The Third Sunday after Epiphany ---- 24 January 2016

Luke 4:14-21

14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵ He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. ¹⁶ 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, 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 oppressed 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."

"Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

·        Our Gospel passage today starts in Nazareth and has Jesus taking part in the Sabbath worship “as was his custom.” He reads from Isaiah and proclaims that Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. This is pretty serious stuff. I don’t know if the worshippers there that Sabbath expected to hear that the words of the prophet would be fulfilled right then and there. Would you be ready for that – here and now? "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." 

·        Of course, this prophecy has to do with the coming of the Kingdom of God and the presence of the Messiah. God’s Spirit would be manifested in a particular way and the poor would hear the good news. The captives and the oppressed would be freed and those suffering from debilitating illnesses would be healed – represented here by the blind recovering their sight. It would be the year of the Lord’s favor, the Jubilee.

·        This Jubilee was a very special year when ancestral lands were returned, when debts were wiped out, when slaves and prisoners were freed, and when the mercy of God would be made most manifest.

·        There is more to this than simply a freeing of the down-trodden and healing of wounds. The ancient belief that sin leads to physical suffering, captivity, and oppression is directly challenged by the proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor. Those situations would be remedied and sin would be forgiven, alleviating the cause of those sins according to the understanding of sin at the time.

·        The surprise here is that all these things will be given to the poor, the captive, the blind, the slave, and the oppressed. The rich, the mighty, the “sinless”, and the properly religious are not even mentioned. The people who might expect to receive God’s favor and mercy because they are so good are left out of the proclamation.

·        First, the poor and down-trodden were the ones who needed to hear the good news; the religiously observant could expect God’s favor and they often let everybody know it. To have this understanding of the grace of God turned on its head would be good news to those who believed or were made to believe that they were on the outside looking in… just as they were with the whole of society.

·        Second, the wealthy and well-connected might wonder why they were not included in Isaiah’s teaching. In their own way, they may have felt that they have earned a graced reward because of their efforts to keep the Law. In their own way, they may have felt superior to the poor who were not able to keep the precepts of the Law as they did. If they were truly those blessed by God, why were they not included in this. Maybe they believed that the Scripture had already been fulfilled for them and something particular needed to be added for the less fortunate. If grace and good things were coming, wouldn’t it come to them first since they were so deserving? Or would it come to them alone and to no one else?

·        This passage, which Jesus has applied to himself, puts all that self-deception and self-righteousness to an end. The Messiah, filled with the Spirit of God will bring good news to all who are poor, whether their poverty is economic, social, or physical, for people with any of those ills await the year of the Lord’s favor.

·        What is interesting to us here today is this: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Maybe we don’t often see it. When Jesus says that those who hear him have entered a time of Jubilee, when the good news is brought to the poor, and those held captive are set free, he means it for all who hear his words… including us.

·        We may not be the poorest of people; I know I have a lot of what is called “stuff”, but can we keep it or are we stewards, care-takers of it for a time? What is really ours? We may not be prisoners, but there are other sorts of bondage as well, some of which might apply to us: addiction, illnesses of mind or body, attitudes that cripple us and keep us unsatisfied. And as our Confession says: we confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves…

·        The Spirit of God is with us and we are redeemed and free even though we carry the residue of what has gone before and the wounds of our past. It is the year of the Lord’s favor, even if we cannot see it or we refuse to see it.

·        There is a further truth. As Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit to bring good news to the poor, that same Holy Spirit is upon us, anointing each of us to bring the good news to the poor, the captive, the blind, in whatever way those terms make sense to us.

·        This passage in Luke is the specific moment when Jesus begins his ministry of bringing good news. Each of us has had a similar moment, when the waters of Baptism touched us and the Word of God filled our ears, even if we couldn’t understand it at the time. That Spirit is still with us and all of us stand within the call we received at our Baptism. With the Spirit, each of us can do it. Do what?

·        The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor… 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."