BIBLE READING: Luke 4:14-21

SERMON

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 favour.’

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.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ He 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.” ’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But 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; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They 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. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

My brother-in-law’s granddaughter is a very confident 6 year old. Recently, she was helping her grandpa with the dishes. He started to sing the song “let’s go fly a kite” - from the movie - Mary Poppins. He mentioned that it was his favourite song from the movie. His granddaughter quite seriously explained - “Your wrong grandpa, that song is not in the movie!” He could not convince her. So they decided to watch the movie together. As the movie ends - the song Let’s go fly a kite begins. Her turned to his granddaughter and realised she was asleep. he figured it out that she had never stayed awake till the end of the movie! She never realised that there was something missing.

In this story about Jesus, are you aware that Jesus missed out certain sections of the passage from Isaiah? The congregation in Nazareth knew he had missed some out. They knew he had put some other bits in. No wonder "the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him," and they "were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth"; they saw what he had done. It was so well improvised that we modern listeners don't realise he's changed anything unless we read a commentary!

The people in Nazareth knew what Jesus was doing, but they were not upset that Jesus had changed the text; that was a common method for interpreting scripture. We frequently see the New Testament doing this when it "quotes" the Old. What was quoted was less important than the conclusion Jesus will draw from the text.

The immediate outrage arises because people realise Jesus is not playing a variation of the same old tune, but proposing a thorough-going resetting of their religion.

The Year of the Lord's Favour is also called the Year of the Jubilee. It's the time every fifty years when the clock is meant to be reset. The playing field of life is made level again for all players, and those who have lost out are given back what was once their own. We can read of this ideal in Leviticus 25. It was meant to be a national repentance, and deliberate practical enactment of justice for the whole land.

Jesus proclaims that this year is enacted in himself. But he proclaims it without "the day of vengeance of our God". That's the bit he misses out when he quotes Isaiah 61, which says, "… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God."

The text he is quoting is poetry: what Jesus does is something like this…

Love and marriage, love and marriage,

go together like a horse.

You can’t miss it — if you know the song - one of those sung by Frank Sinatra - you cannot avoid hearing the missing words… and carriage.

Vengeance against the nations who had oppressed Israel was integral to people's sense of the day of the Lord's favour. It formed a part of their sense of justice. Isaiah 34:8, for example says "For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of vindication by Zion’s cause."

Jesus then makes it clear this is what he is about.

'… 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; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’

The truth is…    there were many sick children in Australia, and Elijah went to none of them but a small child on Nauru…

The truth is… that God is not on the side of the people of Israel - but that God is on the side of all people. The instant rage at Nazareth is mirrored in our own times by those who cannot imagine a life without enemies or a God who is not vengeful.

Those who are enraged fail to see that, in Jesus' words, they are among the captives who need release, and who need a recovery of sight; that they are themselves oppressed, because they are not free to love and respect all other people, but must have enemies.

At the root of all this lies an understanding that life is about winners and losers. We want to win, naturally enough. But what the Faith tells us is that there are no winner or losers, just people. Anything else is a failed humanity.

In practical terms for today and tomorrow, this means that the followers of Jesus are on the losing side! Our culture is built upon the notion of winning and losing— our economy is based upon competition, not cooperation— yet the followers of Jesus are called to serve, not win. Our associating winning as the way to the good life is attached to a sort of moral superiority which assumes that our way of being is right and good. Winners are assumed to be better people; the losers and those who are different deserve punishment or, at least, their failure. But the followers of Jesus are called to step away from the comfortable life we have been told is our right since birth.

No wonder we are so easily enraged in church! The God we want to comfort us makes us supremely uncomfortable by suggesting that we are people of privilege who owe much to the less fortunate around us. God says we are the problem.

The breakthrough insight which lets us "pass through the midst" of our fear and rage to a new way of being is the understanding that our culture as it is, is not good for us. That the incessant bombardment encouraging us to consume is a call to slavery. That the calls to hate the outsider enslave us to fear. And that the hatred of difference forever nails us down to the floor of our misery.

Our freedom is not found in "going somewhere else." That's part of the winning and losing idea of life and culture. It's the equivalent of thinking we can leave our pain behind by shifting to a better suburb; it never works, and it impoverishes the place we leave behind.

Our freedom lies in breaking through the floor and rebuilding the foundations. Our rage and fear is no stupidity on our part. It is an instinctive recognition that we are being called to "a harsh and dreadful discipline".

Sometimes we think we know the tune - know the movie, know what God demands. But then Jesus’ words slip past our filters and  we are astounded - maybe outraged - by the gospel.

God loves us, and in Jesus has shown the world that he loves ALL of us. Open your eyes and your hearts and begin to me today the day of the Lord’s favour!

Acknowledgement: Andrew Prior