Luke
4:14-21
Ordinary
4
January
27, 2019
William G. Carter
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the
Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the
surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised
by everyone.
When 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, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.
He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “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, to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favor.” And 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. Then
he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing.”
For
the past two weeks, we have been getting ready to hear Jesus. Luke describes him
as the prophet-preacher. He comes from God for all people. He will be tempted
to distort his work yet stays faithful. Now here he comes, fresh from a
forty-day retreat and filled with the power of the Spirit.
That’s
now merely a footnote. Luke points regularly to the Spirit of God, the Holy
Spirit. It is the unseen force from heaven that prompts the joy of Aunt
Elizabeth and provokes Uncle Zechariah into song. The Spirit hovers over Mother
Mary to create life in her womb. The Spirit guides old man Simeon to see the
baby Jesus when he’s brought to the temple in a blue blanket. John says, “He’s
coming! He will baptize you with Spirit.” And on the day Jesus is baptized, the
Holy Spirit breaks out of the clouds above and spills all over Jesus.
Fourteen
times before Jesus ever says a word in public, the Gospel of Luke names the
presence of the Holy Spirit. So it’s no surprise in this gospel that the first
public words of Jesus are these: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
That’s
what we want from him, I believe. We want an experience of the Holy Spirit. We
want to know that God is here, that God is speaking. When the preacher opens
the mouth, we want to hear more than funny jokes, motherly advice, political
opinions, or bar room chatter. We want God to come out.
Now,
that’s not to say God can’t speak though funny jokes, motherly advice,
political opinions, or bar room chatter. According to the book of Numbers
(22:28), God once spoke out of the mouth of a donkey. I’m guessing that doesn’t
surprise you. The important thing to remember is that it is God who is
speaking. Holy wisdom can come through human words.
When
it does, that’s the Holy Spirit. It’s more than the preacher. The Message is
coming from headquarters.
That’s
what Luke is signaling here when he says, “Jesus is full of the Spirit.” That
is what he is announcing when Jesus opens the scroll of Isaiah, finds his place
in the text, and reads with a strong voice, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
Something important is happening right then and there. It’s something big. It’s
something holy. The words ring true.
And
I will be the first one to admit this is rare.
One
of my preacher friends slipped out of his well-mannered congregation one
Sunday. He decided to take the day off. So he pulled on his blue jeans and a
sweatshirt. He went over to the Big Box Church that prided itself in stealing some
of his church members. He wondered, “What’s the attraction?”
He
picked up a cup of latte in the lobby, found a well cushioned seat inside. The
rock band was warming up the crowd, singing songs that most of the people didn’t
seem to know. He waved to a couple of former Presbyterians, who suddenly seemed
nervous. The lights dimmed, the leader stood up in the spotlight, and he gave a
35-minute talk on how he gets along with his wife.
“It
was really entertaining,” our friend said, “and I can understand the attraction.”
We asked him, “Was God there?” He thought for a minute and replied, “It was really
entertaining.” He paused for another minute and said, “It was a lot more
entertaining than snoozing through one of my sermons. But no, I didn’t sense
the presence of God.”
I’m
at the point in my professional life when I believe one church isn’t any better
than any other. They may differ in their demeanor. They may rearrange the furniture.
They may try to create a mood through the lighting or the soundtrack. Some
pattern their gatherings after pep rallies and NASCAR races. Others hunker down
with silent meditation and a lot of candles. The challenge is the same.
That
monastery that I like to visit in New Mexico has seven worship services a day.
The first takes place at 4:00 in the morning. It’s populated by monks in black
robes who yawn and scratch themselves as they chant through the psalms.
Or
there’s the Sephardic synagogue that my dad and I visited on the shore of the
Sea of Galilee. As the congregation chanted the Sabbath liturgy, a guy with a
yarmulke pulled out a fly swatter and gave it a whack. The people kept
chanting. Business as usual. Are any of these congregations better or worse
than the rest of us? I think not. The challenge is the same.
For
the thirty-three years of my ministry, I have been haunted by words from the
book of First Samuel, the first verse of the third chapter: “Now the Word of
God was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” Those
are haunting words. They may still be true. Anybody have a vision recently?
