January 23, 2022
Sermon for 23 January 2022 Epiphany 3C
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 • Psalm 19 • 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a • Luke 4:14-21
I recently posted and sent you a blog article on Christian themes in Harry Potter entitled “More than Good against Evil” https://slmedia.org/.../more-than-good-against-evil.... Among its highlights are points closely related to today’s gospel, like this one:
"It is this disregard for the weak and vulnerable that becomes tied to [Voldemort’s] ultimate downfall. As we read in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, and in Christ’s own ministry in the New Testament, caring for the marginalized is fundamental to the terms of God’s covenant with humanity, and Voldemort’s disdain for the least powerful members of society portray him as an embodiment of human evil."
Our gospel today is the sweet beginning of a story that turns quickly sour as we’ll hear next week – you may remember it well – Jesus is welcomed back to his hometown, but his message from Isaiah 58 and 61 is not welcomed: "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." That ‘year of the Lord’s favor’ is especially thought of as the Jubilee every 50th year in which all debts were to be forgiven, and enslaved people were to be freed, etc. From my Old Testament studies, I had assumed that this actually took place in Hebrew society every 50 years, so I was saddened to learn from Elizabeth Johnson at the Working Preacher website that: “there is little evidence that it was ever practiced in Israel. It was instead projected into the future as an eschatological hope.” However now the reason for Jesus choosing to read this part of Isaiah makes more sense – over time most people had grown to conveniently ignore these essential features of God’s covenant of justice and liberation for the oppressed. Either they’d forgotten or they’d assumed that it was for God to do that, not them. Do we not see similar prayers and attitudes throughout Christian history, including today? One still sees prayers and hymn lyrics in our Anglican sources that basically ask God to have mercy on the oppressed and to feed the hungry and to liberate those held captive by systems of exploitation, or domination systems, as Marcus Borg would say … as if God didn’t already have mercy and want these exploitations to cease! But we are to be God’s voice and action in the world – it’s up to us to influence the compassion & justice needed to solve the world’s problems as God desires it to be with justice and peace for all.
This week’s Working Preacher commentary https://www.workingpreacher.org/.../commentary-on-luke... is especially good as Johnson points out how strongly the Holy Spirit is cited in Luke’s gospel. And how directly Jesus’ reading from Isaiah still pertains to us today, as she writes:
Good news to the poor and the “year of the Lord’s favor” sound great until we get into the nitty-gritty of what that means. The idea of a radical redistribution of property and wealth, for example, will not sound like good news to many of us who live comfortable lives and do not want to give up what we have. The idea of welcoming certain groups of people into our communities will be unsettling for some. Still Jesus proclaims that today this scripture is fulfilled in him. Projecting this vision into a distant future is no longer possible.
Her words hammer home to us how this seemingly sweet little gospel we heard today, in which Jesus is the hometown hero invited to read a bit of Isaiah which he carefully selects – how just these few lines about bringing good news to the poor and letting the oppressed go free can incite a violent riot that we’ll hear more about next week.
Disparities between rich and poor have likely worsened since Jesus’ time, and the selfishness, greed and apathy that continue to destroy our planet, beginning with the most vulnerable – have far from disappeared. Scott Harris’ blogpost speaks of Voldemort’s vanity, greed and selfishness which are so contrary to themes of justice, and to a focus on the marginalization of the vulnerable, as he writes about “the dangers of the sins of vanity and selfishness that cause one to ignore the needs of others, and the redemptive power of selfless love”. In a way of course I’m preaching to the proverbial choir – we in the churches have long been aware of the need to resist our culture’s temptations towards selfish materialism. And Jesus’ example of sacrificial redemptive love has been our model & goal. Therefore, none of this is really news to us.
In a way I think it’s so appropriate that our church has lost a lot of the power, prestige and prominence we used to have in our society. In this place of comparative diminishment and rejection, we’re in a much better position to embrace the causes of the poor and marginalized in a world held hostage by the rich, the powerful, the greedy and the arrogant. Our current ‘lower place’ is a blessing that potentially positions us to better understand Jesus’ focus on good news for the poor, and how we too can help to let the oppressed go free. May it be so, Amen.