Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah |
Gospel
Reading: Luke 4:14-30
14Then Jesus, filled with the
power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through
all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues
and was praised by everyone.
16When he came to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as
was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it
was written: 18"The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to
the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the
year of the Lord's favor."
20And he rolled up the scroll,
gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue
were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, "Today this
scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that
came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23He said to them, ‘Doubtless you
will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do
here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at
Capernaum.” ’ 24And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the
prophet’s home town. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time
of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and
there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them
except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet
Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue
were filled with rage. 29They 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. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Sermon:
“Fulfilled In Our Hearing”
Being a
preacher in your hometown is a tricky business.
I once preached in my hometown what I thought was a deep and
thought-provoking sermon. One sweet
woman, who might have been my Grandmother, said as she hugged me afterwards,
“You looked like an angel up there! (I was wearing a white robe.) I didn’t really listen to what you said, I
just was remembering you as a little girl.”
You have to love her honesty.
Jesus
had it much worse when preaching in his hometown. They tried to run him off a cliff, after
all! The poem by Ann Weems best captures
the criticism he received that Sabbath day in Galilee.
We were
pleased, Jesus.
You read
Isaiah’s poem quite well.
We were
impressed;
in fact,
we marveled.
We so
enjoy hearing familiar passages
concerning
our salvation.
We were
pleased, Jesus until you told your stories…
as
though God would ignore the true believers
and pay
attention to those who don’t deserve it.
It was
then we understood
that the
poor and captive
and
oppressed
of whom
you spoke
were
those who had no money, no freedom, no
power.
We are
not pleased, Jesus,
for we
have worked long and hard at righteousness
and
expect to have exclusive rights
when it
comes to salvation.
The
Expected One is not the one we expected.
No one
expects the son of Mary and Joe the carpenter to be the Messiah. You see that’s the thing about this
incarnation: Jesus looks, and is, every bit as ordinary as he is divine. God’s son, sure. But everyone in town knows Mary and Joe –
that parentage is much easier to swallow.
Jesus
doesn’t let the fear of being underestimated stop him, though. He walks into that synagogue like usual, but
this time he doesn’t sit in the family pew with Mom and Dad. This time he stands up to speak. He is handed a scroll.
We could
just let that seemingly insignificant detail pass us by, but in that tiny
sentence we see that I think is the key to this whole story. You see, later in this text we’re told that
Jesus, after reading, hands the scroll back to the attendant. In the Greek, that word means servant, or the
more demeaning, “underling.” We see
nothing to indicate that Jesus selected the scroll of Isaiah to read; the
servant did that. Maybe, though it
looked like he was just doing what he always did, giving words to those
important enough to utter them, this servant was curious.
Perhaps
he wondered if Jesus was the one to bring that good news to the poor Isaiah
promised so long ago. Perhaps he
wondered if those were just words for the regular church-goers and the powerful,
or whether Jesus meant them for him, too.
Out of
all the passages Jesus could have chosen in the tome of Isaiah, he chose the
one that would speak most to the invisible one who handed him the scroll. It begins, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Jesus wasted no time in declaring his mission
that was meant for the overlooked servants, the underlings of this world: the
poor, prisoner, oppressed and captive.
While
the religious regulars heard familiar words and were amused, the servant heard
mighty words of hope from this hometown prophet. Then Jesus gave him back the scroll that
contained those powerful words and said, “Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.” “Your”
includes everyone: the curious servant, the families sitting together in
worship, the person sitting alone wondering if anyone will make them feel
welcome, the worker sweeping in the back of the temple. The scripture is fulfilled when they all hear
it.
But
that’s not how we usually remember this story, is it? I know I’ve typically thought that Jesus
saying the prophetic words of Isaiah and identifying himself as the promised
Messiah fulfilled those words. Once he
made clear his identity as God’s son, come to redeem the world, all was
complete. But he doesn’t say that those
ancient words of scripture are fulfilled in his speaking. He says they are fulfilled in your hearing.
Unless
those words fall on ears eager to embrace a mission that overturns the
structures of powerful and powerless, of overlords and underlings, they are
just words. They are only made real when
they are truly heard. And they are only
truly heard when they are put into transformative, sacrificial action.
Maybe
this is why Jesus’ hometown ultimately rejected his words of change and
challenge in the next pages of our story.
I do not think they were rejecting the possibility that he could really
be the Messiah; I think they were rejecting the idea that they had anything to
do with it. That they had a role in
fulfilling those nice, familiar words of Isaiah with demanding action that was
risky and entirely unfamiliar. And so,
they easily dismissed him as Mary and Joe’s son, and thus missed the
life-changing opportunity to be a part of the Word-Made-Flesh.
Jesus
speaks those same words to us today, calling us to that same mission. The same Spirit who was on Jesus, giving him
the courage to preach to servant and powerful alike the good news that would
turn the world upside down, is on us.
And in us. That Spirit stirs us
to take this Word and give it flesh: to become the hands and feet, the eyes and
ears, the body of Christ in a world that is desperate for good news.
It is a
task both risky and unfamiliar: it will lead us to see our greed in the faces
of those who never have enough, to build bridges where society is so intent on
dividing us by economic status, political party, race, age, gender or other
labels. It will lead our church family
beyond the comfort of this space into the challenging places where Christ is
waiting for us to meet with him.
For some
of us, this might look like joining the Mission and Outreach Committee and
helping us better care for the those whom this world so often overlooks. For others, this will look like helping with
Member Care and helping us release those who are captive to loneliness or
illness, who need not the perfect words, but an imperfect person sitting beside
them. Perhaps the Spirit is leading you
to add energy and joy to the Fellowship that binds us together, or depth and
curiosity to our Christian Education program, or creativity and freshness to
our Worship life.
The
Spirit is upon each of us, leading each of us to serve in different ways. We have two options: we can, like the weekly
worshipers in Nazareth, reject Jesus’ demand and place ourselves at the center
of our faith, staying exactly the same as ever.
Or, like the unnamed servant grasping for good news in words ancient and
new, we can follow Jesus together wherever he leads,
leaving
our expectations and agendas behind, fulfilling his words of hope in our
hearing and our acting, until all know that this good news is meant for
them. Amen.