January 30, Epiphany 4C (1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30)
If Jesus is with the other guy, how can he be with us?
A few years ago I asked my six-year-old daughter what she learned in Sunday school that day. She put down her fork, turned to me, and in a very serious tone said, “We learned that Jesus was not a Lutheran!” What a shock!
So I did what any modern parent does with this kind of stark theological realization: I posted it on Facebook. And then came the comments: “Of course not, Jesus was a Presbyterian,” typed a Presbyterian friend. “Next they will be telling her he wasn’t even a Christian,” quipped another. And my favorite, from a fellow pastor, “What incompetent pastor approved that curriculum?” That, of course, would be me.
We know that Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew; the joke is that somehow we imagine that Jesus was like us, and because he was like us, he liked us. That’s how Jesus can become, say, a light-skinned, blue-eyed Christian American who votes the way we do, or at least roots for our favorite football team. And we aren’t alone. This idea that Jesus is our guy goes all the way back to the first Christians, to the first disciples, to the people who knew Jesus before anyone did—the people of Nazareth.
