Insiders & Outsiders
I love the Little Rascals! I grew up watching the re-runs of the original episodes as a child. I think what is so funny is their ability to catch snap-shots of real life and behavior and amplify them to the point of ridiculousness. My kind of humor.
However, what might not be so funny is how the church sometimes functions in similar ways of "insider" group behavior.
The passage I am preaching on this week is from Luke 4:21-30, where Jesus has come to his hometown of Nazareth and has visited the local religious center (synagogue). He reads a passage from the prophet Isaiah 61, where Isaiah is referring to the Year of Jubilee (Every 50 yrs. Israelites were supposed to forgive all debts to one another and let all Jewish slaves, etc. go free) In the Isaiah passage the prophet was making illusions to the idea that the true Messianic King, which Israel was waiting for, would bring about something like the Yr. of Jubilee into actuallity at his arrival.
What makes this passage so interesting is that Jesus sits down and says, "This scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." One can only assume the Jews were thinking of how this could benifit them. After all, they were God's favored people (insiders). However, Jesus put this type of thinking on its head and began telling how a prophet was never accepted in his/her on town.
What he was really saying is that the good news he had brought (good news to the poor, liberation for captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the yr. of the Lord) was for all people and nations. The Jews didn't really like the sound of this and tried to kill him for saying it.
I wonder how the church could break these behaviors of self-centeredness i.e. "insider vs. outsider" mentality? I wonder how the church of today could help bring about this "new age," which Jesus was really talking about, into actuallity in our world?
posted by Mark Garrett @ 8:04 AM
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