The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, January 28th: Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13; Luke 4:21-30)

JESUS’ DIVINITY TRUMPS ARROGANT STATEMENTS

Many people nowadays think Jesus was a kind, compassionate, loving guy. (Which of course He was.) They think Jesus offered a lot of great teachings on forgiveness, tolerance, and treating everyone with respect. (Which of course He did.)

These people, however, do not accept the historic church doctrines about the identity of Jesus: that He was and is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity; the eternal Word through whom all things were made; and the divine Son of God, whose death on the cross paid the price for sin and whose Resurrection three days later conquered death once and for all.

Many folks these days just can’t bring themselves to believe all those supernatural claims the church makes regarding Jesus.

“If only you religious fanatics would stop going overboard about all that divinity stuff,” they exclaim. “If only you would focus on Jesus, the gentle and loving man, rather than on Jesus, the mythical legend created by superstitious religious leaders, then everything would be fine.”

The basic idea is that Jesus, the wise and humble philosopher, was a great guy. While Jesus, the divine Incarnate Son of God, is a silly myth. If modern people would only focus on Jesus the man and forget about Jesus the God, then the world would be a lot more kind and loving and tolerant.

There’s only one problem: Jesus the humble, loving, gentle man—but only a man—simply does not exist.

In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus was in the synagogue, and He had just finished reciting a passage from the prophet Isaiah, which said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.”

Then, as Jesus took His seat, He declared to the congregation: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

In other words, Jesus was saying to them, “What the great prophet Isaiah wrote seven centuries ago has finally come true—right here, right now, today. The prophecy has come true because of me. Yeah, me, Jesus. Isaiah was talking about me and only me. I’m the one. Any questions?”

Pretty arrogant, wouldn’t you say?

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this Jesus fellow had an ego almost as large as Donald Trump’s. And just as Mr. Comb-over-from-hell can cause people to take an instant dislike to him, the people listening to Jesus in that synagogue also became angry. Scripture says, “They were filled with fury.”

In fact, they were so offended by Jesus’ apparent arrogance, they tried to throw Him off a cliff. (I don’t recommend tossing The Donald off a cliff. Although if he accidentally fell off the roof of one of his skyscrapers, that would be kind of funny—no no! I’m just kidding! I don’t want him to fall off a building. After all, someone on the street might get hurt. The best thing we can do about Mr. Trump is ignore him and maybe he and his scary hair will just go away.)

But the point is, the things Jesus said and did were anything but humble. For example, He considered Himself to be morally perfect. He seated all authority in Himself. He placed Himself at the center of the religious universe. He declared that His death was somehow necessary for the salvation of all mankind.

If Jesus was just a man and not God, He was incredibly self-centered and arrogant. On second thought, if Jesus was just a man, He had the largest ego ever—even larger than Donald Trump.

And yet, the very same people who claim that Jesus was not divine never talk about Him as being self-absorbed and egomaniacal. On the contrary, they say if everyone was as kind and loving and humble as Jesus, then the world would be a much better place.

You never hear secular people saying anything bad about Jesus. Of course, they insult those of us who follow Jesus on a regular basis, best summarized by a rude (but kind of clever) bumper sticker I saw recently: “Save me Jesus – from your followers!”

At some point during our lives, we each must answer the critical question that Jesus asked His disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

The answer to that question is the difference between Heaven and Hell. But there are only two possible answers: Jesus is either the divine Son of God and Savior of the world, or He was a self-absorbed, egotistical nut job.

The safe and sweet middle-ground answer—that Jesus was good and wise and humble, but just a man—is not an option. It is an impossible, illogical viewpoint.

The sooner people realize this, and then invest a little time and effort studying who Jesus was (and is), the sooner they can come to an understanding of the truth. And the truth is this, as Jesus proclaimed about Himself in John’s gospel: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.”

For a man to make such a claim would be the height of arrogance—with or without an ugly red comb-over. For the Son of God to make such a claim is the height of love and compassion.

©2007