Expansiveness
Monday of the Third Week of Lent
Daily Reading: Luke 4:24 – 30
Focus Passage:
"Truly I tell you," he continued, "prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. (Lk. 4:24 – 28)
The passage actually begins ahead of these verses. The people of Jesus’ hometown were amazed at the gracious words of Jesus when he read from the prophet Isaiah. He connected his life and ministry to the long-awaited Messiah of Isaiah’s prophecy. Knowing his lineage as Joseph’s son (v. 22, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”), perhaps these hometown folks wanted the benefits that come from having greatness nearby. In other words, their kind words about Jesus may be weighted with self-centeredness.
In fact, their self-interest rose to the surface as Jesus spoke. They had thought of Jesus as a private hero, one who came to bring personal blessings to the hometown folks. Their focus was upon themselves.
Then they heard Jesus speak into their narrowness, using two stories from the Hebrew Scriptures that speak of God using non-Jews to initiate a kingdom that impacts the entire world, not just Israel. A foreign widow and a foreign military official experienced God’s generosity. The widow was fed. The military official was healed. But the crowd could not celebrate these expressions of God’s grace. At the recounting of these stories, the hometown crowd turned furious.
The narrow nationalism that celebrated Israel’s place with God could not imagine that the Chosen People had a mission beyond their own borders. In fact, Israel was chosen by God to bring God’s life to all people. Their focus was upon themselves, but in fact God hoped beyond their provincialism.
The tendency in much religious practice is to make life tighter, narrower, and less spacious. We too easily ask, “What’s in this for me?”
“What blessings and benefits will I receive?”
Often prayer is described as a way to get things from God. We imagine worship in consumer terms, thinking about what we’ll get out of it. We talk about the benefits of membership in a particular church. We promise to seekers the personal benefits of being on mission or engaging in community service.
Once we get inside a system or institution, it’s easy to lose sight of the expansiveness for which we were created. Rather than growing wider in mission, our vision narrows and grows self-interested. The kingdom of God is re-scaled to the “kingdom of us.” We lose the capacity to celebrate with hungry foreigners who are fed or leprous strangers who are healed.
On the other hand, the kingdom brought by God is expansive and inclusive. It welcomes the outsider and extends generosity to those on the underside of life. This kind of expansiveness and inclusivity invites us to a new way of being with God and being in the world for God.
For Reflection:
Today in your prayer, hold the tension of your desire to benefit somehow from life with God on the one hand . . . and on the other hand, the wideness of God’s mercy and the invitation God extends to you as a participant in God’s expansive kingdom.
Daily Reading: Luke 4:24 – 30
Focus Passage:
"Truly I tell you," he continued, "prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. (Lk. 4:24 – 28)
The passage actually begins ahead of these verses. The people of Jesus’ hometown were amazed at the gracious words of Jesus when he read from the prophet Isaiah. He connected his life and ministry to the long-awaited Messiah of Isaiah’s prophecy. Knowing his lineage as Joseph’s son (v. 22, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”), perhaps these hometown folks wanted the benefits that come from having greatness nearby. In other words, their kind words about Jesus may be weighted with self-centeredness.
In fact, their self-interest rose to the surface as Jesus spoke. They had thought of Jesus as a private hero, one who came to bring personal blessings to the hometown folks. Their focus was upon themselves.
Then they heard Jesus speak into their narrowness, using two stories from the Hebrew Scriptures that speak of God using non-Jews to initiate a kingdom that impacts the entire world, not just Israel. A foreign widow and a foreign military official experienced God’s generosity. The widow was fed. The military official was healed. But the crowd could not celebrate these expressions of God’s grace. At the recounting of these stories, the hometown crowd turned furious.
The narrow nationalism that celebrated Israel’s place with God could not imagine that the Chosen People had a mission beyond their own borders. In fact, Israel was chosen by God to bring God’s life to all people. Their focus was upon themselves, but in fact God hoped beyond their provincialism.
The tendency in much religious practice is to make life tighter, narrower, and less spacious. We too easily ask, “What’s in this for me?”
“What blessings and benefits will I receive?”
Often prayer is described as a way to get things from God. We imagine worship in consumer terms, thinking about what we’ll get out of it. We talk about the benefits of membership in a particular church. We promise to seekers the personal benefits of being on mission or engaging in community service.
Once we get inside a system or institution, it’s easy to lose sight of the expansiveness for which we were created. Rather than growing wider in mission, our vision narrows and grows self-interested. The kingdom of God is re-scaled to the “kingdom of us.” We lose the capacity to celebrate with hungry foreigners who are fed or leprous strangers who are healed.
On the other hand, the kingdom brought by God is expansive and inclusive. It welcomes the outsider and extends generosity to those on the underside of life. This kind of expansiveness and inclusivity invites us to a new way of being with God and being in the world for God.
For Reflection:
Today in your prayer, hold the tension of your desire to benefit somehow from life with God on the one hand . . . and on the other hand, the wideness of God’s mercy and the invitation God extends to you as a participant in God’s expansive kingdom.
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