Can Jesus Make You Mad?

A sermon based upon Luke 4:14-30

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

February 3, 2013

 

Exactly 4 years ago, in February of 2009, Central Baptist Church in Australia got into a bit of ‘hot water’.  Someone in the congregation put on their church sign the words “Jesus Loves Osama Bin Laden”.   I’m sure they meant well, but there message was not well taken.  Knowing that many Australian soldiers put their lives at risk to help America get him made those words look insulting, outrageous, even stupid.  In short, the sign made a lot of people mad.  People got so mad  they began picketing the church and riot fears developed.   Even the Prime Minister John Howard got involved.  The Prime Minister agreed that the church had a right to express their opinion, but that the sign was sending the wrong message; implying that the church ‘approved’ of Osama Bin Laden.  

To the credit of the congregation, the Baptist church did have an explanation at the bottom, quoting Jesus’ own words of explanation for the sign: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”   The church was trying to follow Jesus, but people were not impressed.  (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-2420546.html).   

 Can Jesus make you mad?   Sometimes we forget that Jesus was killed by crucifixion exactly because he made people mad.   Remember that scene near the end of the gospels, where Jesus is standing before Pilate and the people decide to save Barabbas and not Jesus.  In an angry and loud voice they screamed in agreement: "Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!"   Jesus really did make people that mad.   And in our text today from Luke, at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, and on top of that, even in Jesus' own home town we read that because of Jesus "all the synagogue were filled with rage."   How mad were they?  We must understand that Jesus’ own people were mad enough to drive Jesus out of town, lead him up a hill, take him to the edge of a cliff, just so they could 'hurl him off'.  Now that's mad!  Can Jesus make you that mad?   Can he make you mad enough to want him gone? 

Now, I know all this sounds strange, but the gospels are strange documents.   They do not tell us a regular guy hero story.   We prefer our heroes to be nice, caring, wonderful kinds of people.   We can also know from the gospel stories that Jesus was a good person, who went around doing good.  We also know that people loved to be around Jesus.   His personality drew all kinds of people to want to get close to him.   Especially in the early part of his ministry people followed him, and even hounded him much like the paparazzi do movie stars.   But as time goes on the desire to be close to Jesus finally fizzled out.  Jesus said things hard to understand.  Jesus hung around people no one wanted to hang around.  The truth Jesus told could be crude and rude.  Being around Jesus was nice for a while, but taking him too seriously could get ones nerves. 

The truth about Jesus  is that only a few, maybe only a hand full of people were very glad to get to know Jesus, but most people could not stand the guy.  He simply made too many people mad.    Can’t you think of some of them?  The birth of Jesus made Herod mad.  When Jesus disappeared from his parents at age twelve, it made his parents both afraid and mad.  When Jesus healed people on the Sabbath day, it made religious leaders, both Pharisees and Sadducees, mad.   Rich people were troubled by Jesus’ teaching because he said it was practically impossible for a rich man to get into heaven.   The Rich Young ruler went a sorrowful and perhaps more than a little perturbed.   Jesus even called his best man, Peter, a Satan.   In reflection upon Peter’s eventual denial of Jesus, would you cover for someone who called you out in front of everybody?  The Jesus of the Bible definitely appears to have needed a Carnage course on ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.”  

The truth Jesus brings to the world can still be offensive.   We see this especially in this opening story from Luke.   It appears that Jesus intentionally insults his own hometown people.   Now this is a very strange way to start a gospel.   But what I’ve also come to understand is that Jesus intends to make us mad too.  I’m convinced that Jesus cannot save us fully, freely or abundantly---he can’t save us from our sins, he can’t us from ourselves, and he can’t save us for a life of faith, hope and love, until Jesus also makes us mad—real mad.   Before Jesus can help and heal, he wants to pick a fight with us.   I know this is strange, undomesticated way to look at Jesus, so let’s get on to some explanation.

 Mad For Good Reasons

When I was in college, my roommate had a lot of interesting sayings.  He would use these sayings when he needed to express himself.  One of my favorite was what he always said when he was debating something and the conversation got heated.  He'd say something like, "Come on bro, dogs get mad, people get angry."   What he meant was ‘no calm down, we don’t have to get mad, we’re more than dogs.  We ought to be able to control ourselves, our emotions, etc.   Of course, my roommate was right in ideal situations, but what we know all too well is that sometimes people go mad too.

