This is a sermon I preached at church on January 30, but recent situations have caused me to have a change of heart regarding one of the examples I used. I refuse to edit what I have said in public, but have marked it and footnoted my subsequent reflections at the end.
The Cold Shoulder
Today’s Gospel story tells us of a welcome worn out, and reminded me a little of something that happened a couple of summers ago in Red Deer. A young fellow named Jesse Drwiega won a provincial scholarship that permitted him to study theatre abroad at the Royal Conservatoire in Scotland! Due to Covid, there was no opportunity for a formal presentation, but Jesse was asked to record a video acceptance speech for an online event spotlighting a number of similar awards.
But after he submitted it, he was asked by an event organizers (a government ministry employee) if he would mind re-doing it. You see, while duly expressing gratitude for the award, Jesse also called out the current government for what he felt was their failure to fund arts programs in Alberta schools, and with the Lieutenant Governor in attendance, it was felt this was perhaps just too partisan a view.
But Jesse disagreed - in fact, he had actually credited the Klein government for establishing the award back in the ‘90s. What he said was indisputably true - he quoted the assembly’s speaker as saying “the arts simply aren’t in our mandate.” And since his speech presented his genuinely-held view in a polite manner, he felt it more than his right, he felt it was his responsibility to leave it as it was. And since our society values free speech and the exchange of ideas, the event organizers left it in place, right?
Ha! Of course not, they cut his speech right out of the program, and simply acknowledged him by name instead.
Not much a very welcoming attitude - more of a cold shoulder, really.
There is a folk-story that the term “cold shoulder” refers to the leftover mutton served to guests who had overstayed their welcome, but the truth is that this idiom comes from a mistranslation of the Latin Vulgate Bible in 1816. A passage in Nehemiah says “stubbornly they turned their backs on you” and contains the Latin word umerus which can mean back and shoulder. That is how Sir Walter Scott, author of Rob Roy and Ivanhoe, took it to mean, and hey presto, a phrase is born.
Shoulders have a huge role to play, not just in our bodies but in our language as well and not just as a part of the road we can stand on safely - we reference them as places to cry on, shrug with, hug with. But whether we are talking about chilled sheep meat or turning away from someone, a cold shoulder is the retraction of hospitality, and a clear sign you are no longer welcome.
Luke’s story today tells a tale where Jesus finds himself no longer welcome - in his own hometown, no less! Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised - obviously Jesus isn’t. He calls it out, in fact, saying that “no prophet is welcome in his hometown.”
It can be hard to see what all the fuss is about from our remote and detached perspective here in the 21st century, but try to look at it from the point of view of a temple attendee in first-century Israel; consider that Jesus is returning to the synagogue in the town he grew up in, probably the synagogue he learned in, where those in attendance namecheck him as Mary and Joseph’s boy.
He claims the prophecy of Isaiah has come to pass, intimating that he is the Messiah. This does not agitate those listening, at least not right away, but then, after talking about how no prophet is accepted in his hometown, he starts talking about things God hasn’t done for Israel
- During a famine and drought, when people were dying in batches, the prophet Elijah came to no one in Israel but did aid a widow in Sidon, a city in Lebanon
- During the time of the prophet Elisha, the only leper who became cleansed was Naaman of Syria
Jesus telling these people that God cares for everyone is one thing, but telling the hometown crowd that they are nothing special does not go over well, to say the least.
We heard the New Revised Standard Version, but here is how it sounds in the King James Version:
And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
I can’t sufficiently articulate the difference between rage in the NRSV and the wrath I just mentioned, but dang! It is
palpable, right?
So, just to be absolutely clear here: the crowd grabs Jesus and not only push him out of the synagogue but drag him to the outskirts of the city, where they intend to throw him off a cliff!
No marks for subtlety there I suppose.
It is all very dramatic! Until the ending, anyways. In which, in one of those rare but infuriating moments in the bible that gives absolutely no consideration whatsoever to narrative resolution, he just… walks away from it all. That's it. He “passes through the midst of them,” and goes on his way.
And don’t think our reading was cut short either, because by the next verse he has already relocated to Capernaum.
At the climax of the tale, he is on his way to be pitched headlong down the side of what some people believe to be Mount Precipice. It’s no Everest, heck it’s not even Mt. Robson, but believe me, you would not want an express trip to the bottom from the top, nor the associated deceleration trauma you would experience, assuming you survived being bettered by rocks the whole way down.
In the end, though, Jesus walks through the crowd which wants to kill him and goes on his way. I mean, you know, good, but still…unsatisfying.
No wrestling match at the side of the cliff, no stern rebuke, no angels carrying him off to safety - just a fellow walking through the crowd.
I can’t help but imagine what that must have been like for the people in the crowd though - were they dumbfounded? Were they spellbound? Hypnotized? Did the famous Jedi Mind Trick of the movies actually originate with Jesus?
Did they perhaps not recognize him? “Get him!” “Is this him? I thought he was taller…” “Well, keep looking!”
Or is this maybe another one of those “cast the first stone” situations, where Jesus asks who is going to throw him off and no one is willing to be the one responsible?
