If you’re a parent, I bet you’ve had this “conversation”
with your four-year-old: “Kaylee, you're not in charge, Mommy is in charge. You don’t get to tell Mommy what to do, Mommy
tells you what to do.”
The actual conversation takes a lot longer, because your
toddler won’t quite get it the first time you tell her. Or the fifth time,
either.
Kids, right? When they’re little, they think everything is
about them. Good thing that all changes when we get older, huh? (Insert sarcasm
here.)
This desire to be at the center of the universe and to have
Mommy, Daddy, the dog, all my friends, everyone at school, and indeed all
creation orbiting around me doesn’t really go away. One of life’s hardest lessons is accepting the truth that: we
aren’t really in control, we really aren’t more “special” than everyone else in
the world, and we don’t get to decide
what’s what.
Not learning it turns out to be why people
get mad and stay mad at God.
That’s one of the main reasons Jesus’ hometown congregation
turned His first sermon into a lynch mob. I’ve referred to the story in Luke 4
in the last couple posts. After teaching from Isaiah 61, our Lord seemed
determined to antagonize His audience. He made sure they knew He was calling
them sinners, the kind that need a Savior. Then He brought up how God loves
people whom they hated.
But the final straw was when He said this:
But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” Luke 4:25-27
Jesus’ audience believed God was supposed to operate by
their rules. They wanted to be in charge, and salvation was a matter of their choice. But Jesus’ point was, God chose. Despite any number of
Jewish widows, He chose a pagan. Even though there were many lepers in
Israel, the Lord chose to heal and save a leprous Syrian. Maybe it doesn’t seem fair to us, but the Lord is in charge.
All too often in our world, leaders tell us what we want to
hear. They take polls, do focus groups, and figure out the best way to “lead
from behind.” Isn't it great that we have a Savior who tells the truth, even
when the truth is uncomfortable?
And the truth is, God is sovereign and we're not.
