Dunbar United Church of Christ - February 28, 2010

I. “Get out of town!” the Pharisees told Jesus, “Herod’s going to kill you!” This is interesting because in the Gospels, the Pharisees are Jesus’ enemies. They don’t like Jesus because he interpreted scripture differently from them. They believed a person had to earn God’s favor by doing good things, and following the law. But Jesus said, we can’t earn God’s favor no matter what we do -- God loves us without conditions. In fact, Jesus told the Pharisees, God will bring the bad people to heaven before the good people.

II. This made the Pharisees so angry that they -- not Herod -- who wanted to kill Jesus. From the first days of his ministry, enraged people. Remember when he preached his first sermon at his home town, Nazareth? He told all his friends and family and folk he grew up with that the prostitutes and thieves would be the first ones in heaven. Nice, decent folk turned into killers.

III. Why wasn’t he more tactful? In the beginning of the sermon, Jesus had everyone with him. They were amazed. Why didn’t he try more to win people over?

IV. It bothered Jesus that people, in general, weren’t honest. We can so easily see evil in others, but not in ourselves. That upset Jesus because without insight -- without acknowledging our “blindness,” our “leprosy,” our possession by demons -- demons of greed, anger, revenge, uncontrollable passion, demons of entitlement where we feel better than others -- without confessing our ills and seeking his help -- he can’t do anything. In the gospels, people came to Jesus, then he helped them.

V. If we think we’re fine, upstanding citizens, there’s nothing he can do for us. That’s what he said.

VI. So what can we do? The Psalmist gave the best advice: “Seek his face!” Every day, we can seek his face -- keep our eye on Jesus and ask, constantly, for his mercy, his help, his healing.

He will open our eyes. He will cure the leprosy of our greed, the blindness of our passions, our demonic sense of entitlement that makes us think we’re better.

And the good news is that when we seek him, he will find us -- and no one -- or nothing -- can stop him from healing us, and making us whole again.