Jesus declared for himself when he read the text from the prophet Isaiah that Sabbath so long ago.

But Jesus would not let a situation which was going strongly in his favor stay that way. He quickly questioned how they were using their hands to make the prophesy come to pass and a loving crowd turned into a stoning party? They had been happy with him and then he goes and points a finger into their midst while they had been pointing it at others. Are we so unlike them?

BUT I want to stir the nest as well. How accurate are they. Could we find ourselves just as defensive and offended as that synagogue in Nazareth when Jesus asked them why they were not putting hands to their understanding of God's word to them. They had been quick to say "good word, teacher. That's our boy Jesus you know, grew up right over there." Then he asked them about their readiness to share the gospel with the oppressed in such a way as that the gentiles might be embraced by the love of God, and they were soon ready to run him out to the edge of town for a stoning party. Only Jesus didn't cooperate long enough to stay around.

All he really did was talk about what love would do if they put their hands to the task before them.

In one's personal life, greed and self-centeredness, jealousy and arrogant ambition all too often destroy the love which we profess to be most dear to us. We grasp and grab after what we desire, only to rip it apart, or smother it, in our fear that we will lose that which is so important.

Such is the case with much of our society as evidenced by the shambles of our social fabric.

Such is the case of much of our economy as evidenced by the expanding number of persons who live below the poverty level, or on the verge of financial ruin in the middle class.

Such is the case with far too many of our families as evidenced by the plight of children and violence in our society.

Such is the case of many of our marriages as evidenced by the shattered dreams of our spouses.

Such is the case of many our churches as evidenced by the pettiness of most of our squabbling.

Such was the case of the church which Paul addressed at Corinth.

Their situation was not so unlike the way that of Nazareth when Jesus worshipped or Metro where we worship today. Their way of traveling through life was not dis-similar to the way which most of us travel--an idolatry where we make ourselves gods before whom all others must acquiesce. BUT Paul declared that there is a more excellent manner of relating for the Christian (and its not too shabby for the non-Christian either). That more excellent way is the way of love-using our giftedness to touch the lives of others in love transforming ways. But I must confess that it is a way that few seem to comprehend.

Our "aloneness" and unwillingness to touch and be touched by the lives of others most often has to do with our preconceived notions about others. Don't we all have preconceived notions about people? Even when we know only the barest facts about them?

Here's a test: What kind of person comes to mind when you think of an "only child"?

Perhaps you are prone to see "only" children as self-motivated, bright, independent, natural leaders, generally mature beyond their years. On the other hand, perhaps experience leads you to consider "only" children as spoiled, chronically lonely, privileged, attention-seeking and selfish.

In reality, those who grow up as "onlys" are probably just as apt to be any or all of the above as any of us. Everyone of us grew up as individuals with unique histories and experiences that made us into the people we are today. It is this "only-ness" that gives us our unique sense of self and yet can also strand us in a sea of only-ness.

A drive for separateness and autonomy defines us just as strongly as does our search for community and companionship. We are a vast population of "onlys" -- all standing side by side, but not quite willing to reach out and connect to the one next to us, thereby uniting our only-ness in order to make a community.

And while we may value our "onlyness" WITHOUT LOVE, WE LIVE WITH THE TERROR OF ALONENESS. Now I know many of us like to have periods when we are by ourselves. And there are a few souls who have chosen the life of solitude--but even most monastics live in communities of silence. We are just not made that way. We are made to live in some kind of community. The church is one such expression of that community, yet, isn't it interesting that the church, God's gift to those who are disciples of God's Christ, Jesus, could become a place of aloneness. Our competitiveness, and our fear of being exposed to each other for what we are, creates dreadful aloneness.

Genuine love not only respects the individuality of the other but actually seeks to cultivate it, even at the risk of separation or loss. The same holds true for all close relationships--with friends, partners, special others, family members and the community of the church.

Paul's letters to the churches who were struggling with healthy relationships with those who were part of the church, with themselves and with those outside of the church contained such admonitions as "Pursue love...(1 Co 14:1)" "Put on love...(Col 3:14)." "Through love serve one another...(Gal. 5:13)."

