By The Rev. J.C. Austin
This week the sermon title is “Throwing Jesus Away,” which comes from how our Scripture lesson for today ends, with an angry mob trying to throw Jesus off a cliff outside of Nazareth to his death on the rocks far below in the valley.
But, as you probably know or can guess, I have to 
submit titles for printing in the bulletin before I’ve written the actual sermon, and as I was working on the sermon this week after doing so, I suddenly realized that I missed the chance to call the sermon something like, “A Mob Tries to Cancel Jesus,” because this story literally depicts what people often metaphorically talk about in the media, social and otherwise, these days, with an angry crowd suddenly forming to “cancel” someone because they were so offended by something the person said or did.
Originally, as that language became popular a few years ago, canceling someone was largely seen as something justifiable: someone said or did something publicly that was so offensive that they needed to be “called out” about it and held publicly accountable for it, to make clear that this was not merely a disagreeable opinion or action but a violation of an important and widely-held social and moral norm.
Examples of this would be things like defending or excusing white supremacy, or revelations of assault or abuse, or either denying the Holocaust or comparing something trivial to it, and so on. As our social and political discourse has gotten more and more polarized, though, the whole concept of cancellation has gotten caught up in that, with calls for cancellation of people for merely expressing controversial opinions that others are afraid to name, on the one hand, and claims that someone is being unfairly “cancelled” for their opinions when they’re actually just receiving a public critique, and often a justified one, without any actual impact on their life, career, or public standing.
In both of these complications, though, the language of a mob suddenly gathering to attack someone for what they’ve said is often used, which is why this story about Jesus suddenly sounds very contemporary. So which is it? Did Jesus say something so blatantly offensive that this kind of reaction is understandable, or is the crowd unfairly trying to attack him simply for speaking his conscience?
When we go back through the story to see what led to this scene on the cliff, though, it’s still not especially clear to us what Jesus did to elicit this kind of response. He goes to Sabbath services at the synagogue, as he always does wherever he is, and he is invited to read the Scripture lesson. The lesson appointed for the day is from the book of Isaiah, and is written in the voice of a servant of God who is anointed by the Spirit to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, to let the oppressed go free. When he’s done reading, he declares, “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
And this generates a unanimous and very positive response: “all spoke well of him,” Luke says, “and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Part of their amazement is the “gracious words.” Jesus isn’t just claiming his own personal mission statement (which he is); when he says that Isaiah’s scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing today, he’s saying that he is the fulfillment of that prophecy. And part of their amazement is that it is he who is both the source and the subject of those words of grace. Because they know him; he grew up right here in this town and in this synagogue. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” the worshippers exclaim, in the way that every hometown gushes over the local kid who is makes it big out in the world.
Last fall, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the popular actor and former professional wrestler, made a big splash in the media, especially here in Bethlehem, when he surprised the Freedom High School football team in several ways. First, he gave them a personal video message that was really an inspiring pregame locker room speech, ahead of their big homecoming game against Allentown Central Catholic, which was the #1 ranked team at the time.
But second, he surprised them with gifts of new shoes and football gear for the players to show that he believed in them and wanted to help them succeed. He did all this because, as you might know, long before he was “The Rock,” Dwayne Johnson attended Freedom High School and was a standout football player. So when The Rock showed up (virtually) and gave them words and gifts of support, Freedom High’s football team responded by going out and demolishing the #1 team by a score of 42-7, and getting a congratulatory second message from The Rock. And all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words and deeds coming from him: “I don’t say this about many people,” one student was quoted as saying, “but Dwayne Johnson is a hero to me.”
If, instead, the Rock had showed up in that message to tell Freedom High that he was there to tell them that there is nothing special about them at all, that he didn’t intend to do anything helpful for them even though he has almost infinite resources to do so, and that in fact he was going to give those gifts of encouraging words and new gear to Allentown Central Catholic, or even Liberty High School, then the reaction to him probably wouldn’t have been quite so glowing. Those players might still have gone out and demolished their opponent, but it would have been because they couldn’t do that to The Rock. They probably would have been furious at him, outraged, offended, and would have felt perfectly justified in being so.
