The word “scroll” has a totally different connotation from what it had in Jesus’ day. Now, in our computer savvy, technological time, even the most computer-illiterate amongst us know it as a verb, as in “to scroll” through a document on a computational device, whether hand-held or desk-bound. We say “scroll down to the bottom of that document and you’ll find the Reference section of that paper,” or the “send” button—another thing they didn’t have in Jesus’ time was the button, whether or not we’re talking about a shiny round fastener or a bunch of pixels linked to another web page, they didn’t have them. Sandals were about the same, though, as well as ceremonial dress . . . although we generally wear them in more casual situations, first century Palestinians wouldn’t have any trouble recognizing what many of us wear around the house as a robe.
But I digress. In first century Palestine. the word scroll was most definitely a noun,as in a long, thin sheet of animal hide that was written upon and rolled up, tube-like, for storage. And that’s what Jesus unrolls there in the synagogue, he unrolls a scroll upon which is written the book of Isaiah. Luke is very careful to tell us that he unrolls the scroll, and he endsthe story the same way, by Jesus rolling upthe scroll and sitting down. And in this way, our story is wrapped symbolically in a scroll, wrapped in Scripture—for us, it’s like a picture within picture, scripture within scripture—and it’s as if Luke wants to emphasize that what Jesus says about himself in this crucial passage is scriptural . . . the scroll is opened, Jesus reads the words from Isaiah, then the scroll is closed. And we get it, don’t we? We don’t reallyhave to hear Jesus’ words that the scripture had been fulfilled in their hearing. The scripture is opened, Jesus describes who he is—he’s been anointed, he says—and then the scripture is closed. What is between the unrolling and the rolling, between the opening and closing, is scripture personified.
Jesus is the one whose anointing the prophet foretold, and it wasn’t just any foretelling, let me tell you . . . the passages in Isaiah from whence he quotes—he combines two—were associated with the Messiah, the very name of whom, in Hebrew, means anointed. And so, Jesus is claiming something really huge here, he’s identifying himself with this messianic text, and he’s doing it right in the synagogue, the emerging Jewish “church” of the day.
And Luke places this revealing episode in a very strategic spot in his book. Not only is it the first speech of Jesus’ ministry, thus setting the tone for it all, but Luke has placed it right after the wilderness episode which, through the magic of the Lectionary, we will read in just a few short weeks. In the meantime, recall that the devil tests him with three temptations. The first one is to turn the stones into bread so he could satisfy his ravening hunger. The second is to accept the Lordship of all the kingdoms of the earth. And the third is to throw himself off the temple and then call on his power as the Son of God to save him.
You can see that overall, the devil tempts Jesus to use his own power, his own position as the Son of God, for his own ends, to use those powers for himself. And it’s important because in his mission statement there is none of that to be had. Luke, by his placement of the two passages back to back, is saying “Look! This is what he was tempted to do, and this is what he actually will do. He’ll bring good news to the poor, heal the sick and free the oppressed.
And it’s worthwhile to take a look at what he hasn’tbeen anointed to do. He hasn’t been anointed to be a personal Lord and Savior. Nor has he been anointed to say who can sleep with whom, or who can or cannot be ordained. He hasn’t even been anointed to make sure we all get to heaven. He says—here in Luke, anyway—that he’s been anointed to serve.
Now, this must have been something of a shock to the folks the in the synagogue that day, at least after they had a chance to think about it and all . . . cause what the devil had temptedhim to do was a lot closer to what they all thought the messiah was coming to do. They were surethe Messiah was going to come and run off the Romans and maybe take care of those pesky Herods while he’s at it, and that he was going to use his God-given, anointed-one powers to do so. But no: here Jesus was, saying he’d come to bring good news to the poor—well, that was all right, the poor needed a bit of good news, as long as it was in the form of food and clothing—but release to the captives? Well, maybe if they’re political prisoners, not the ones caught stealing,they deserve what they get, taking our hard-earned stuff. . . and what about healing blind guys? Doesn’t that seem a little . . . lightweightfor the Roman-kicker-outer to worry about? And though he ends on a high note—nobody likes seeing anybody oppressed, after all—they can’t help wondering where all the other stuff was, the stuff about bringing justice to the land and restoring David’s house.
