Luke 4:14-21
“Finding the Words”
January 27, 2019
When I think back to dynamic speakers that I have had the opportunity to hear live, what I remember most all these years later is not the exact content of what they said but the conviction with which they spoke. I’ve been fortunate to have been seated in the same room or auditorium to hear Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Gloria Steinem, then Senator Barack Obama, and Arthur Ashe. Every one of them knew that their words carried the power to draw in listeners, transporting us at times into the world’s darker corners as well as to shine a light of hope on the possible. With their well-considered words they at times provided comfort to the hurting, got a rise out of those who saw the world differently and gave a much needed kick in the pants to those of us whose complacency had made us soft. All of those I mentioned by name used imagery to convey the better world that they had spent their lives working to create. Some of them spoke of hard places they had come from and all of them painted a picture of our nation and world that made us lean into such a vision as a very real possibility that we were meant to be a part of making happen.
The words Jesus stands up to offer in the synagogue back in his hometown are the first words we hear uttered publicly from an adult Jesus in Luke’s Gospel – he did earlier have a few choice words for his parents who’d thought he was lost as a 12 year old in the temple. He had already been speaking words that have been lost to us at a host of other synagogues before Nazareth but it is back in the place where everybody knows his name that he is warmly welcomed, for now, and has been getting rave reviews but don’t get too attached to the positive reinforcement he’s getting from his neighbors. Next week, we get to hear how quickly the vibe in the room changes.
Here in this passage Jesus is making known what his whole mission is about. Here Jesus is ushering in a new time of liberation and restoration. He is not lifting up the rich and powerful but instead is giving the advantage to the poor and vulnerable. Just like the song his pregnant mother sang when she carried him within her, he is “lifting up the lowly.” (Luke 1:46-55) The year of the Lord’s favor is being proclaimed. This is an embrace of the concept of Jubilee, where the debts of old are forgiven, bounty is shared and there is new life on the horizon. Here we see God at work in Jesus.
We know how much power the location and timing of the delivery has on how a message is received. Abraham Lincoln delivered his 271 word Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery just a few months after the Union armies defeated the Confederate armies in battle nearby. He was there to honor the lives lost and lifted up a vision of freedom for all to embrace. Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and a shocked nation on the radio just one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “a date which will live in infamy.” He was able to capture and galvanize a nation with his timely words and less than an hour later war was declared on Japan and our country entered into WWII.
Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on a hot August day in front of more than a quarter of a million civil rights supporters. This most famous of his many speeches is etched on our memories because he left his prepared words and mostly improvised in response to the great Mahalia Jackson’s cry “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” We still remember these speeches because they were offered in a place and time in history when people were looking for reassurance and answers and something better and more life-giving than the reality of their time which seemed to be frightening and unsteady and unsustainable. All three of these speeches recognized that those with ears to hear were capable of so much more. The new thing was to begin there and then.
The whole notion of immediacy is a great part of the power of Jesus’ proclamation here. The word “today” that Jesus uses to place this call speaks of right here, right now. Eugene Peterson interpreted it as “It came true just now in this place.” It has come true or been fulfilled, today. When we think of fulfilled most of us think of something that has already happened – it’s done, it’s over. Jesus, remember, is restating words from the prophet Isaiah and obviously there was still a long way to go to see them over or completed. They still weren’t in Jesus’ time and we can pretty much agree that the earth continues to have captives and a lot of folks who can’t see what is plainly in front of them and a whole bunch of people who are oppressed.
Maybe time and place are given even more importance by Jesus because they are intended to be living words, an ongoing call to serve those who need it the most. In fact, the tense of the word “fulfilled” here doesn’t mean done or completed but rather is expressed in an on-going and repetitive tense. Jesus in his speech before those gathered for the weekly Sabbath service is intentionally emboldening his listeners, drafting them into the work of bringing comfort and opportunity and assistance to the most vulnerable. He’s including them in this mission. That is how it will be fulfilled by being the hands-on, day-to-day call to service. Jesus is presenting a view of the world that God intends, helping his hearers understand that it will not be God waving a magic wand but rather God who empowers those God has created to do the lifting up, the caring, and the empowering. This is Jesus trying to get off on the right foot with the folks who knew him as Joseph and Mary’s kid. He uses the power of familiar words and brings them into the present. That’s what we try to do here each week. We lean into words written millennia ago and figure out what they’re saying now and what we’re supposed to do with them. These are the words of our still-speaking God.
As the season of Epiphany continues, the time of illumination when we once again try to get to know the who, what, why and how of Jesus’ ministry and message, we can hear in the words of the beloved 20th century theologian and the focus of one of my favorite courses in seminary, Howard Thurman, that harken back to Isaiah and then Jesus’ speech in the synagogue. It is titled, “The Work of Christmas.”
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
(“The Work of Christmas,” p 23, from The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations by Howard Thurman.)
May this be fulfilled in our hearing and our living.
Amen.