Or perhaps when Jesus decides he has had enough of this nonsense, and this town, and turns to depart, maybe he just looks this angry mob in the yes, one at a time, until they realize, hey - there is not a single thing he said back there that was untrue.
Maybe need to look at this another way.
Maybe we need to listen to this another way.
If you look at this story through the lens of our other New Testament reading, you might experience a shift in focus, like I did.
Our reading from Paul’s first Epistle to the church in Corinth might be just the thing to change our focal point a little bit. This is a piece that is extremely familiar to most of us, and is probably heard as often at weddings as it is in worship services, if not more.
And in fairness, the middle bit is brilliant relationship advice: any couple who bases their interactions on patience and kindness, rejects boasting, envy, arrogance and rudeness and finds joy in honesty is a true reflection of love.
But it is important to keep in mind that Paul is not, in fact, giving advice to newlyweds - he is writing to the fractious and divided church in Corinth, a church who multiple sources had informed him was struggling due to those divisions.
Throughout First Corinthians Paul preaches on the importance of unity but he takes a whole chapter to espouse the importance of love. (That’s right, it was not an excerpt you heard earlier, but the whole megillah.) He begins the thirteenth chapter exploring the absence of love, the futility and uselessness of language, foresight, prophecy and even the ability to move mountains (!) when these things are not guided by, rooted in, based upon love.
Chapter 13 concludes with Paul outlining the transitory nature of human things, even divinely guided ones, like prophecy. He provides an astonishingly succinct insight into how perceptions change over time, comparing childhood to adulthood and asserting how the future remains obscured, a dim reflection of our present circumstances.
But it all comes back to love. Verse 8 begins with the words “Love never ends.” Verse 13 ties things up with an assertion of the perpetuity of love: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
The wedding advice is the meat in this scriptural sandwich, but the context provided by the preamble and postlude are critical to our greater understanding: Love is transcendant. Love is forever. Love is God, because “God is love,” as John’s Gospel reliably informs us.
And we can apply this lesson far beyond the personal. What happens when we apply Paul’s “Gift of Love” to the relationship between political entities? Cultures? Countries? Denominations? Whole faiths, even? The principle of love, as Paul sketches it here, is infinitely scalable, and lets us broach countless divides that might otherwise feel impassable.
Have you ever been told something you didn’t want to hear, perhaps some constructive criticism, and the speaker softened it by explaining that the words were spoken “with love”? For example, “Stephen, I say this with love, but I think you should use simpler words in your sermon so people don’t nod off - you know?” or someone complaining about another’s taste in clothing, but lest they be thought of as catty, include “with love,” like a disclaimer, or something that should be called out with an asterisk. “With love (Note: does not represent romantic or literal love, should not imply any sense of genuine connection or reciprocated affection. Void where prohibited by law, not applicable in all provinces.)”
So you may well question the sincerity behind that “with love” qualifier, because for sure some people use it loosely or insincerely. But other times, upon reflection, you might say to yourself “y’know, I wonder if they have a point,” or “there is no denying the truth of what that person is saying, and I don’t think they meant it hurtfully.”
Hearing the truth can be hard sometimes, just as hard as speaking it. And knowing these revelations come from a place of love, and not resentment or jealousy or arrogance or any of those other things that love is not can absolutely help soften the blow.
But in addition to saying things with love, it helps if we can train ourselves to also hear things with love. In his epistle, Paul is outlining some bitter medicine for the church in Corinth. In the synagogue, Jesus is laying some genuine truth bombs on those in attendance, explaining that God’s love is for everyone, not just a chosen few. Does he do this to provoke a response or anger up a crowd? Possible, but unlikely.
Had the crowd listened with love, not forgetting that this was Mary and Joseph’s boy talking to them, not some stranger, some outsider, I wonder if their response might have been a bit more temperate? Or is their response a critical part of the lesson here?
As I have so often declared, I am no expert, but it seems to me that a bit of the wisdom being imparted here is that human beings will not always respond kindly to things that jostle their world view or insights that make them rethink previously held truths.
When we hear a position or outlook that we find difficult to accept, but have no doubt in the sincerity of the speaker, we need to ask ourselves why they are saying it. Is it possible that, even though we are opposed to the notion they are forwarding, they truly do have the best interests of the organization at heart? The company? The team? The family? The church?
I am not an absolutist when it comes to most things and particularly when it comes to the truth, because I have had people I love ask me about their new haircut or if those pants make them look fat. But we all know that there are times when uncomfortable truths need to be spoken. There are times when truth needs to be spoken to power. Very few comfortable conversations begin with “you need to hear this,” but true progress, growth or healing is difficult to achieve without them.
There are also times when we can’t hear truth being spoken to us because we occlude our hearing with filters of self-interest, privilege, or just maintaining the status quo.
Going back to our friend Jesse Drwiega, he was not about to take his speech’s exclusion sitting down. He posted his acceptance speech on YouTube. It got a little over a thousand views there, probably more than were in attendance at the virtual ceremony, but then the story got picked up by local media and then larger outlets in turn, like CTV and City TV. In the end, turning the cold shoulder to Jesse may have been more trouble for the United Conservative Party than it was worth.
