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THE PAIN OF REJECTION

Heaven on earth . . . that’s the way things appeared in Kenya in 2002, in the Samburu National Reserve. The press reported the strangest coincidence. Game Wardens discovered a lioness and a baby antelope, or oryx, had become inseparable. They walked together, lay down together, slept together. Observers were at a loss to explain it. As David Maharaj wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “The lioness, some scientists say, is maternally deprived. Unable to have an offspring, or suffering from the loss of a cub, she has decided to adopt an animal—even one she normally would crunch for lunch.”

This Edenic story soon came to a tragic end, however. Fifteen days later, as the baby slept in the warmth of the African sun, a male lion stalked, attacked, snatched the baby in its jaws, ran away, and devoured it. One can only guess at animal feelings, but I assume the lioness experienced some form of “animal grief.” What would she do?
A few days later the press reported from Nairobi that, wonder of wonders, the lioness had adopted a second baby antelope, and was observed by Game Wardens looking as protective and proud as she had with the first one. More hypotheses emerged to explain this phenomenon. Some cynical reporters suggested that a lack of tourists, post 9/11, had prompted wardens to pull a stunt to attract visitors to the Reserve and boost their failing budget.

Ditte Lisbjerg, a specialist in animal behavior from UNESCO, commented, “It is highly unlikely that this could happen a second time. I would have to see that to believe it. If someone didn’t give her a second oryx, then I’d say this is a lioness with a serious psychological disorder!”

But the idea of warden manipulation melted when these same wardens, concerned for the welfare of the starving oryx, rescued it, while the lioness was off hunting. They plan to raise it, then release it back into the wild when it’s old enough to care for itself.

But then the Daily Nation, a Kenyan newspaper, reported the wardens were watching what may be the beginning of a third miracle. They observed the same lioness stalking an oryx herd of some 200 animals, it seemed she was looking for another baby to adopt!

In this majority-Christian nation many began quoting the verse from Isaiah,

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, and calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6, NIV).

While conditions on earth suggest it’s a little early for the fulfillment of this grand prophecy, it’s nice to be reminded that one day soon it will, when Paradise Lost is restored!

But I want to use the story to introduce the theme of today’s meditation: The pain of rejection.

Life is a long series of experiences in which we run the gauntlet of rejection. It can begin in kindergarten and continue through college. In romance we run the risk of rejection, beginning with our first love, and every other love from then on. In marriage, partners reject one another, often with exceptional cruelty. There’s rejection in the workplace. Even at church there are cliques and social groups of which we strive to become a part, and may find ourselves denied— rejected.

In family life we live with the realities of rejection. So many children experience intense abandonment at the hands of parents ill-equipped to raise them. And when they grow up and have children, there can be arguments about when, or if, the grandparents can see the grandchildren: payback time! And children can demonstrate in raising their own children, a rejection of the methods of their own upbringing.

But perhaps as painful and sensitive as anything can be, is when children reject their parents’ lifestyles and values, sometimes even their faith. This can bring a sense of despair. We wonder what we did wrong. There’s a cruel sense of rejection at the center of our lives.

Even in old age we can face rejection, by being placed in a distant nursing home and experiencing awful loneliness, separated from family most of the time.

Rejection is the stuff of life, or so it often seems. But every victim of rejection needs to hear that Jesus understands, because He too experienced rejection, at its worst, and He wants to bear that burden with us, and for us.

I’m going to share the story of Luke 4 with you today. Here we read about a time when Jesus returned to His home town, to his mother and foster father, to his step-brothers and -sisters, and His home-town synagogue.

This homecoming story divides itself naturally into three chapters: Happiness in Homecoming, Humiliation in Homecoming, and finally, Heartbreak in Homecoming. First the happiness.

Jesus had left home at about age 30, to begin his public ministry, to do what He’d be born to do: to show the love and acceptance of the Father. For too long, God had been seen as remote and angry. These terrible distortions had to be corrected. So that’s what Jesus went out to do. And after calling his disciples and performing some miracles of healing, He returned home for a brief break to address the misunderstanding where he knew it best (or should I say worst): in Nazareth, the place about which every one had something bad to say. What a place to be grow up! But by so doing, Jesus knows how to understand and empathize with millions on earth who are forced to grow up in most unfavorable circumstances.

I just know that Mary was all aflutter having Jesus home again! How she missed Him, her perfect son. Many mothers have claimed to have perfect sons, and still so, but Mary knew it to be a simple truth. She polished the house and prepared the food she knew her “only beloved son” liked to eat. And she tried to arrange everything so there wouldn’t be any outbreak of jealousy between Jesus and His older siblings living in their own homes around the parental cottage—Joseph’s children from an earlier marriage. She knew she could count on James of course. She could always count on steady, spiritual James. But there may have been a couple of the children, now grown and married with children, that were a little tense about Jesus coming home again. “Why is he coming back?” I imagine them asking their father. “He’s only just left! We’re just getting back to normal again after all the fuss, all the rumors that cast the shadow of illegitimacy on our house for three decades.”

But He came anyway. And on a Sabbath morning, the whole family got ready to go to synagogue. Joseph’s family must have filled several rows of seats. And as the service got underway, Jesus stood, walked to the front, someone reached into the ark and took out a scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus began unrolling it, foot after foot, from right to left, until he came to these words and read:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18, 19, NIV).

Then Jesus sat down. The congregation was silent; amazed. They stared at Jesus wondering what would happen next. Then He spoke again,
“Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

I guess it took a moment or two for that thought to sink in. The home crowd knew this man so well. He’d been coming to this synagogue for 30 years. And some of them had grown to be proud of Him, to respect Him. And for them, the more so, hearing the stories that had recently filtered back. And at that Sabbath service, as Luke put it,

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips (Luke 4:22, NIV).

The way He read and spoke, He stood head and shoulders above their regular rabbis. Which led them to say (playfully, I suspect), “Is this really Joseph’s son, the carpenter’s son?”

Now we turn the page and open the second chapter of the story: Humiliation in Homecoming.

Acting like the Master Teacher He was, Jesus began to expound on the meaning of the Scripture He’d just read from Isaiah. In typical Hebrew fashion the prophet Isaiah wrote two couplets. The first line of the first couplet,
he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor
is amplified in the first line of the second couplet
and recovery of sight for the blind,
And the second line of the first couplet,
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners,
is amplified in the second line of the second couplet:
to release the oppressed.
and then there’s this concluding fifth line,
All this comes in the year of the Lord’s favor.
But Jesus added an additional line of commentary, telling them that this was no longer a prophecy, written by Isaiah, it had just been fulfilled in their hearing!

In those words Jesus proclaimed to the home crowd that He was the promised Messiah, He’d come to be their burden bearer, to help people physically, socially, mentally, and spiritual burdened, and to bear their burdens with them. And praise God, Jesus is still doing the same today. He is the lion of the Tribe of Judah, who will care for you, protect you, provide for you. He still speaks to each heart and says, Come to me if you are heavy burdened and I will give you rest. And we should take Him at His word!

And that’s where must leave the story for today. Tomorrow we explore the rest of the story of the painful rejection Jesus experienced at his home coming, and what that means to each one of us.