So, here we are: Luke’s
version of Jesus’ initial voyage into the waters of ministry. Actually, this
week is the first half
of that story, next week we’ll read the second, but here at the outset it’s
good to remember that beginnings are important
in a piece of literature. What an author—in this case, Luke—chooses to open
with tells us a lot about the concerns of that author. Take Mark, for instance:
the first episode he
describes—after the baptism, wilderness and calling of disciples—is an act of
healing. On the other hand, the first instance of ministry Matthew describes—again
after baptism, wilderness and disciple-calling— is the Sermon on the Mount:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
By contrast, Luke
defers his telling
of disciple-calling and chooses to begin with this episode of Jesus in his
home-town synagogue. He’d been led into the wilderness and tested by that wily
old Devil, and emerged unscathed, “filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.”
And it’s important to remember the sequence: the Spirit had descended upon
Jesus at his baptism, led him into the wilderness—Mark says drove him in, as if he’d had
no choice—and now he’s filled with the power of that same Spirit. And what did
that Spirit enable—compel him, maybe?—to do? Teach. He began to teach in
synagogues all around Galilee, and was a huge success right off the bat. Word
got out and, his fame preceded him all around, into the surrounding
country-side. People were just waiting
to hear from him, lining the tracks into dusty little sheep-smelling towns and
packing out the synagogues where he preached. He was a rock star! Or as Luke
more prosaically put it, he “was praised by everyone.”
And now he comes to
Nazareth, where, Luke reminds us, he was brought up. And it’s just as crazy—on
his way into town,
at least. It was like one of those carefully-staged American Idol episodes . . . you know, where
they bring the contestants back to their home towns? There’s this big ol’
parade into town, Jesus riding in an open limo like a homecoming queen, smiling
and waving to the crowds . . . there’s Joseph with his little brother James on
his shoulders and Mary, with her secret smile, and look! Over there’s Barnabas, his best
friend, with his high school sweet-heart Hannah, who is displaying a prominent
baby bump. Jesus is a home-town boy made good, and they’re all out to meet him,
whooping and hollering, trailing him all the way to the synagogue, where they
pack the place out, discomfiting the elderly rabbi, who twitters and fusses
around, and finally—with great ceremony—hands Jesus the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah.
Now. Isaiah is a big
book, and he could have read any part of it, like “Comfort, comfort O my
people” which would
have been a comfort in those dark days of Roman occupation, or “Truly, O people
in Zion . . . you shall weep no more.” But instead, he opens the scroll to the
part that begins “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” and so, stressing that
Spirit thing again, we’re going to hear what it’s all about. And what it’s about amounts to his mission statement, what he’s
come to do. But it
isn’t just any coming, he didn’t just decide to show up one day; he has been anointed—by God’s Spirit, no
less—to do it. And anointed is a freighted verb, the Greek for it is chriso, which of course is
the root word for “Christ.” And what is the Hebrew
for Christ? Messach, from whence we get the word “Messiah.”
So Jesus has been
Christ-ed or Messiah-ed by God’s Spirit to do some stuff, to perform some
deeds, and what he doesn’t say is as interesting to me what he does. He doesn’t say he’s
come to boot the Romans out and bring back the glorious reign of a Davidic
king, which were the expectations swirling around about the word “anointed” at
the time. But neither is it to save us from sin and prevent us from going to
Hell, as many Christians assume. What this statement is about is what we today
would call social justice:
he’s been anointed, messiah-ed,
even, to bring good news to the poor. To proclaim release to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind; to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim
the year of the Lord’s favor.
So. A lot of folks
concentrate on the five things
in that list— the good
news for the poor . . . what could that news be but not-being poor? The release of the captives . .
. probably spoils or prisoners of war, not having a particularly good time.
Giving sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed, lot of both of those
going around in the day; and in short, the Day of the Lord’s Favor. All are
wonderful things, and we should view them not as a definitive list but a representative one. We
should view them in the same light as those more famous Old Testament passages:
a time when the lion shall lay down with the lamb, spears shall be turned into
pruning hooks, and we shall practice war no more. More specifically, “the day
of the Lord’s favor” is reminiscent of the Jubilee Year, that legendary
commandment of God wherein every fifty years, all debts are forgiven, all
property is returned to its original owners, and everyone is set free.