Now, take that and multiply it by a factor of several hundred times, and you’re starting to get a sense of why this crowd was so angry. Because the answer to the question of whether Jesus is being unfairly attacked or he said something truly offensive that merits being cancelled is: both are true. Now, I’d have to say that there are never grounds to justify a mob literally throwing someone off a cliff, no matter what they said.
And pointing out that God has always worked with and for people beyond the covenant between God and the Jews is simply a fact, and so shouldn’t be particularly controversial in itself. But what Jesus said is also profoundly offensive to his audience because he’s saying that the Scripture from Isaiah that’s being fulfilled today isn’t just a message of liberation and redemption to God’s covenantal people, but to all of those who respond to God and God’s Servant with faithfulness, even if they are rivals and potential enemies, like Naaman the Syrian that Jesus references.
That may not seem offensive to us. It may not even seem controversial, given how steeped we are in Jesus’ ministry of grace to both Jews and Gentiles, to the whole world. But there are plenty of other things that Jesus said and did that may be offensive to us. Things like: love your enemies; forgive those who sin against you; it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to get into heaven. So while we might not be tempted to throw Jesus off a cliff, we are certainly tempted to throw the teachings away that offend us, or at least sweep them under the rug; but when we do so, we’re also throwing Jesus away, or at least pushing him away, creating distance between ourselves and what he wants us to do that makes us uncomfortable.
So what are we supposed to do about that? Believe it or not, I think we can take a lesson from one of the most recent debates over cancellation. Over the last week or so, there has been a growing movement for musicians and podcasters to pull their work from Spotify, the prominent digital streaming service that is the main platform for “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which is both one of the biggest podcasts on the Internet and a place where misinformation about COVID and vaccines has been persistently and prominently disseminated. So, the boycott is to protest and combat such dangerous and intentional misinformation, and it has also generated a large backlash around questions of censorship and “cancel culture.”
In the midst of this, Brené Brown, the bestselling author and well-regarded scholar whose research focuses on the dynamics of shame, vulnerability, and courage in human relationships and leadership, announced she was pausing her two popular podcasts on Spotify, without offering a specific explanation. The angry online crowd quickly began hurling accusations that she was supporting censorship and promoting cancel culture, and violating her own claims to support daring and vulnerable leadership.
Finally, Brown issued a public statement. In it, she condemned misinformation and rejected censorship, and argued that she was doing exactly what she has always urged people to do in difficult and highly- charged situations: pause, get curious, and ask questions as a means to constructively address highly charged problems with unclear solutions. In this case, she was seeking information about Spotify’s misinformation policies and how they had been applied and would be moving forward, wanting to know the content, ensure their transparency, and confirm that they are being applied consistently. After getting satisfactory answers to those questions, she decided to resume her podcasts, arguing that deciding between censorship and misinformation is false choice and we don’t have to tolerate one to protect against the other.
Pause; get curious; ask questions. That’s actually pretty good advice for how to respond when anybody whom we trust or respect says or does something unexpected that offends us. Because yes, it may be something that rightfully needs to be rejected. But when it comes to Jesus, far more than we’d like to admit, it’s something that we just really don’t like, usually because it demands something from us that we don’t want to do or accept.
In this case, Jesus wasn’t saying God was rejecting the Jewish people; Jesus was saying that God can and has and will reach out to people from all walks of life, and the question is whether they will respond with faithfulness. So it is God’s grace that determines whom God claims, not their own special merit, and the crowd needed to accept that. That’s only bad news if you think that God has to reject others to care for the Jews, as this crowd seems to have done, or if you think God has to reject the Jews in order to save Christians, as modern anti-Semites do.
Pause; get curious; ask questions. If the crowd had done that with Jesus, if we do that with Jesus, then what we discover is that he is always, always offering good news about God’s relentless, unstoppable, irresistible love for us; for each of us and all of us. Good news is not always easy news, or painless news, or even welcome news, if we are committed to keeping what God wants to change. But if we are willing to listen, to be challenged and invited to enter into the transformed future that God is making, then we will discover the freedom and favor, liberation and healing, that Christ brings and offers and cultivates for ourselves and our community and our world. And that is good news.