August 2, 2016 – Devotions based on passages from the book David and Goliath
Near and Remote Misses 

 “And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.   But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.   There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”   When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.   They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.   But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Luke 4:24-30 

“…when a bomb drop falls, it divides the affected population into three groups.  The first group is the people killed.  They are the ones for whom the experience of the bombings—obviously—the most devasting.  The next group he (MacCurdy) called the near misses: they feel the blast, they see the destruction, are horrified by the carnage, perhaps they are wounded, but they survive deeply impressed.  “Impression” means, here, a powerful reinforcement of the fear reaction in association with bombing.  Third, he said, are the remote misses.  These are the people who listen to the sirens, watch the enemy bombers overhead, and hear the thunder of the exploding bombs.  But the bomb hits down the street or the next block over.  And for them, the consequences of a bombing attack are exactly the opposite of the near-miss group.  They survived, and the second or third time it happens, the emotion associated with the attack, MacCurdy wrote, “is a feeling of excitement with a flavor of invulnerability.”  A near miss leaves you traumatized.  A remote miss makes you think you are invincible.”  (David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell, p. 131-132) 

Jesus has a few near misses in his ministry – it seemed the Pharisees and the other religious leaders were always looking for a way to get rid of Jesus.  In this occasion, it seems as if his own home town will toss him off a cliff – but he manages to stop the process and pass on by through their midst.   

We all have those near misses we can talk about in our lives.  When I was in high school, I was taking my girlfriend to the movies.  When we returned home, we were met by her worried but relieved mother who told us about a head on collision that happened just after we left for the movies.  As it turned out, I remember passing the car that was involved in the accident just a mile before the accident occurred.  That was 35 years ago yet I can still the high school classmate of mine passing us in the opposite direction just a mile from a devastating accident.  If we would have been delayed a minute, we would have been the other car.   

We may never know what it is like to survive a near miss in a bombing, or a remote miss from some other accident, but we should always live in the reality that life is fleeting, and a relationship with  G-d does not guarantee us a life free from tragedy.  But living in relationship with Jesus, knowing that Jesus is in us and we are in Jesus makes us invincible from death and the devil. 

Pastor Dave