It's Not About Us

Scripture – Luke 4:24-30: 24“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” 28All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. 30But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Reflection: This is fascinating to me. It speaks directly to where I am in ministry this very day. I’m still amazed at the way the Lord does that.

The folks in the synagogue became furious with Jesus because He lifted up an unacceptable truth. God’s love and concern is for all people. His kingdom plan reaches far beyond the local church today.

I’m well aware of the tension between my desire to stay as we are in the church and my desire to keep following Christ’s lead, which results in constant change. Jesus lifted up two Bible stories everyone in Nazareth would have known. Those stories pointed out two times when God specifically reached out to someone who was not an Israelite, even though many people in Israel needed help at the same time. People didn’t want to hear that.

The mission of the church is not about us. It is about people who don’t know Christ. It’s about reaching out and serving them. It’s not about preserving our style of worship or even our way of being the church. That’s the tension. That’s the risk. That’s the challenge. That’s where I am today. That’s where we are today.

How about you? How do you experience that tension? What do you think we might do about it?