It’s the Sabbath day,
Saturday. We’re among the faithful of
Nazareth, so we’re in the synagogue.
Where else would we be on the Sabbath?
But today, the crowd is
overflowing. Where have all these people
been? I haven’t seen that guy in worship
in years. I see him at the market all
the time, but not here. What’s he doing
here? Why today? What’s everyone doing here?
The Carpenter’s son has
returned. There is talk that he can do
miracles. A prophet from Nazareth? That’s what they say. He was baptized in the Jordan by the crazy
man, John, the Baptizer. Now he’s back
and you wouldn’t believe what they’re saying about him in Capernaum.
Why do all those wonderful things
there when he’s from here, Nazareth? If
Jesus is our prophet, why didn’t he come here first? It is just as well. He’s here today and we get to see the wonders
and hear the wisdom.
This is the scene Luke sets. Your experience of Jesus depends on your
circumstances. The reality of your life
dictates whether or not you think Jesus brings is good news.
He was called rabbi, so the leaders
of the Nazareth synagogue invited him to speak.
They wanted to see what the fuss was all about. They wanted to know why people were making a
big deal of the carpenter’s son.
Or, they could sense that Jesus truly
possessed insight from God and these synagogue leaders wanted to bless the
congregation by having a sermon from a charismatic speaker.
In worship that day, both were
present. Gawkers and spectacle-seekers
sat right alongside true worshipers and God-seekers. Church has always been an amalgamation of people
of genuine faith, people who are confused, and people who are there because
someone else forced them to come. There
are always people in church who don’t know why they themselves are there. There are judgmental people who can’t see
their own flaws. And there are broken
people who cannot see their own beauty.
It is that way here, now. Some want to be here. Some are not sure why we’re here. Or, we’re here because we know that we need
this. We know how much we need God and
we hope to meet Him here. We have all of
it. Every church does. And the experience of hearing Jesus –
uplifting or troubling – depended and still depends on the situation of the
worshiper.
Let’s start with the poorest people who were
in the synagogue. The people with no
money; the people with disabilities; the people of minority cultures who had no
rights and rarely received justice; the people on the receiving end of the
bullies’ taunts and slaps; the powerless; we begin with how they might hear
Jesus. They were certainly there.
Beginning
in verse 17, “[Jesus] stood up to
read, 17 and 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
0ppressed go free,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor’
20 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. 21 Then he
began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing.’”
He quotes Isaiah where good news is
promised to the poor. Release offered to
captives and freedom to the oppressed.
And, he mentions recovery of sight for the blind. Everyone in that crowd would have been aware
of Isaiah. This was a popular scripture
with immediate application.
Blindness was a common ailment. We’re going to receive sight? Remember,
we are imagining who would find Jesus’ words to be good news. The blind.
And the oppressed. Most Nazareth
Jews felt oppressed by Rome and by the poverty that was their life. This was uplifting. Furthermore, when is all this good news going
to come about? Today! Today – with the arrival of Jesus – the scripture
is fulfilled.
Essentially, Jesus is announcing
Jubilee. This concept, Jubilee, comes
from another scripture everyone would recognize, Leviticus 25. “The fiftieth year you shall proclaim liberty
throughout the land to all its inhabitants.
It shall be a jubilee for you; you shall return, every one of you to
property and to your family” (v.10). All
debt is forgiven. If someone previously had
to sell family land to get out of a financial pinch, in the Jubilee year the
holder of the land restores it to the family that originally owned. If someone sold himself into slavery to cover
his debts, in the Jubilee year, the person who owns him frees him.
For some people Jubilee means losing
a slave or losing the advantage of being the only landowner in a community of
poor tenant farmers. If Jesus’ words in
fact come to pass those who are in a superior social position because of their
wealth lose their edge. The neighbor
they looked down upon is now at their level, looking them in the eye.
Jesus says, with his arrival,
Jubilee has come. What did the slave
owners think when they heard this? What
about the debtholders? Were there any
curious Roman soldiers or officials in the crowd, just there to check out the
Jewish worship practices? Did they enjoy
Jesus’ reading of Isaiah’s line about freedom from oppressors?
Luke tells us everyone was amazed by
Jesus’ preaching. That would have been
the perfect time to do the mic drop.
Jesus exits stage left to sound of deafening applause. But,
he didn’t do that. Jesus kept
preaching. The amazement quickly turned
into something else. He could see it in
their eyes. They heard he had worked
miracles. The synagogue was packed
because they wanted to see one!
