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The Glory of (Inclusive) Community

The Glory of (Inclusive) Community

An Epiphany Meditation on Luke 4:21-30

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John van de Laar
Jan 23, 2025
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SEDUCTIVE PRAISE

I must confess, I am rather sceptical when it comes to praise. It's not that I don't like to be complimented. On the contrary, I enjoy affirmation as much as anyone. It's just that I've experienced the kind of praise that seeks to recruit me to someone else's agenda a few too many times. As a Christian minister, I have often experienced enthusiastic affirmation from church members when what I’ve preached or done has fitted in with their own beliefs and preferences. But the moment I have challenged their perspective (often unintentionally) or chosen a course of action with which they disagree, I have become public enemy number one. In some of these cases, the anger, slander, and verbal attacks I have to endure have been nothing short of traumatic. But I have been fortunate. I have never received a death threat as some of my colleagues have. And so far I have avoided the online vitriol that some preachers and writers that I follow online have had to endure.

I have learned that genuine, heartfelt praise can be a healing, motivating, and life-giving gift. But authentic and honest affirmation is surprisingly rare. In my experience, it is far more often the case that those who praise most passionately are seeking, knowingly or unknowingly, to manipulate, control, and conscript others to their own narcissistic ends. But they quickly become angry and destructive when anyone disagrees with their agenda or resists their coercion. And they will often clothe their egomania with spiritual language and Bible verses.

You don’t have to look far to see this pattern play out over and over on social media, but it is not a new phenomenon. Jesus faced the same dynamic from the moment he began his ministry. What is most telling, however, is that the shift from delight to disgust is often sparked by any suggestion that we should understand, accept, and include those who believe or behave differently from ‘us’. Those who use praise to seduce usually require undivided loyalty, applause, and commitment in return—and any failure to comply carries substantial risk.

FROM HERO TO VILLAIN

Jesus’ experience in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth is the perfect example of seductive praise gone wrong. He had already been preaching in the region and the people had heard about his reputation.1 Now he returned to his hometown where, according to custom, he was invited to read the Scripture and teach the people. At first the audience responded with pride and praise. Jesus was the hometown boy who had done well. The way Luke describes it, “Everyone was raving about Jesus, so impressed were they by the gracious words flowing from his lips.” (Luke 4:22 CEB). Nazareth was mocked and denigrated by people from other towns in the region2 and so if Jesus was saying what he seemed to be saying—that he was the messiah—the potential for them to be honoured and uplifted was immense. They were both amazed—they knew Jesus and his family—and covetous of the glory Jesus would bring them.

But Jesus just couldn't leave it at that. Perhaps he was already feeling the pull of their agenda. Perhaps he recognised that if he didn't confront them right away, they would claim ownership of him and his ministry. We may think that the only temptations Jesus faced were in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13) and perhaps in Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-46), but this moment of being flooded with seductive praise must have tempted Jesus to change his mission to fit the expectations of his hometown neighbours. His time in solitude had helped him to define who he would be and what he was to do, but the heady pleasure of being so enthusiastically celebrated in his hometown must have challenged his hard-won convictions. I suspect that, in his response to the adulation, Jesus was making his purpose clear and testing the sincerity of his newly established fan club.

As David Schnasa Jacobsen points out, we need to exercise care in how we interpret this passage.3 It is easy to simplify the events that unfolded as a conflict between the inclusive Jesus and the exclusive Jews. But Jesus was a Jew, his disciples were Jews, and he received both positive and negative responses from Jewish people throughout his ministry. The outrage that was directed at Jesus was not primarily about nationality. It was about entitlement and it was about their claim on Jesus.

Jesus confronted the people of his hometown with their exclusivity, their self-righteousness, and their rigidity. Using two stories from the Scriptures about God's grace to foreigners and outcasts, he revealed the subversive nature of his call, aligned himself with the prophets and confirmed his continuity with the Scriptures these people claimed to love. In doing this, he rejected their desire to protect their privilege, erect walls to keep out those they despised, and to claim Jesus for themselves. As Ruth Anne Reese writes:

[H]ere in Jesus’ initial proclamation of good news, he makes it clear that he will not be a prophet who serves the special interests of his hometown but rather a messenger of good news for the whole world and especially the vulnerable.4

Essentially Jesus gave the synagogue audience no way out. They either had to admit their flaws and be changed, or they had to reject him completely. They chose the latter, and, though they tried to finish him off, Jesus seems to have rather easily slipped away. But the battle had been won. Their praise had failed to imprison him.

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