For example, he’d left out some of the beststuff from the two passages he’d quoted. Isaiah says the spirit anointed him to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor andthe day of vengeance of our God.” He’d left out the bit about vengeance, about getting revenge on behalf of God for all the heartache and injustice the Romans and their collaborators had wrought. Where was the justice in that? Where was the tit-for-tat, where was the getting back of our—oops I mean God’s—own? It’s like sin without the consequences, heaven without the hell, forgiveness without the judgment . . .
Jesus—very deliberately—leaves out the vengeance of God, the very part that seems so satisfying to so many people. If that weren’t so, why would it—vengeance, that is—be such a popular spectator sport in our society? Revenge abounds in popular entertainment . . . Mel Gibson—when he isn’t butchering Shakespeare or the story of Christ—made a career out of it, before he made one too many insensitive remarks, that is . . . there’s an entire TV show called revenge, and in a book I’m reading, a 16thcentury hangman is poisoned and buried alive, and swearsto wreak vengeance upon those who did it to him. And though I’m only about a third of the way through the book, I’m sure that he is going to do it, and further,and to my dismay, I am looking forwardto it. I will cheer when the bad guys get it, just like I have cheered at countless westerns and spy thrillers and mysteries when the folks who have bedeviled our heroes are done in, preferably in some creative way.
The bad-guys-getting-it narrative crops up in our arts and literature over and over . . . sociologist and theologian Walter Wink has dubbed it the myth of redemptive violence,and he and others have shown that examples of it go back as far as recorded history, all the way back to Babylonian creation stories. In this narrative, violence is somehow redemptive. In the hangman novel, the hangman kills the bad guys and peace descends upon his little Bavarian village. In westerns, the bad guys are gunned down and prosperity returns to Deadwood. The hero hates to do it—he’s a man of peace—but it has to be done, and when it’s over, he rides off into the sunset and the town is saved.
And of course, that’s what the people in the synagogue that day are thinking a Messiah is going to do . . . it will be the myth of redemptive violence come alive. The Messiah, God’s anointed one, will come and, though he hates to do it, he’s a man of peace—heck, his parent is a Godof peace—it has to be done, he’ll regret it until he dies, but he has to lead a conquering army, he has to kill a lot of Roman soldiers in order to save the day.
But instead of telling them what he wants to hear, Jesus he ceremonially unrolls the scroll—thus beginningthe instance of scripture—and reads the familiar, comforting words of the Prophet. And they’re following along in their minds, like we do when we hear a beloved song, and they anticipate what is coming next, and when he gets to the last part, he reads “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” and then ceremoniously rolls the scroll back up, and it jars them awake: he stops just before he gets to “the day of vengeance of our God.” It seems he will deliver the captives, but notslaughter the captors . . . heal the blind, but not touchthose who blinded them . . . free the oppressed, but not massacre the oppressors, or even put ‘em in jail. No matter what Tim LaHaye might say, Jesus comes to short-circuit the myth of redemptive violence, not perpetuate it. He comes to show usa different way
And in the beginning, that was what Christianity was called. . . The Way. And calling it that emphasizes what we often forget in our modern version of Christianity, which tends to stress the where-will-we-go-when-we-die part. It emphasizes that Christianity was meant to be a way of life,one that is to be led all through the week, not just on Sunday morning. And though it’s not completely new with Jesus, though the prophets said it years before, in his mission statement, he shows us how to live it, he shows us what to do. We are to bring good news to the poor, release the captives, heal the sick, and proclaim the day of the Lord. And oh yes: leave the judging up to God. Amen.
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