I want to tell you about Jesus’ Oprah moment.

And how he ruined it.

For the past several months, our church has been doing daily Scripture readings. This past week, we read Luke 4:14-28 — a unique story about Jesus’ first recorded sermon.

(Honestly, most pastors would probably describe their first recorded sermon as unique, but for much different reasons.*)

Prior to this passage, Jesus had been traveling around — teaching, preaching, healing the sick, casting out demons, turning water into wine, dropping demo tapes. And like an indie band on the verge of their big break, everybody loved him. He could do nothing wrong.

So when he stepped to the front of the synagogue, needless to say, the expectations were high. He was back in his hometown for the first time since his song hit the airwaves. Everybody wanted to hear him do his thing.

He was handed the scroll.

He read it…

The Spirit of the LORD is upon me,

for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,

that the blind will see,

that the oppressed will be set free,

and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.

The energy in the room was off the chart.

This was it. This was the moment they had been waiting for.

He sat down. (In their culture, this is when you know a rabbi is about to get his game on.) All eyes were on him.

He continued…



The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!

This was Jesus’ Oprah moment. He was all like, “And YOU get the Lord’s favor! And YOU get the Lord’s favor! Now, everyone look under your seat… YAAAS! Good News for everybody!”

To say the crowd went crazy would be an understatement. They went off like Twitter after a Beyonce pregnancy announcement.

Then Jesus ruined it. He compared himself to Elijah. This in and of itself wouldn’t have been a huge deal, except he picked a very particular part of Elijah’s story…

Certainly there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the heavens were closed for three and a half years, and a severe famine devastated the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them. He was sent instead to a foreigner — a widow of Zarephath in the land of Sidon. And many in Israel had leprosy in the time of the prophet Elisha, but the only one healed was Naaman, a Syrian.

TRANSLATION: This Good News? Yeah, it’s for everybody. Like everybody, everybody. The Lord’s Favor? Foreigners get it too. They might even experience it more than you, like Naaman did.

Damn. And I don’t use that as a curse word. That is what the crowd thought. They thought it was time to damn Jesus, to get rid of him. In fact, it says they were so furious they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of a cliff. They were going to push him off. (Thankfully, he escaped.)

Why did they get so angry?

Because he said it wasn’t all about you.

It was also about them and them and them.

It was about everybody.

Like everybody, everybody.

He said it wasn’t about borders or titles or labels or whether you had the right membership card. It was about how God wanted to bless each and every one of us. You and them and them and them.

And sometimes, like in the case of Elijah, God chooses to bless the unexpected and not the expected. He chooses the poor or the captives or the blind or the oppressed.

He chooses a Syrian named Naaman.

And that is hard to accept. We want God to bless us. Not them. Or at least bless us more than them.

We like to assume we are the rightful owners of the blessing. We are the ones that live in the right place or worship at the right church or adhere to the right doctrine.

Not them. They don’t get God the way we get God.

But God says, “Yes, them.”

When he does, we have a choice… We can get mad and try to push Jesus out of our lives. Or we can push to find a place in our lives for those God is blessing.

We can work to include everybody. We can strive to make our homes and churches (and country?) a place where the Good News includes you and them and them and them.

Let’s not ruin Jesus’ Oprah moment.





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* Mine was 11 minutes. It was supposed to be 25. Awkward. Very awkward.