Sunday, February 2nd, 2025: "Gifts: The Gift of Rejection"

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The First United Presbyterian Church

“Gifts: The Gift of Rejection”

Rev. Amy Morgan

February 2, 2025

Luke 4:21-30

21 Then [Jesus] 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 this not 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 his 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 with a skin disease 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.

They were supposed to help their own people. But that was complicated for ethnic Germans who were citizens of other nations. Friedlinde Kratz had German heritage and Yugoslavian citizenship. When World War II broke out, her father was forced to join the German army. He had to fight with people who shared his language and culture against people who were his neighbors. After he was wounded at the Russian front, the family was confined in an internment camp and forced by the communist government of Yugoslavia to work on state-owned farms. They were able to escape under cover of darkness in 1947 and lived as refugees in Lintz, Austria for nine years. The Kratz family knew what it was like to be rejected by their hometown, to be driven out, nearly to the point of death. 

Before Jesus returned to his hometown of Galilee, he had been helping and healing people in the surrounding countryside, teaching and performing miracles. When he returns home, as we heard last week, he makes this inspiring pronouncement about fulfilling Isaiah’s prophesy to send an anointed one to liberate people from poverty, prison, impairment, oppression, and productivity. And the expectation was that Jesus would help his own people, his clan, his tribe, his family and friends and neighbors. If he was willing and able to help strangers, he should return home to put his people first. 

But that’s not what Jesus did. Instead, he reminds his family and neighbors that, even though they enjoy a special relationship with Jesus and with Israel’s God, God has not always put Israel first. In a time of famine, Israelite widows starved while Elijah saved a widow and her son who belonged to another people and place. While Israelites suffered from the disfiguring disease of leprosy, God sent Elisha to heal one of Israel’s enemies. 

Why would Jesus tell these stories, knowing that they will make his people reject him and get him run out of town? He was revealing that God anointed him to help more than his own people. Jesus didn’t belong just to his family, or to the town of Galilee, or to the Israelites, or to Rome. He belonged to all those groups, but, first and foremost, he belonged to God and was sent to help God’s people. And, much to the disappointment of his hometown, God’s people meant all people. 

This idea was not palatable to the Galileans. In fact, they were enraged by it. So much so, that they tried to murder Jesus by running him off a cliff. Rejection and retribution were the appropriate responses to anyone who would challenge the idea that God puts Israel first and that people should prioritize their own people.

It’s difficult to accept rejection as a gift, but Jesus’s rejection gives him confirmation of who his people are. And his people are all people. His gift is our gift, too. Because, in his rejection, we become part of Jesus’s people. In his rejection, we get to belong to the whole family of God’s children, the whole family of humanity. 

Fortunately for Friedlinde and her family, the congregation of Lancaster Church of the Brethren received with joy the message Jesus was sending in Galilee. In 1956, members of the church helped the Katzes and their extended family resettle in America, where they discovered a larger community of welcome and opportunity. 

Sixty-five years later, Friedlinde sat knitting a shawl. She was married to the son of one of the families that helped sponsor her family as refugees. She belonged to the church that had supported them and made shawls for those who were ill or grieving. 

But the shawl she was knitting now was for a different kind of loss. It was not for one of her own people. It was for another family that had been rejected by their hometown. They had helped American soldiers fight the Taliban and had to flee for their lives after the Taliban regained control of the country. Her church was sponsoring this refugee family and welcoming them as children of God, helping them settle into a new home and surrounding them with love and community. 

The gift of rejection allowed Friedlinde to discover a new community in America. But it also allowed her to extend her embrace of humanity to others who had suffered, others who were different, others who needed a bigger community than the one they came from and had been rejected by. 

Jesus was nearly killed for daring to believe God cares for all people, even those who do not belong to our family, our people, our faith, even those who may be our enemies, even while suffering persists in our lives and our communities. God doesn’t put anyone first. 