But here’s the thing:
the Jubilee Year, as far as we know, was never actually implemented, and so is
what Jesus is promises a final coming of that time? Is he saying “this thing is
finally coming, this long-awaited promise of re-ordering, redistribution of the
gains—even lawful ones—this day that has been prevented human greed?” What we
have here is a first cut at what Jesus’ ministry is all about, and it’s clear
that for Luke, at least, it’s all about proclaiming the dawn of the Great
Jubilee, a new era of liberation, restoration, and return. Because of that,
this good news comes first of all not to the rich but to the poor, to the
disadvantaged and downtrodden. In this “inaugural address” of his ministry,
Jesus is crystal clear that the Gospel is above all about God “lifting up the
lowly”—words that should sound just a little
familiar . . . they were sung by his mother when she visited her cousin
Elizabeth. Remember? “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she sang, ‘and my sprit
rejoices in God my Savior, who has . . . brought down the powerful from their
thrones, and lifted up the lowly; who has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”
And did he learn this
almost radical
concern for the lowly, the marginalized and outsiders at his mother’s knee?
It’s possible . . . certainly he came by it honestly. His father Joseph was by
no means rich—in those days, there was no middle class, just rich and poor, and
carpenters were clearly among the latter. And though this theme is present in
the other gospels, it’s given especial prominence in the writing of Luke, who
describes the apostles continuing this work of proclamation of the Jubilee—in
thought and deed—all the way through the second volume of his writing, which
today we call the Acts of the Apostles.
But the Jubilee ideal
isn’t only for the benefit of the marginalized—it contributes to the health and
wellbeing of society as a whole. Everyone
benefits when liberty and vision extend across the neighborhood—that’s what
“Jubilee” was all about. We’ve heard a lot about supply-side economics, where
supposedly if you take care of the upper class it’ll somehow “trickle down” to
the poor and marginalized. Jesus is having none of that: what he is preaching
is pure-D “trickle up” economics, and as we know, he follows it up by practicing what he
preaches. He knows that a healthy society takes cares of its most vulnerable
members first, and that’s
what makes for a solid, moral foundation.
Well. He rolls up the
scroll, hands it back to the rabbi, and sits down. Unlike these days, when
teachers—and preachers—generally stand, his sitting was the signal that the
teaching—or preaching—was about to begin. And as kind of an aside, this is the
model for our own, Reformed preaching, minus the sitting of course. Like Jesus,
first we read from the scripture, then we expound on it, drawing what lessons
we can.
Anyway. All eyes are
riveted upon Jesus, there is a drop-dead silence, which for a bunch of
Israelites is amazing, even in synagogue. And he looks intently at each of them
in turn, and all swear
he is looking straight into their souls, and he begins his teaching with “Today
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And this idea of scripture
being “fulfilled” in and through contemporary events was a powerful, widespread
notion in Jesus’ day. It wasn’t just that ancient scriptures were understood to
foreshadow the future, but that the meaning of present events was illuminated by how they
embodied key events in scripture. Thus, the present and the past elucidated each other—God
typically works through signature, even poetic
patterns. Those motifs will resonate in current events, and current events will
“fulfill” or “fill out” ancient motifs. The prophets of old - such as Isaiah,
who we hear from in this week’s passage - thought and spoke and acted in terms
of these signature forms, and likewise, so did Jesus.
More importantly, in
this situation, so do his home-town friends and relatives, his homies. They
stare at him in awe, gob-smacked by what he was telling them. And if we read
just a verse beyond our passage we see that at first, they were appreciative:
“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his
mouth,” Luke tells him. That this is doomed to change is the subject of next
weeks lection, but for now, I just want to leave you with a thought about our
own place in all this. If it’s Jesus’ mission to proclaim good news to the
poor, release of the captives, and etc.,
then it is ours as well. Further, as Saint Francis supposedly said, and Jesus
embodied, we’re to do it in words, if necessary.
And you know what? We
do a pretty good job of that around here, I have to say, especially for a
congregation our size. Our mission programs are varied and important to our
community. Soul, Winton House, Centro de Vida. The music school, Greenhills
Strings and the Jean Wiggins Choral Scholars. Our activities—our coffee houses
and recitals, our high-quality music program—help bring culture and hope to the
Greenhills community. This congregation was historically and continues to be
vital to the health of Greenhills and its surrounds.
If Jesus was a
fulfillment of the Jubilee spirit of the Lord, we—by way of being his body on
earth—are part of that. And to that I can gratefully say “Thanks be to God.”
Amen.
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