Are we afraid to love that way? Those gathered for worship in the synagogue that day with Jesus were? Then may I suggest that you move with me back to faith and hope. Faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and Hope that God will begin to complete or accomplish in you what has been begun through the reclamation work of the Holy Spirit.

I urge you to consider this better way. The experience of touching others lives with love is the Christian's most excellent use of her or her hands.

It is ironic that as hard as we struggle for a sense of self, as much as we like to celebrate our real or imagined independence, we also use our sense of only-ness -- our by-myself, unattached, unsupported status -- as our greatest excuse for our inactions and inabilities.

Certainly Jeremiah stood firmly in this all too human tradition. Suddenly confronted by a God-sized mission, divinely ordered to deliver a just plain depressing message, Jeremiah succumbs to the onlys. He pleads an excuse of youth and inexperience: "I am only a boy!"
But as Jeremiah quickly found out, this "only" excuse didn't hold any water with God. It was, in fact, a whine that God had heard many times before (see sidebar for a list).

The "but I'm only" excuse can never stand up. Why? Because we forget on whom we are trying to use this dodge: God. To each of those halting, hesitant choices, God had essentially one reply -- "I am the only God. I will choose whomever I will choose." God doesn't get mixed up and call the wrong number by mistake. God wasn't trying to reach Hilkiah and reached his boy Jeremiah instead.

It seems that God tends to choose the "onlys" intentionally. In fact, God uses the "only" to make an only -- the only voice of truth, the only beacon of hope, the only spirit of love, the only words of wisdom. To be such an "only" means to stand alone, stand apart, stand firm, stand against and stand for. But in each place an "only" is called to stand, in every word an "only" is called to deliver, God's strength is there as well -- and God's strength is always sufficient.

In today's gospel text, we see just how wrong-headed and wrong-hearted it is to assume that an "only" cannot be divinely appointed and divinely empowered. When Jesus returns to Galilee and appears before his hometown crowd in Nazareth, his authority is doubted and his words are dismissed in anger because those listening to him hear "only" the son of a local family, "only" a craftsman by trade, "only" Jesus.

Called to offer the Good News of the gospel first to his own people, Jesus obeys. But when the unappreciative and uncomprehending crowd turns ugly and plans to attack Jesus physically, God's grace and sufficiency are made evident. Unharmed, unfazed and unencumbered by the crowd's threats, this "only" Jesus simply walks out of that fruitless environment to continue his ministry before the rest of Galilee and the world.
As Christians, we have each been called to bear witness to the greatest gift of love, the greatest sacrifice for our sake, that has ever been given. Like Jeremiah, we are called to preach a message to a world that is either so self-centered it refuses to hear the gospel or is downright hostile to the vision of redemption that the church offers.

When we become aware of the size of the mission God is asking us to undertake, we come down with a bad case of the "onlys," which can include: only human, only ordinary, only young, only old, only half-up-to-it, only an amateur, only a few years left, only one good lung /kidney /eye /hand, only me, only this, only that.

Haven't we all at some time recited an "I am only" litany about ourselves when feeling overwhelmed and under-prepared?

Instead of clinging to the insecurity of being an "only," we need to take hold of the power that our status as "one" reveals. Try replacing the defeatist four-syllable message "I am only" with a different four-syllable mantra: "I am the one." One is enough for God.
-- Only one person
-- Only one team
-- Only one congregation
-- Only one family
-- Only one town
-- Only one state
-- Only one nation
-- Only one continent
-- Only one world.

In God's infinite wisdom, and with God's infinite power, God has chosen you, only you, as the only one who can stand as a particular kind of witness, perform a unique kind of ministry, give a distinct shape to Christ's body here on earth. You are the only one God chooses for this task. Yours are the only hands which can bear the gift of God's love in some tangible way to some person or situation. Oh, there are lots of gifts out there, the Spirit is good about making sure of that. But there is only one you, and only you can do God's work as only you can do it. Together with every member of the body of Christ, we make up a community of "onlys."