 A couple of years ago, in a small community south of Greensboro called Pleasant Garden, Mary Ann Holder went mad and shot five of her children in the head.   What is most alarming about such crimes of rage is that very often people turn their rage upon those they are closest too.  In another recent murder, a husband, who was also a fireman, trained to save lives, hired a homeless man to go into a Wal-mart with him and buy a hammer to bludgeon his wife to death.  We also remember how Casey Anthony killed her own child and got away with it.  Maybe you've seen such anger turn to rage, bitterness and hate in your own family.   When I was a child, my handicapped cousin took a 22 rifle and shot his Father three times in the stomach.  Nobody thought he could even pull the trigger, but he got mad enough and did it. 

People do get mad and go mad.   If you want some type of psychological explanation, human anger is most often connected to those things that frustrate us, hurt us, or make us afraid, which, if  left 'bottled up' in our hearts for too long, one day will explode.   Instead of getting all these issues out to deal with them,  too often we keep pushing stuff up under the rug, so to speak, until pressure builds up and then one day, boom!   Even over something completely unrelated, like your husband leaving his socks on the floor, or the wife waiting to the last minute to put on the brakes--something small or inconsequential, then it comes, boom!   Everything blows up.  He loses it and hits her.  She loses it and walks away.  Behind that seemingly small matter was something really big—and it was dynamite.

 Anger is a very human emotion.  It is also a necessary emotion.   Jesus got angry.  We get angry.  If we didn’t get angry, then nothing would matter.  We get most angry about those things we care about.   When a person hurts someone they love, or God forbid, if someone gets killed in a fit of rage, the law may call it a “crime of passion.”  A different set of rules might need to be considered in some of these situations.   We can’t always say why a person suddenly ‘flies off the handle’ and loses it.   We have ways to describe what happens, but we don’t always have full explanations.   Just like a mass murderer, or a murder suicide, it’s very tragic, it’s terribly horrible, but very the anger that is being released upon innocent people is really not about those people, but it’s about something gone terribly wrong inside a person who has lost all sense of reality, morality or self-control.   When people get mad, they can go mad, and it can happen real fast. 

 Yet, here we need to stop and consider something very important.  Anger is a warning sign.  Anger is sign that something is wrong---very wrong.   And the great message about anger in us is that the wrong is not only about what is being done to us, but it can be about the ‘wrong’ that’s also inside of us and needs to be confronted.   Most of us recall how back in the 70’s when counselors and psychologists often advised people to ‘get it out’, get mad, even to throw things---express your true feelings---but just don’t hurt anyone.   They would tell you to get your frustration out, but to do it in a constructive and non-destructive way.   However, it has now been realized that such advice is very risky.  Giving free reign and expression to your anger and rage can be very dangerous---not just for those you are angry with, but even with you, yourself.   Fits of rage and anger can cause unhealthy stress on your body and your heart.  It can teach you negative, bad habits too and leave things unresolved. 

What people need to do with their anger is not just ‘get it out’, but we need to also try to find out ‘why’ it is there.   Anger can be a sign that something is isn’t right with you too.  It can either be a signal that you have too few coping skills or emotional resources in your life, or it could mean that there is something inside you that needs your immediate attention.  In this way, when anger rises up in you and me, anger can be gift.  If we will see it rising up and if we recognize it, identify it, and discover exactly why it is there, we can also put ourselves on the road to understanding, to healing and finding help.   

But I’m not trying to bring you a psychology lesson.   But good psychology and good religion are related.   When people get angry, just like they do in this text and just like we do in life, anger can be a sign that something has gone very wrong.  But the wrong that makes us so angry is not always the wrong that is ‘out there’ or in someone else, but sometimes the ‘wrong’ has also gotten into us, into our hearts, our minds, and into our souls.   Until we feel the anger, we seldom can get to the real problem.   Confronting what’s wrong, is always a ‘two-way street’--going in both directions.   This means that part of what is wrong and find what is right, must also be revealed in us.   Before we can find the help and the healing, we may need to get a little mad, before we become glad.

 

Jesus Still Makes People Mad

With some understanding that anger is not always bad, but can also be a way to healing if we catch it early, let’s move on with this story.  What was it that made the people so mad with Jesus?   He seemed like such a likeable guy.  

Our text tells us that Jesus was ‘filled with the power of the Spirit’ when he returned to Galilee.   Reports about his good deeds spread everywhere in the surrounding area.  Jesus healed the sick.  He ate with sinners.  He makes at God’s table a place for all people to find rest for their souls.  Everybody is inviting Jesus to come to their town and to speak and to teach.  We also read how at Nazareth, Jesus went to the synagogue, ‘as it was his custom’, being a good, church going person.   Then, Jesus opens scroll for the Scripture reading assigned for that day.  It was from Isaiah and was about “the Spirit anointing” God’s prophet to speak and do good things in the world.   So far, so good.  After the reading was over, “the eyes of all were fixed on him” because their hopes seemed to be coming true in Jesus.  Jesus goes on to get more specific, leaving nothing to their imagination, saying: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  

Up to this point, the people are still with him.   The text says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth”.   In full amazement they could not believe what they saw and heard in one of their own.  They spoke their hearts out loud: “Is this not Joseph’s son?”   Up to this point, everything is wonderful.  We might say that the feeling in the air is that “God is in the heaven and all is right with the world.”  Or, as comedian Billy Crystal used to say, It’s simply “Marvelous.”

