Epiphany 3

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Epiphany 3
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 25, 1998

TEXT: Luke 4:14-21 - Jesus Reads in the Temple
"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."

ISSUE: Jesus' reading in the synagogue is his Inaugural Address. It is the statement of his Messianic Mission. It defines him as the 'anointed one' and proclaims his mission. His mission is aimed primarily at the poor. The poor are those who are the disadvantaged, the less honorable, and the disenfranchised. His mission is to restore them as God's children and liberate them from their indebitedness which means their sinful indebitedness to God. Jesus restores sight, the ability to see clearly the glory of God's love. For us today, the event heightens our appreciation of Christ and the call to receive forgiveness, and new insights into our need for God and his availability to us.
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In the lessons today there is a real and genuine sense of excitement and hope. In the Hebrew scripture from the bookk of Nehemiah, Ezra the priest gathers all the people who have returned from years of exile for a reading of the Torah, the Mosaic Law of God. They had been a beaten and exiled people, many forced to leave their homeland. Now a Persian conqueror, Artexerxes II after 539 B.C, allows the exiles to return home and to begin practicing their faith again. The importance of the event is stressed by the naming of all the important people there. People who had not heard their Word of God are filled with mixed emotion. They weep for have been led astray from the Word of God, but Ezra calls them to weep for joy. The past is over and now is the time to reclaim the Word and to rebuild the Faith, and the Temple in Jerusalem. A beaten and exiled people are faced with new hope and renew - restored - faith.
In the reading from Luke, Jesus is invited to read Hebrew Scripture in the local synagogue. In Jesus time the sabbath was celebrated by attendance at the synagogue, and Jesus himself followed that practice. The synagogue service was much like our own form of worship which is derived from synagogue worship. There was the reading of the Shema (Dt 6:4-9): "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One, and you shall worship the Lord you God with all you heart, you soul, and mind . . . etc." We Episcopalians still read the Shema in the Rite I Liturgy. There were prayers, and there was an appointed lectionary reading from the Torah, in the same way that we have appointed readings. However, the person invited to read in the synagogue could select his own reading from the Prophetic writings. On this occasion when Jesus is present, he reads from Isaiah (61:1-2): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, becase 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 proclaime the year of the Lord's favor." It is as if Jesus is preaching his inaugural sermon. It is setting forth and putting into motion the foundation of his ministry.
The reading was extraordinarily significant to the people who were hearing this passage read to them. It brought immediately to their minds significant historial events. "He has anointed me" was reminiscent of King David's anointing as a charismatic ruler of Israel like no other who gave Israel dignity in the world. "He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives," reminded them of Moses deliving his people from slavery. "To let the oppressed go free" may well have reminded them of their return from the exile under the Babylonians. For those people hearing Jesus read this passage it had to be a moment of great hope and joy to be reminded of God's historical involvement and saving acts.
The passage that Jesus selects to read that is an inaugural of his ministry would have been of great interest to the people of his own time, especially the poor. Keep in mind that the poor were not just people without money, but widows, the powerless, the sick and disadvantaged and the dishonored, and those who had no claim to any honor. In Jesus time there many captives and oppressed people. (Incidentally the passage is not about setting criminals free. Tithes and taxes were exhorbitantly high as much in some instances as 35 - 40 percent. Being an agricultural society, farmers were at the mercy of the weather and there were numerous droughts. It was not uncommon to lose you land and become an indentured servant or tenant sharecropper on your own land. Forced labor was common. There was a lot of borrowing. Life for the common person was very hard. Some debtors were sent to prison in order to force their families to come up with the money that they owed to pay off debts. Many people suffered at the hands of greed, favoritism, and injustice. The economy was controlled by charging low prices to kin and friends and high prices to one time buyers. At the heart of this was the idea that God was possibly punishing or cursing the afflicted.
In the Old Testament there was a custom that every seventh year be called the Year of the Lord's Favor. It was called the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:18-55) to be a time when debts were forgiven and people who had lost their land had the right to buy it back. Forced laborers and Israelite slaves were to be liberated and restored. However the it was rarely practiced or adhered to according to scholars. By and large the predicament of the poor seemed hopeless.
To this situation, Jesus comes and proclaims release to the captives, freedom for the oppressed. He comes to declare the year of the Lord's favor when mens' debts shall be forgiven. He will bring sight to the blind, perhaps meaning new insight to the oppressors and healing. Jesus was not literally proclaiming that he was going to pay off people's financial debts. His ministry however is the inauguration of a new age which will usher in a new age of justice. It shall be an age when people shall be renewed in the compassion of the Lord as Jesus was compassionate. It was an age when oppressors would receive new insights and be redeemed. It was a time when God's love and forgiveness would be revealed and not his punishment. All those who were perceived as losers, the last, the lost, the least, the disenfranchised, the dishonorable, sinners would receive God's forgiveness through Christ and given sightedness to see themselves as the part of a new age of hope. The dignity of every human being is to be restored.
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (12:12-27) read this morning, picks up on the idea that all who see Christ as Lord become a part of his body where there are no Greeks or Jews, no slaves or free, but all are one in the Spirit of the redeeming, forgiving and loving Lord. Each of us find ourselves with differing talents and abilities. Each of us is different. Some are healthier and wealthier than others. Yet each one has the dignity of belonging in the body of Christ. Each has honor, and each of us are to respect and honor one another in Christ. All who accept Christ have honor and all are needed and all are called to a ministry in the Body of Christ.
The passage from Luke today is intended to open the eyes of the blind, to open our eyes, yours and mine. We do become blinded, indifferent, complacent to human need. We all have grown up with the blinding prejudices of our ancestors. We can all be inclined to look down on other people we consider to be below us. Many in our world have been made rich and are being made rich on the backs of the poor. We can be imprisoned ourselves to our sinfulness and to our darker side. All of us can ourselves be dishonorable. Yet just as Ezra read the Word, the Torah, the Law to his people calling them to a new hope and joy. . . Just as Jesus reads in the Synagogue the passage from Isaiah which is that Messianic hope that captives shall be free and the blind see and the poor lifted up, the passage comes to us as well asking us to embrace Jesus as Lord and to participate in his Messianic hope and movement.
God in Christ came to open our eyes and to set aside our blindness. He reveals, shows, brings into the light for all to see the beauty of a compassionate merciful, forgiving and loving God and way of life. He sets us free from our bondage to old prejudices and helps us to see that we are forgiven and love. He brings to us the Year of the Lord's favor. We know longer have to try to earn God's forgivenss or feel ourselves beyond hope. God's love is freely given and we are renewed and restored, liberated and free, as men with dignity. At the same time we are called upon to see others as the redeemed and loved, as those who are also worthy of the dignity that God bestows. As surely as Ezra's congregation felt new hope and the loveliness of God in the torah, and Jesus' congregation were given the message of hope, may we be refreshed in the loveliness of the Gospel of Christ as well.