Third Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 4:14-21

By the time the events in this morning’s gospel take place, Jesus has been baptized in the river Jordan by John, and although we don’t hear the story until Lent, he has spent forty days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil.

The text says that a report about Jesus had spread and we can guess that it was favorable because he was welcomed into the synagogues to teach and he was praised.

In this text, Luke presents Jesus as a Torah-abiding Jew whose custom was to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and gives us the first recorded sermon we have from Jesus. He is in the synagogue where as a boy he would have heard the rabbis teach, and where he would have learned the word of God for himself.

When children in my congregation prepare for their first Holy Communion, one of the things we do together is to walk up into the chancel, a space that is set apart from the rest of our sanctuary and appears to hold mystery for them. I invite them to climb the steps into the pulpit and walk behind the altar table, to help them see that while there is mystery there, it is in the unexplainable and unmerited gift of grace that we receive from God and not in the very human beings who they see in those spaces during worship.

I can imagine that, even though Jesus had taught other places, when he entered into that place, the same place where his own faith had been formed and nurtured, he would have felt some of that same awe as he stood up to read.

Scholars tell us that the order of the service in the synagogue likely would have begun with a reading of the Shema and prayers, and then a reading from the Torah – the first five books of our Old Testament – and then this reading, from the Prophets, and then there would be a time of discussion and teaching before the service concluded. Jesus would have been handed the scroll of Isiah and then had freedom to choose what he read.

Like any preacher, he probably wondered whether people needed to hear words of hope like we heard during Advent when the prophet promised that a little child will lead God’s exiled people in Isaiah 11. Or whether they needed words of comfort like those in Isaiah 40 when the prophet offered consolation to the people of Judah.

When Jesus opens his mouth to read, he chooses these verses from chapters 58 and 61. They are both words of challenge and words of promise.

Proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor, Jesus invokes the idea from Leviticus 25 of a restorative practice of Jubilee that recognized the ways that, over time, the world gets out of order and corruption outweighs justice. While we don’t know the extent to which jubilee was practiced, the idea was that every fifty years, families would be reunited, property would be returned to its original owners and slaves and their children would be freed. It was a divine image of reconciliation for God’s people.

When Jesus finishes reading, he sits down to teach, and says, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today!

Just as the angel said to the shepherds tending their flocks,
“Today, your savior is born.”[i];
just as Jesus tells the tax collector Zacchaeus when he visits him,
“Today, salvation has come to your household.”[ii];
and just as he tells the criminal being crucified beside him,
“Today you will be with me in paradise.”[iii]

Today God is here. God’s promises aren’t for some vague and distant future. God is here with us now in our lifetimes and God’s kingdom here on earth is realized in our hearing.

That’s why we can hear Jesus’ words as words of promise, but, of course, they are also words of challenge, because we have acknowledge that we live in a world where there are captives to release; there are ways that we are blind and need to have our eyes opened, and there are oppressed people yearning for freedom.

Paul’s words to the church in Corinth echo the ones Jesus spoke. Paul writes in his letter, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member rejoices, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”[iv]

Paul’s letters are always in response to something that he knows is happening in the local church, and in this letter he admonishes the church that we rise and fall together. There cannot be an “us” and a “them” in the body of Christ. So, when Jesus speaks of the captive, the blind and the oppressed, we must not hear that as though he’s speaking about people who aren’t in our lives.

Truly I tell you, we don’t have to look very far to find people who are suffering in the ways that Jesus names:

There are full-time minimum wage workers who cannot afford basic shelter, food and clothing because the minimum wage is not a living wage.

There is the blindness we can suffer when our experiences and education shape our worldview one way, and we cannot see the truth of another person’s perspective. 

And, there is in every one of us, the oppression and brokenness of sin that turns us in on ourselves and away from God.

When see how we are broken, we join with the psalmist, crying out to God, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?[v]

And it is in that moment that God’s words of promise returns to us in Jesus’ proclamation: You do not have to wait any longer. Today I am here.

The way verse 21 is written in Greek, another way to hear it is, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled and is continuing to be fulfilled in your hearing.”

In this sermon Jesus teaches us that, having received God’s grace, we are set free to practice our faith in our words and actions, to participate in God’s kingdom here and now.

The fulfillment of God’s favor or grace on the world can be seen all around us if we will open our eyes and our hearts. It is seen in that one person who provides transportation to someone who cannot drive themselves any longer or when you call the person who usually sits in the pew in front of you but you haven’t seen recently; it is seen in the volunteers who make children’s church and vacation bible school possible, helping shape the faith of our children; it is seen when we reach out into our community and recognize and respond to the needs of those around us; and it is seen in the work by our denominations.

But we must not limit or restrict the fulfillment of God’s grace in the world to the expressions of the church that we have in the Methodist Church or the Lutheran Church, because the Body of Christ is not whole until we come together with all of our Christian brothers and sisters. The fulfillment of God’s grace is seen in our joint witness and commitment – the kind of unity that our congregations are lifting up in this morning’s pulpit exchange – a partnership in the world, for the sake of the world.

Let us pray…

Liberating God,
We give you thanks for your Son Jesus and the gift of salvation he gives us here and now.
Release us from captivity, restore our sight and set us free from the oppression of sin;
By your Holy Spirit, make us witnesses to your love and mercy, celebrating the uniqueness of gifts you give to each of us.
We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior,
Amen.

[i] Luke 2:11
[ii] Luke 19:9
[iii] Luke 23:43
[iv] 1 Corinthians 12:26-27
[v] Psalm 13:1