First United Methodist Church
February 2nd, 2025
Rev. Lauren Hall
Fill My Wounds with Healing
Focus on the Children
I am so glad to see you this morning. In today’s Bible story, Jesus had been preaching to the people throughout the land. He taught people how much God loved them. (Hold up the sheet of construction paper.) The people who heard Jesus liked him and said good things about him. (Begin to cut the line, then unfold the paper to show the children the heart shape.)
Then Jesus went back to Nazareth, his hometown, where he had grown up. He went to the church and talked to the people there about God. But in his hometown, the people didn’t like what he said. (Hold up the heart.) These were people who had known Jesus since he was a child, but it seemed that they didn’t like Jesus at all. (Rip the heart in two.) Do you feel that they treated Jesus unfairly? (Allow children to answer.)
How would you treat Jesus if he walked into our church right now? (Allow children to answer.)
(Read from your Bible.) I would like to read to you a passage of scripture that tells us how we should treat Jesus. Deuteronomy 6:5 (NIRV) says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your strength.” (Hand out the hearts. If you use candy, don’t let the children eat yet.) What does it mean to love Jesus with all your heart? (Allow children to answer.) Those are all excellent answers. When you love someone with all your heart, you love them a whole bunch – you love them more than anyone!
What do you think it means to love Jesus with all your soul? (Allow children to answer.) Again, excellent answers. To love someone with all your soul means that all of you loves Jesus. You love Jesus with your heart, and your brain, and all your feelings.
Let’s try this: I will give you one word that may describe how it makes you feel to love Jesus. When you agree with that word, hold up your heart to show that is how you feel. Let’s try it.
Does your love for Jesus make you feel “joy”? (Allow children to respond.)
Does your love for Jesus make you feel “thankful”? (Allow children to respond.)
Does your love for Jesus make you feel “hopeful”? (Allow children to respond.)
I know that it is more than one word, but does your love for Jesus make you feel “love for others”? (Allow children to respond.)
This is an easy one. Does your love for Jesus make you feel “loved”? (Allow children to respond.)
The verse from Deuteronomy says we should love Jesus with all our strength. What do you think that means? (Allow children to answer.) Loving Jesus with all our strength means that we should try to not to let anything get in the way of loving him. I wonder what kind of things might get in the way of loving Jesus in your life. (Allow children to answer.) We need to remember to put Jesus in first place in our lives. When we love him with all our strength, we do that.
As we pray, let’s hold our hearts close to our own to show that we won’t let anything come between us and the love that Jesus has for us. This week, remember our verse and try to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength in everything you do. Then others will know just how much you do love Jesus.
Prayer:
God of love, thank you for loving each of us as you love all of us. Help us to love you with all our hearts, and all our souls, and all our strength. We want to show others how much you love them through how we treat them. We love you! Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Each week of this series we will be focusing on naming the gifts we have received through Christ, instances where we have seen Christ at work in the world, and we will ask for the wisdom and strength to change so that Christ’s love is more available to all.
Gracious Lord, we begin our prayer by pondering the many gifts you have given us. Our gratitude at times falls short for the plenty you provide. We call to mind the gifts of creation, of relationships, of sustenance.
[pause]
Christ Jesus, we ponder the ways your love is still at work in the world. Our awe and wonder at the goodness of others is profound. We call to mind acts of kindness, generosity, and selflessness.
[pause]
In this next pause, Holy Spirit, we come asking you for strength. The temptation to live in fear of not having enough is so strong in us. We ask for revelation in our thinking and doing, so that we might live with purpose in our plans.
[pause]
Loving God, Christ Jesus, Holy Spirit, we are yours. We bring to you now the concerns of our day, of our communities, knowing that already you are present, already you are working to bring about comfort and healing. Today we pray for….
[names, wars, fires, floods, victims of violence, our country and our world]
Message
Do you remember a time when you really wanted to do something and somebody else got to do it? Perhaps you were bidding on a construction contract, or maybe you were running for class president. There are a lot of different situations that fall into this scenario – for me it was not being selected as the lead in the 8th grade play. Do you remember how you handled your disappointment?