Or how about this? Do I believe in freedom? You bet I do! Do I feel that the 10-15% of truckers who remain unvaccinated were truly advancing that cause as they drove to Ottawa? Not really. Certainly not based on the violent, intolerant and often racist rhetoric I hear from too many of their participants. Do I think the $5M they raised with no plan while Canadian schools are underfunded and First Nations communities still have to boil their drinking water amply illustrates just how out of whack our society’s principles are? Absolutely. Are there people in my life who don’t like to hear this perspective? Of course.
But I understand that a lot of the supporters are frustrated that two years later it does not feel like we have gained any real ground in this pandemic, and they want to change the approach being taken. And fair enough - periodic re-evaluation is a valid notion, and listening with love helps me to at least try to understand this other perspective.
*The Gospel lesson tells me that when we speak truth to those who are not ready, we should not expect a warm welcome, even in the place where we come from. Home ice advantage only extends so far, after all. Speak truth when and where it is needed, but be prepared for the cold shoulder. Maybe your acceptance speech will be cut from a prepared program, or someone will anonymously shout “shut up!”, but hopefully you aren’t bodily escorted to a cliff face.
Paul’s lesson tells me that when we speak with love, and when we listen with love, we have a far greater chance of furthering our collective understanding and affecting meaningful change.
There is no epilogue to Luke’s story, no follow-up where, weeks later, people who were in the synagogue that day say, “Yeah, it got pretty crazy there for a while. But you know, afterwards, when things had calmed down, and for days afterwards, I found myself coming back to what he had said…” so there is no way to know if something like this ever happened. If a seed planted that day in acrimony blossomed later on in reflection. But I have seen it work that way. I’ve felt it work in me. Maybe you have too.
Through Jesus and through Paul, God asks us not only to speak truth, but to engage with opposing viewpoints, and to work with those advancing them in order to achieve a better and more equitable tomorrow. It is up to each and every one of us to determine if we are up to challenge, and ready to not only listen, but respond with love, and not the cold shoulder.
Amen
* At the time that I wrote this and even at the time I spoke the words, I meant it. At the end of the day, the people in this protest are our neighbours, our co-workers, our associates, and sometimes our family and our friends. I may not agree with their position, but I recognize that eventually Covid, or at least the way we deal with it presently, will be a thing of the past. And when that day comes, we will still need to interact with these people despite our differences - bundling them into sea cans and shipping them off to Baffin Island is not an option. A demonstration of public displeasure is worth some inconvenience in a free society.
But a week later, as the invective grows more heated, and the often violent and too-often racist elements are tolerated, and the movement expands from city to city, the "Freedom Convoy" has announced that it intends to stay in place until all Covid mandates are repealed. Never mind that the border-crossing requirements don't impact the 85-90% of truckers estimated to be double-vaccinated, never mind that there is still a mandate on the other side of the Canada-U.S., and forgetting that the Prime Minister is unlikely to sit down for serious negotiations under threat or pressure from anyone, let alone a group flying so many "F*ck Justin Trudeau" banners (and worse).
The point has been made, but now this mob of largely unvaccinated yahoos, who despite their numbers still represent the minority opinion in this country, think they have the opportunity to affect real and lasting change. They clog up streets, impede border crossings, honk their air horns at all hours, even in residential areas, and harass the people who have come out to express opposing views. It has transitioned from a protest to a form of extortion - give us what we want, and things can return to normal.
That is to say, their "normal."
When interviewed on CBC Friday night, one convoy driver said, "I don't blame them for being angry - I'd be upset too if it was my neighbourhood. But we are doing this for their children too."
I was angry about this nonsense before, but I found the idea that this person thinks their blinkered harassment campaign, this vehicular tantrum, has any sort of connection to my double-vaccinated children completely infuriating.
I know the past two years of working from home, limited socialization, public masking and the rest of it have taken a toll on me in many ways, patience foremost among them. And I have none left to spare for these tragic, bullying, science-denying extortionists.
The sermon above talks about the importance of empathy and listening with love, and I stand by the lessons I have learned. But I wish I had used a different example than the group some call "the FluTruxKlan."
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SCRIPTURES
Our first reading today will probably remind quite a few of us of weddings we have attended. While it is good relationship advice for a couple, it takes on even greater meaning if you apply it to groups, even groups within a larger church, such as the Corinthians Paul is corresponding with. How do things change when we listen with love?
1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 -
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
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.
Love is patient, love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
But as for prophesies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
For we know only in part; and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
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 away childish ways.
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.
And now Faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Our Gospel reading picks up from last week’s passage, in which Jesus read the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
What Jesus says after this inflames the audience and he finds his hometown welcome quickly withdrawn – but why?
Luke 4:21-30
Then He began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
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?”
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 we have heard you did at Capernaum.’
And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.
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 lands; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.
There were so many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”
When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.
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.
But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
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