Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 4:14-21

January 24, 2010

"Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him."

As much as the story we just heard in Luke’s gospel is a story about Jesus, it is also a story about the people for whom he became the Messiah. In a way it is really more their story than his. In this story connecting Jesus with the promise envisioned by Isaiah, the gospel writer tells us something of the situation of the people who encountered Jesus and who gathered in the wake of his ministry. Luke wants us to understand that the people whose lives were changed by Jesus were people who had been waiting--hoping, wondering when and how an old promise, an old dream might be fulfilled. Jesus took the stage in a homeland occupied by foreigners where the people treasured a dream captured in ancient words of comfort, words offered by the prophet seven hundred years earlier in a time of great national despair and defeat. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news,” Jesus showed up at a time when many were waiting to hear some good news.

Today’s story of Jesus reading from the scroll in the synagogue continues the theme of Epiphany in which God is made manifest in our world. As in the first reading today from Nehemiah, God’s Spirit breaths through the written word. The books of the Law and the Prophets, both represented today in these readings, make God present in our lives and they prepare us to see the ways in which God is alive and at work in the world around us. The promise Jesus reads from the text is ancient. The one who steps into the roll it describes is new. Jesus appeared in a world that had been waiting for him, a world in touch with its need for some outside assistance. Had Jesus been born into a world that was not hungry for a savior, we probably wouldn’t be here in this place today. Part of what enabled people to see God’s presence in Jesus was that they had been waiting for God to act in their world and set things right. In those first few years around and after Jesus, the more they thought about it, the more they reflected on what Jesus had said and done in his ministry, the more they came to believe that he was God’s new act of redemption in the world.

Jesus was recognized by people who knew their need of his help. It is a simple formula that still works. We tend to see God, to notice God and want to form some connection in times when our own resources are shown to be inadequate. Recognizing and acknowledging our need for divine assistance doesn’t come easily to us. We usually do all in our power to avoid finding ourselves in a place of great need, open to the idea of a savior--and, paradoxically, we wonder sometimes why we don’t feel more deeply connected to God. We hear Jesus saying this morning that he has been sent to the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed--people who understand well that their own resources can’t bring them what they really need. The simple formula that Jesus is the answer to our need, to the world’s need has built the Church from the very beginning. And like preachers for the last two thousand years, my job today is to in some small way, help you feel your need for a savior. That too is an ancient formula. If Jesus is the answer then the preacher needs to place the congregation firmly in the middle of a problem. That shouldn’t be too hard, given the times in which we are living.

Jesus brought a light of hope into an occupied land. He referenced another prophet whose message was also for a nation struggling with forces that seemed overwhelming. If I’m to highlight problems, maybe I should start with this country of ours. Our resources certainly seem a bit stretched at the moment.

I don’t care what your politics are, if you have any political opinions these days you have had plenty of occasion to wonder lately if we don’t need a bit of divine help in figuring out the way ahead. As I understand it, in its simplest form, we have a two party political system that represents two different ideological approaches to government. The most committed on each side of the aisle are pretty sure that if the other folks would just let them run things the country would be just fine. The two ideals seem to run something like this: One group thinks that government should gather the power of the people through laws to insure that the basic needs of the many are met. That involves taking money out of the free market and creating programs to help with food, education, health care and so on. The other group believes that if the free market is just left to go about its business the people who make money will spread that money around by creating jobs and everyone will be able to afford what they need. It seems to me that either of these systems might work if it weren’t for a little problem that Isaiah’s people probably knew better than did the people Jesus encountered seven hundred years later. The people who were waiting for a savior when Jesus came on the scene mostly thought that the Romans were the problem. If they could just get rid of those pesky outsiders things would be ok. Isaiah’s audience, on the other hand, was still reeling from a long line of much-too-human leaders, some of whom are listed in the history of Israel only by name along with a note saying they did what was evil in the sight of God. Those to whom Isaiah spoke had begun to figure out the truth of what the old comic strip character Pogo used to say, we have met the enemy and he is us.

Whichever political party you might lean toward, there has been enough in the news in the last year or two to make you wonder whether we don’t all need some kind of a savior. Many of the folks who believe most strongly in free markets wince at the inclination among many financial institutions to hoard and give out huge bonuses and not share the wealth. Many of those who believe in bigger government really would rather watch sausage being made than see the torturously slow movement of the machine we call the legislature. The good intentions of people on both sides, people who dream of a better nation, are too often mired down in the basic age old human problem of too many people who ask only, what’s in it for me. We have met the problem, Jesus, and it is us.

Now I hope you don’t hear me saying that humanity, that humanness is the problem. It isn’t. All that drive to build up, the push of what seem to be great ideas, the passion of ideologies--even the what’s in-it-for-me, to some extent are all part of the human creative potential. You can find examples of all those things in Jesus’ story. They are a part of the humanity Jesus came to redeem, to make whole, to fulfill, but they are only a part of that humanity. Jesus balanced those human powers with some other human traits we don’t notice as often, like humility and a willingness to risk. Compassion costs us something, love gives other people power in our lives. Jesus gave of himself, cared about others, refused to be turned into a king. And in the end, when the story began to be told, it was of a man who chose to die so that the rest of us could have life, could live more fully, more completely.

If it is true that Jesus shows up where there is a known need for God’s help, then maybe the stories we read in the paper and see on the news are a part of the Epiphany. When we read about humanity operating at its worst, we might ask ourselves what the balance is. If we wonder how someone could accept a multi-million bonus after contributing to the bankruptcy of so many we might ask what is missing. If greed makes us wonder where the altruism and self sacrifice are in our world, maybe we will begin to see those things because we are looking for them. If we are saddened by the sense of self-righteousness we hear crafted into stinging words in the political arena, we might go looking for humility and grace, and if we do we may just begin to notice those things in more places than we might have imagined.

As I read the message this morning, part of learning to see Jesus among us involves learning to want him among us. There is so much going on these days to fuel our hunger for a savior. Maybe it will help us to remember that Jesus shows up where he is hoped for, longed for, expected. Amen.