Why then, does Jesus mess everything up?   Instead of receiving their praise and worship, Jesus turns and insults his home crowd people.   He insults them so badly that they all want to kill them.  Was this really necessary?   Does Jesus have to make people mad before he can really make them fully glad---glad to be alive—glad to have faith in God? 

 I recall several years ago, when I was pastor elsewhere, the church decided to become more intentional in evangelism outside the church walls.  We had received an offer from a local baseball stadium inviting our members to participate in an evening of Christian fellowship in support of the home team.  I shared that this could be a great evangelistic outreach opportunity.  We could ask members to buy a ticket for themselves, but the church would by a ticket for any unchurched friends they would invite.  It sounded like a great opportunity and the planning committee was all excited.

Then came the Sunday we were to head to the game.  We called off Sunday night worship and a warm summer evening and invited the congregation to attend the game with us.  Everything was going fine, until an older lady stopped at the door, looked me in the eye and said, “How dare you call off Sunday night worship for a baseball game!”  I just smiled.  I didn’t answer.  What do you say?  The woman hardly came to evening worship services herself.  She wasn’t always there, but she wanted to make sure that her church only did what she wanted it to do.   As wonderful of a person as she was, and she was that, she was so good she could not see anything beyond herself.   Like the people in Nazareth, she wanted Jesus just the way she wanted him to be---a Jesus who worked for her, who met her demands, and who kept the miracles close at home.

 What we need grasp is not just about what was going on in Nazareth, but what was goes on everywhere.   Jesus gets to the heart of this when he confronts what they really wanted: “Doubtless you will quote this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself’.  And then you will say: “Do here in your own hometown the things that we have heard that you did at Capernaum.”  In this statement we find the real problem---not just the problem that people have with Jesus, but the problem that God has with us:  We want Jesus, and we like Jesus, but not for the sake of God and the needs of the world, but we want Jesus on our own terms.   We want Jesus to give us what we want.  Jesus’ hometown wanted Jesus’ miracles, and they wanted Jesus to do something for them, but they did not want to know what God wanted or expected from them.   They wanted to be served, but they did not want to learn to serve.   Jesus couldn’t be a prophet to them.  And the greatest truth of this text is that long before they ever got mad at Jesus for not giving them what they wanted,  they were not giving God what God wanted, and Jesus had come calling them to repentance as well.        

Jesus Must Make You Mad
I guess we could go on about some of the ways Jesus could make us mad today.   But we see it all the time.  People come to church and come to Jesus to get what they want, and when they don’t get it, they get mad.  What never occurred to them is that you don’t come to Jesus just to get what you want, but you come to Jesus to give God what God wants.  

The popular evangelical speaker sociology professor Tony Campolo was speaking about the needs of the people in Hati, long before the terrible earthquake hit.  Once he was speaking at a large convention hall, but the people didn’t seem to care a bit about what he was saying.   Then, Tony stopped, said a cruse word loud enough for all to hear.  The hall was deadened into complete silence.   Then Campolo, finished his speech.  Thousands of people in Hati need your help, but right now you self-righteous people are much more upset at me for saying a cruse word than you are upset about the situation in Hati.  Shame on you!  He concluded:  I hope I made you mad enough that you might not just sit there, but that you might do something. 

 It may sound hard, at least at first, but God does not plan to always make us happy or give us what we want.  Getting everything you want will not make you a better person.  Getting what you want will not save you either.  In fact, only living for what you want will make you a very spoiled, emotionally starved and spiritually and physically sick person.

This is why Jesus still wants to make some of us mad.   He wants to make us mad enough that we see much more to our life getting what we want.  Jesus wants to give us, me and you, what we really need.  And what we need, more than life itself is God, his grace, his mercy and his demands to be placed upon our lives for our own good.    In fact, Jesus wants to make you mad enough to see ‘red’---to see the red of his sacrifice, a Jesus who did not come to get, but a Jesus who came to give, and by giving himself, he teaches us how to live for more than just what we want.   Can Jesus make you that mad?   Can he make you mad enough to give up what you want for what God wants?   Amen.