Monday, Week of 3 Lent

“When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away” (Luke 4:28-30).

This passage is all about rejection. Jesus gives two examples of biblical prophets who worked outside the borders of their people because they had been rejected: the prophet Elijah and the prophet Elisha (Lk 4:25-27). At this point, the crowd gets angry with Jesus and, predictably, rejects him.

The Christian message is, among others things, about rejection. Jesus’ ministry was full of instances of rejection, culminating in the ultimate rejection of him in his death. Today, and throughout its history, Christianity has been rejected. People put the message aside, repudiate it, and sometimes violently reject it. Part of what marks Christian discipleship is how we deal with that rejection.

Jesus did not give up: he continued on, passing through the mob that wanted to kill him, and preached the word in other places. He did not try to force people to believe, or over-argue his side once people had turned away. Logic, argument, and philosophy were not Jesus’ way of convincing people that he was right: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart […] for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:19, 25). Jesus simply preached the truth, and lived out a ministry of love, trusting that those who were open to it would come around to belief.

Although the crowd misunderstood his examples and became angry, Jesus’ reference to Elijah and Elisha illuminate an important aspect of God’s dealings with His people. Although we reject and forsake Him, God does not give up on us. He operates in new ways, in new places, in ways that we do not expect – but He doesn’t give up on us. Just as God eventually sends His prophets back to His people, and sends them new prophets, Jesus does not abandon hope for us or repudiate us because we have rejected him. He is always working on our behalf.

Sometimes, that work occurs at the margins, where we would not expect it. Sometimes, that work makes people really, really angry. But when all is said and done, the heart of the matter is that God does not reject us. He continually calls us forward, gently, to His side.