And friends, sometimes that makes us really angry. Why does God save one child from suicide but not ours? Why does that grumpy, lazy old man get to live into his 90s while our good and loving dad died in his 50s? Why do those people have so much and we have so little? Why do those people have so much power and we’re so powerless? Why do those people get help and we don’t? Why are those people happy and we’re not? 

We’ve been faithful, good, kind, helpful, generous – all the things we think God wants us to be, at least most of the time and to the best of our ability and with the help of God. So when God seems to put others first, ahead of us or even instead of us, especially people who seem less deserving, it doesn’t feel great. 

But if we allow this resentment and anger to define our worldview, we are no better than that Galilean mob. It is that kind of mentality that has contributed to an executive order, celebrated by many Americans, that declares an “America First foreign policy, which puts America and its interests first.” Another executive order supporting this philosophy suspended the United States Refugee Admissions Program, the program that allowed Friedlinde and the Afghan family she welcomed to make a new life in our country. The rationale stated in the order was to ensure public safety and national security and to “ensure that the United States preserves taxpayer resources for its citizens.” It proclaims that “entry into the United States of refugees under the USRAP would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

Many Americans have experienced anger and frustration in recent years at the inadequacies of parts of our immigration system and the strain on resources in areas of the country where large populations of immigrants have settled. That anger has broadened into general fear and resentment of migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, people with special immigration status, and even U.S. citizens born in other countries. It doesn’t feel great when other people appear to get services, support, and opportunities we don’t. We’re supposed to put our family, friends, neighbors, communities, and nation first.  

While many Christians supported President Trump in his 2024 campaign, 71% of U.S. evangelical Christians believe the U.S. “has a moral responsibility to accept refugees,” according to a poll last month by Lifeway Research, which is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, wrote that “It is heartbreaking to learn of refugees who have lost everything, who have gone through an extensive screening process, and even have tickets purchased to travel to the United States but are now being told that they are not welcome here,” Kim said. “The greatness of the American humanitarian spirit finds beautiful expression in our proud heritage of life-saving refugee resettlement in partnership with churches and volunteers.” After the election the NAE joined a statement calling for continued American leadership in responding to the crisis of global displacement that currently impacts more than 100 million people made in God’s image, including many persecuted Christians.

These evangelical Christian voices were joined by Catholics, including Pope Francis, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Quakers, and others calling for this executive action to be repealed. 

You all know by now that it is extremely rare for me to speak directly to particular policies or political matters in my sermons. I am committed to the diversity of our political affiliations and beliefs, and no one in this congregation should be shamed from the pulpit for how they vote. 

But there was no way I could read this scripture in the context of what is happening in the world around us and not address this matter. This scene in Luke’s gospel makes it very clear that those who follow Jesus are those who welcome the reality that God’s love and wholeness and grace are intended for all humanity, and that there are no privileged groups, except perhaps those who are poor, imprisoned, impaired, or oppressed. But they are not privileged to the exclusion of anyone else. God’s love is boundless. There is always enough for everyone. 

And because of this incredible, infinite love, we as Christians in this time and place, can be those who advocate for and practice an expansive embrace of all humanity. It will cost us. It will not put our family, friends, and hometown first. Lancaster Church of the Brethren has spent nearly $100,000 and thousands of volunteer hours over the last seven decades to help refugees thrive in their new homeland. And while refugee resettlement costs billions of dollars in federal and state funding, the net fiscal impact of refugees on government funds is overwhelmingly positive. 

When we come to this table, where Jesus Christ is the host, we are reminded that this is a table where all are welcome. God desires everyone to be nourished and whole, in body, mind, and spirit. We do not have to be first at this table, and it doesn’t have to be exclusively for us. If we can resist the temptation to feel anger and resentment at this expansive invitation, we can walk with Jesus rather than reject him. We can celebrate God’s healing and wholeness, wherever and for whomever it shows up. And we can become those who participate in God’s redemptive work in the world. 

To God be all glory, forever and ever. Amen.