Tami’s Meandering Thoughts

“All were speaking well of him, and were amazed at the gracious words coming out of his mouth…. All the people in the synagogue were filled with rage.”
Luke 4:22, 28

This is the tale of two thoughts, seemingly unrelated but incredibly connected.

Thought 1: This morning as I was praying during my devotions, I began praying for various people God would bring to mind. Freely I asked for God’s guidance, blessing, wisdom for people’s lives. Then came to mind a couple of people for whom, as I began praying for them, I suddenly noticed that my prayers were not so free. In fact, there was a bit of “Lord, help them, but not too much. Lord, bless them, but not too much. Lord, teach them, but maybe make them wallow in the dark just a bit.” Honestly, that shocked me. So, I began questioning why I had difficulty praying for those people. Why? Because they have hurt me in the past. So, I wanted to keep God just a bit distanced from them. Not actually take away their salvation or all of their hope, peace and joy, but perhaps just a bit. Talk about a selfish attitude of keeping Jesus to myself and such a lack of forgiveness on my part! (Before you totally start judging me and x-ing out the blog, take a moment to think about your life – I debated about writing this, but then decided that chances are I’m not the only one who deals with this).

Thought 2: As I read Luke 4, I noticed a violent change of reaction in those from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. If you look at 4:22, the people were amazed at Jesus’ reading and understanding of the scripture. You can just hear them, can’t you? “Yep, this is our Jesus, Joseph’s son. I used to help his dad in the carpentry shop. He probably learned godly living by watching how I interacted with customers.”…”You know, He went to our school where I was his teacher – do you hear how well he talks? He learned all his public speaking skills from me.”…”Do you see how well he understands the Scripture, well, you do remember, that I was his 3rd grade Sunday School teacher? I taught him a lot of that stuff.”…”You know, Mary and Joseph are our best friends. They brought Jesus over to play quite often when he was younger. It was probably all the macaroni and cheese I fed him that made him so tall and commanding.”

However, only five verses later these same people became so enraged that they wanted to kill Jesus. What in the world happened in those five verses? This is what I pondered, and here’s what I learned.

Jesus, in those five verses, showed how in the Old Testament God proved he loves Gentiles. He gave the examples of Elijah ignoring Israel’s widows while helping a Gentile widow during a famine and of the disregard for Israel’s lepers when the Gentile Naaman was cured. Because those listening to Jesus were taking personal pride in him, they wanted to keep him to themselves. After all, they were part of making Jesus who he was. Jesus then had the gall to say that he didn’t actually come just to help them. He also came for the Gentiles?!?! They were the “those people” the ones who hurt the Jews, who despised the Jews as much as the Jews despised them. And Jesus came to teach them as well? At first I saw no correlation between the two thoughts. In fact, I read this passage, pondered it, wondered if I should write about it, and even asked God, “So, Lord, what in the world is the personal application to this?”

Hopefully you see it. God took me back to my prayers earlier. I struggled with wanting someone else to experience all of Jesus. In my selfishness and pride and hurt, I wanted Jesus to like me just a little bit more than someone else. That’s exactly what these folks from Nazareth were doing. As you examine your prayer life, think about whether you excitedly pray for those who have hurt you. My own warning: Notice how quickly the reaction of those in the synagogue turned into rage. In order to have a pure heart, pure minds, pure prayers, we must forgive and pray for those who hurt us. Not just pray that they will repent, but pray that they will experience God just as much if not even more than we do.