What
is it that we want when we gather for worship? Friends, maybe. Some good
coffee, certainly. Some music to get us through a tough week, absolutely. But
when you scrape it all away, what we really want is to hear a Word from God.
And in Nazareth, that’s what happens.
It’s
Friday night, Sabbath night. Jesus is there. He’s already created a buzz out in
the villages. Here he is, returning to his hometown. He stood up to read the
scripture, and they handed him the scroll of Isaiah. He opened it, found his
place, and started to read:
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,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
They
know those words. They have heard those words before. There is nothing new
about those words. But this time, they are the words for them . . . because the
Spirit of the Lord is there. God is in the room.
That’s
an experience that cannot be predicted. It cannot be manufactured, as if somebody
could set the thermostat on “holy.” God cannot be coaxed, coerced, or
manipulated to show up for worship. And try as anybody might, God will not be
forced to speak. We wait on the Word of God. Without that presence, the
preacher’s temptation is to fill the air with a lot of his or her own words.
But
if God should come, if the Spirit of God were to fill the preacher or inspire
the prophet, then the ancient promises of long-ago happen again, right here.
Jesus comes into Nazareth, full of the Spirit, reads the prophet Isaiah, and
begins the sermon by saying, “Today these words are fulfilled in your hearing.”
Today. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Today.
That’s
what is going on in that old story from Nehemiah. We couldn’t give that to any
reader; we had to give it to somebody good! Don’t get distracted by all those unpronounceable
names. Here’s what is going on. The people have rebuilt the Jerusalem temple
under the leadership of Nehemiah. It’s been a long time since they have
worshiped there. It’s been a really long time since anybody had heard the
Bible. To borrow that other Old Testament phrase, “The Word of God was rare in
those days.”
Then
Nehemiah calls on Ezra the scribe to bring the Torah, to open the scroll, and
to put the ancient words back into the air. When people hear them, really hear
them, they are blessed and they begin to weep. The ancient promises are brought
forward in time and offered to them. The impact is so moving that everybody declares
the day to be holy.
This
is what the Word of God can do when it is brought alive by the Spirit of God.
Those who are poor and have nothing are now given good news. Those who are
bound in a hundred different kinds of captivity are now released and free.
Those who could not see now perceive with perfect clarity. Those who have
somebody’s foot on their necks are now on their own two feet. And the day of Jubilee,
the Bible’s long-promised day of justice and equality, is today. Not sometime
else, somewhere else, but today. Right here.
The
last couple of years, I have taken some time around the birthday of Martin
Luther King Jr. to read his “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” Eight white
clergymen told King to cool it, to move more slowly, to wait for the inevitable
slow wheels of justice to turn. Dr. King wrote back and said, “No, today is the
day.” As he put it,
For years now I have heard the word
"Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.
This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come
to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long
delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and
God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed
toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy
pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for
those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say,
"Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and
fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen
hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and
sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers
smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you
seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public
amusement park that has just been advertised on television
… when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact
that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing
what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments;
when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of
"nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to
wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over… I hope, sirs, you
can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.[1]
Do
you know what King was saying? Today is the day. Here is the good news for the
poor. This is release for the captives. Now is when the blind shall be given
their sight. Today the oppressed go free. For those with ears to hear, the
ancient promises of God are for us too, all of us.
This
is the task of the prophet preacher: to dwell in the Spirit of God so sufficiently
that the ancient promises are brought to these people right here, right now.
For this is the good news to the poor: that the poor are blessed, that the
kingdom of God belongs to them, not anybody else; that those who need God
belong to God; and that God comes in the power of Spirit and Word to free all
who hear this Word to live with dignity, purpose, justice, and compassion. Anything
less is not worthy of the Lord.
Today
is the day we welcome God into the room. Today is the day we invite the Spirit
of God to do her work. Today is the day when everybody in Nazareth hears the
Word that Jesus released into the room. The story says, “They spoke well of him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came out of his mouth.” (4:22)
A
few minutes later, they tried to kill him. And that’s the subject to which we
will turn next Sunday.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] I encourage you to read the letter
again for yourself: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
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