“No prophet is accepted in his
hometown” he told them (4:24). Then
Jesus regaled the congregation with more stories they would know all too well,
stories of the great prophets, Elijah and Elisha. In both cases, the men of God rendered God’s
miraculous provision to people other than Jews.
All those
amazed people in the Nazareth synagogue put it all together.
He’s known as a miracle worker and he’s from
here. He’s ours, but we stand condemned
because we don’t welcome the poor. We
don’t love and help the blind. We may be
oppressed, but we step on the backs of those who have it worse than us. He holds himself up like Elijah and
Elisha. The great prophets. And he judges us. He’ll help others and he’ll criticize
us.
“When they
heard this,” Luke writes in verse 28, “All in the synagogue were filled with
rage.” A mob action happens next as they
drag Jesus to a cliff intent on throwing him to his death.
I
don’t think there were any slaves or blind people or debtors in the lynch
mob. All those at the bottom, those who
live in the gutter, heard Jesus promise them that his arrival meant rescue from
their pitiable condition. No, this crowd
that is seeing red and breathing murder are those who got upset when Jesus said
he came to heal and liberate and release.
Not only did they not need what Jesus offered, but they did not like it
that Jesus would welcome and care for the lowest in their community.
You see
how our circumstance colors how we hear Jesus?
Is his coming good news for us?
Are we happy when he pronounces Jubilee for those who suffer under the
crushing load of debt? What would
economic justice cost us? That depends.
If you
are among the poor, the blind, the oppressed whom Jesus is here to save, then
economic justice costs you your pain. If
you are among the wealthy in the world, and this includes the American middle
class, so most people here, then Jesus’ announcement of Jubilee costs you – us
– our prestige. We give up our
advantage.
We’ve
been talking about the way Jesus’ arrival surprised people. Maybe the surprise to us is that Jesus didn’t
come for us. At least, he didn’t come
for those who see themselves as “the have’s.”
We don’t
discover Jesus – as one here to save us – until we understand that we are as
weak and as pitiable as the homeless man who has not changed clothes in months
because he can’t. We are as powerless as
the undocumented immigrant who came here as a child and feels adrift in danger
all time. We are as helpless as the
Syrian who has not eaten in days and is unable to move from the building he is
in because he’s complete boxed in by ISIS and Syrian government forces.
The most
accomplished professional, the department chair, the lead surgeon stand before
God as naked, exposed, and impotent as these examples I’ve shared. Common sense would say that’s completely ridiculous. It
is absurd to juxtapose the leaders among us with society’s dregs. But Jesus came to bring good news to the
poor, the blind, the captive, and the oppressed. We cannot understand or receive the blessing
of God’s salvation until we understand ourselves as poor, blind, captive, and
oppressed.
Presuming
we want the blessing of God, how do we do this?
First, we see sin for what it is – that which utterly destroys our
souls. In our popular culture, sin is
something that elicits giggles. Sin
sell. Movies with the highest box office
sales are the ones rated ‘R’ for violence, sex, strong language, and
nudity. In our culture, sin is
celebrated and purity is mocked. We have
to see sin for what it is – a killer. We
acknowledge sin, admit we cannot escape, and turn to Jesus as our only hope for
rescue. In sin, we are at the bottom
until Jesus lifts us out.
Second,
we stand with those people society would say are on the ladder’s lowest
rungs. A moment ago, I used the word
“dregs.” From where God is standing,
there are no dregs. The refugee, the
illegal alien, the mentally ill, the poorest of the poor – these are all lost
sheep. They are beautiful people made in
the image of God. Jesus leaves the 99
healthy ones sitting comfortably in the sanctuary of HillSong Church. He leaves us to go out and announce his
Isaiah-fulfilling, freedom-proclaiming, belly-filling, life-giving news to the
homeless and the downtrodden. He came
for them.
If we
want to receive what Jesus gives and experience it as good news, we admit our
sin, and we sit arm-in-arm with them. No
wonder people in Synagogue crowd wanted to throw him off a cliff. They came for miracles and got slapped by
God’s truth.
In Luke
4, God’s truth slaps us with his truth this morning. And the truth is there is greater joy in love
and in sharing love than there is in prestige and wealth. Do we have the faith to believe that is true?
What do
we do now? That’s up to you. You can clench your teeth in anger. You can bow before the cross and open your
heart to the Holy Spirit. You can start
thinking right now about who you will love this week. What disadvantaged person will you stand with
this week?
We have
heard Jesus’ words. Each of us can
decide who we are and then decide if this is good news.
AMEN
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