Today’s scripture is about dealing with disappointment. You may not see it at first, but it is in there. I remember that I didn’t handle my disappointment well. I didn’t try to throw the girl who got the lead off a cliff, but I was angry. I refused to accept the role that they gave me – we were doing Alice in Wonderland and I was supposed to be card – and instead of being the best card I could be, I chose to be on the stage crew. Perhaps that was a premonition for my future as a Technology guru, but at the time it was really just the result of a temper tantrum – an immature reaction to the reality that someone else was better at something than I was.
In our Scripture today, Jesus sets off the crowd. Everything is going fine – he reads a scripture from Isaiah, and he declares, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,” meaning he is claiming to be the fulfillment of the prophesy, identifying himself as the Messiah who brings God’s salvation.
If Jesus has stopped there, it would have been a glorious homecoming. They would have slapped him on the back, invited him to dinner, and talked about the good old days when he was a boy and things were so much better back in the Nazareth that used to be, once upon a time. Jesus would have been a minor celebrity, and they’d all wave to him in the Walgreen’s parking lot and want to sit by him in the bleachers at the high school basketball games. He could have done well back there in the little town.
But he didn’t stop talking. He had a bigger vision than one small town in the hill country of Galilee. And we have to remember the significance of what he read and what he was proclaiming. When Jesus says that the “year of the Lord’s favor” has come to all, he is inviting them to recognize that it would not be the Lord’s favor if it weren’t open to all. Their lives are about to be turned upside down, because even though they struggled under the domination of the Roman Empire, they still figured out ways that they could exercise privilege over people who were less fortunate than they were.
Jesus has come to town, and he is proclaiming good news to the poor, release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; he plans to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
For Jesus to be the Messiah, we can assume that those who heard him expected and desired a message that emphasized how they were the downtrodden good guys and Rome was the bad guys. But once again, Jesus goes in a different direction. Abandoning the socially acceptable understanding of “Jews: Good, Romans: Evil,” Jesus instead challenges his hometown by reading a scripture that questions them about how they are treating the poor and oppressed who aren’t a part of the Jewish community.
We may wonder why Jesus’ words antagonize his hometown so much. I think he challenged their comfort zone a little too much. They hoped that he would perform the same miracles for them that he had done elsewhere. Instead he chooses this moment to set the standard for his ministry: God’s favor is open to all. He’s not going to prove himself to those who should already trust his authenticity. Healing for them will occur when they learn to love the other and see the other as one of God’s children as well.
Of course the crowd becomes angry. We become angry when Jesus challenges us to love those who are different from us. Jesus was asking them to do something extraordinary. He was asking them to make accommodations, to change ingrained habits, to think differently about who and what a neighbor really is. Their reaction was to drive him out of town; they wanted to toss him off a cliff.
But here’s where we find perhaps the most significant verse in this passage. “But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” (30) He left! He went on his way and he found a place where he could carry out his mission.
We should take note of this verse because it’s evidence that God doesn’t force us to change, to grow, or to love as Jesus loves. God doesn’t demand that we become something more, or take risks, or do something with the potential to change the world for the better.
As Christians, we are charged to carry out Christ’s mission, which is to establish God’s reign on earth. Just as we pray in the Lord’s prayer every week, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In other words, to make the world more like it was supposed to be in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and said it was good. It was good! We don’t have to be a part of making it good. But Jesus won’t hang around if we don’t. He says follow me, and he goes on his way. And what good is a church without Jesus?
Jesus’ words and actions in Nazareth were both affirming and challenging. Are we willing to accept the challenge in this message? Are we willing to ensure that we are open to God’s work, even when it doesn’t align with our expectations or comfort zones?
When you come forward for communion today, think of the places in our community and our world where we might serve Christ better by carrying out acts of kindness or creating positive relationships, and then make a commitment to share God’s love in a way that reflects Jesus’ call to action. Be willing to be the exception in our hate-filled world. Let us pray:
God of all, you sent Jesus to speak truth and offer redemption, so you send us to live boldly as your disciples. When we face resistance, grant us courage; when we encounter need, grant us compassion. Send us into the world as faithful reflections of Your love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Invitation to Discipleship
Go out into the world knowing that Jesus loves you, and share that love with each and every person you meet. Go in peace.
