Luke 4:14-21
Taking the Good
News Home
“Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.”
Something happens; something occurs that morning in the Temple. Jesus tells his listeners – “Today”
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
One of the great ironies, to me, is
way worship is experienced in modern-day congregations. John Douglas Hall, in his book Why Christian,
hits it on the head as he relates the experiences of a college-age seeker. The young man goes to one congregation whose
theology he finds very acceptable. (Hall
never gives a denomination, but you can tell that this congregation is the
Lutheran one.) Upon visiting, the young
man notes that he likes what the liturgy and preacher had to say, but he
reported “there wasn’t any life in the place.”
No one, at that church, was expecting anything to happen.
The young man visits a different
church. (Again, the denomination is not
identified. It seems to be more on the
evangelical side of Christendom.) “The
place was alive with expectation.” the young
man reported.
Now, here is the real irony for
me: our mainline, sacramental churches
seem to be dead; while the evangelical variety is looking for something to
happen. Again, here is the irony: In an evangelical church, nothing happens
unless someone in the pews feels moved to respond; while in a sacramental
church something happens every time the gifts of bread and wine become for us
the body and blood of Christ.
“Today (the) scripture (is
being) fulfilled in your hearing.” Something is happening; something is occurring.
A lot has occurred in the gospel of
Luke. We are in the middle verses of
Chapter 4. “4” is a rather low number,
so it should be easy for us to infer that we are still pretty close to the
beginning. In the liturgical year we
are still pretty early. I imagine that
even the most severe procrastinator among us has finally taken down their
Christmas tree, but we are only 5 weeks into the new life which came among us
on that marvelous night. Not that the
Gospel story follows chronologically the life development of Jesus. Far from it.
But, in order to get to the stories of Jesus’ preaching, healing, and
confrontations with those who could not accept his message, you need to cover a
lot of ground. That is what we have been
doing, by way of our weekly readings, these past couple of Sundays.
We began with the story of Jesus’
birth. There were two Sundays of
readings associated with those who where there with the infant Jesus. Then we moved to stories of Jesus’ youth –
the whole “lost in the temple” experience.
Two weeks ago the theme was his baptism and last week the events
associated with his turning the water into wine at the wedding feast served to
illustrate that he is indeed something very special.
A lot of ground has been
covered. Enough so that we are prepared
to accept the gospel writer’s assertion that a report about him (has) spread
through all the surrounding country.
There is great expectation when he returns to his home town and makes
his way to the Temple.
Luke tells us that Jesus reads from
the prophesy of Isaiah. Taken from the
61st chapter of Isaiah, these ancient words had been for the
Children of Abraham words of hope and promise.
They listened to them over the centuries with the expectation that one
day God would send among them their promised, anointed one. The people were waiting for that
arrival. Jesus re-reads words they must
have heard hundreds of times before.
Then he sits down (sitting is the posture taken by a Rabbi as he is
about to instruct the congregation.)
Jesus sits down and rather than launch into a sermon intended to help
them understand what these verses meant, he tells them that the ancient words
have now been fulfilled.
The people were filled with
expectations – but they were not expecting this. The people came there that day so they might
be on hand when something happened, but they couldn’t believe this was
happening. Jesus is telling them that he
is the promise. He announces to them the
good news, their release, and the recovery of their sight. “Today”, he tells them, “this
scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
There is a reaction to what Jesus
does. That is the content of next week’s
Gospel and Pastor Jon can decide how to deal with it in that sermon. Suffice it to say that the congregation
realized the outlandish claim Jesus is making and they were none too happy
about it. I don’t think Pastor Jon would
mind if you read ahead and form your own thoughts as to what that passage
means. For today, I want to keep us on
these verses and consider together what it is that Jesus is saying – not just
for those in that Temple on that day, but for us as well. I think what he says, what he does, might
shake us a bit when it comes to what we expect.
Jesus assures them that something
is happening in that very room, at that very moment. There is no delay or reason to look to the
future. It is present right there, right
then.
There are at least two times in the
course of this worship service when Pastor Jon will make a similar proclamation
of immediacy. One has already occurred,
the other is yet to come. Do you
recognize them, as they happen?
The first is actually a prequel to
our service. It happens while the pastor
is still at the rear of the church. In
response to our confession, the pastor announces, “I proclaim to you that
Almighty God, rich in mercy, abundant in love, forgives you all your sin.” Those words are very carefully crafted and
situated in the midst of a reminder that the authority to speak those words
comes are a result of a call from the Church of Jesus Christ and it is by his
authority that they are spoken.
Never-the-less, they do occur.
And we believe and teach that they are true. If we are one of those churches whose
theology is acceptable yet seems rather dead to a first-time visitor, it can
only mean that we have ceased to expect and/or receive the miracle which
happens (HAPPENS!) each Sunday by way of a few brief paragraphs, a time for
individual meditation, and the pronouncement of the one set aside for the task
of public ministry.
You should know where I am going
next. To the Table and the
Eucharist. Sacramental churches, of
which ours is one, believe that the bread and wine of Holy Communion does not
remain bread and wine. They become for
us the body and blood of our crucified and resurrected Lord. That miraculous transformation occurs each
time we gather around this table and partake of these gifts. I
don’t know how anything more wonderful could ever happen that what does happen
here. It is enough to fill us with
expectations.
Some have argued that it is the
frequency issue. “If you have communion
every week you start to take it for granted.”
Maybe there is something to that.
Maybe if we are present for a miracle week after week after week we stop
thinking of it as such. Rather than be
overwhelmed in appreciation for what God is doing in our midst, we begin to ask
God to do something else – something more?
Something we would like to have done for us. Maybe – but only just maybe.
Anything else which might be done -
or which we might seek to have done - would be something of our own
design. It might meet our most recently
identified expectation, but it wouldn’t be the thing God has chosen to do.
Those in Nazareth who went out to
hear Jesus went with their own set of expectations. What they got was not what they
expected. What they got, you and I know,
was what they really needed; what they had to have. Their expectations were not met, in part,
because their expectations were too low.
A song and dance or a dog and
pony show are crowd pleasers and they leave a lasting impression. But the announcement which shakes the Temple
is the one in which the claim is made that God’s promise is indeed being
fulfilled, right now, right here. “Today,”
Jesus announces, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Amen.
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