This is the Saturday evening version, and I think it needs an ending, just not sure what yet, hopefully, i do in the morning.
1. We are reading through the Gospel of
Luke, here is a quick recap of where we are up to.
2. Luke starts with the prophecy of the
birth of John the Baptist – an angel appeared to Zechariah.
3. Then another angel, this time to Mary
telling of the coming birth of Jesus.
4. Then the birth of John
5. And the birth of Jesus, with more
angels appearing and the shepherds.
6. Jesus as the twelve-year-old who stays
behind and causes his family grief.
7. Teaching of John the Baptist
8. Jesus is baptised.
9. Genealogy of Jesus
10.
Temptation
11.
Jesus
reads the Isaiah scroll, and then the crowd get angry with him.
I wonder why
Jesus did not stop at the end of the Isaiah passage, the people were amazed at
his teaching, he was popular, then he goes and blows it.
Let us look
at the first part of the reading:
We know Jesus
grew up in an observant Jewish family and he maintains the practise of attending
the synagogue.
As any adult
male could, Jesus went to read from the scroll.
Just as we follow the
lectionary, so that we hear and read most of the Bible over a 4-year period,
the Jews had a reading schedule that included a section of the Torah, that is the
books of law – the first 5 books of our Old Testament, and a reading from the
Prophets. Jesus is given the scroll and reads a section from Isaiah. It is an amalgam of a couple of verses of Isaiah.
The part of Isaiah
he reads, speaks of good news, that is freedom and healing; This is the year
the Lord has chosen, or the year of the Lord’s favour.
Was this the
year of Jubilee written about in Leviticus 25? ‘Every 50 years, God’s people
are to observe a Sabbath of Sabbaths: “you shall proclaim liberty (aphesis,
LXX) throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” The law of Jubilee is
designed to transform society and undo the damage that human greed has caused:
it frees people who have been enslaved because of debt, and it returns land to
its original owners so that every member of God’s people has a way of earning a
living. During the year of Jubilee all the people return to their property and
their families. Both land and people rest, and the people live off what the
land produces by itself.’[i]
We don’t know
if that is what Jesus is referring to. But it fits with much of his ministry as
recorded in Luke’s Gospel.
It also
reminds me of the words of Mary before Jesus was born:
He has
brought down mighty kings from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled
the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away with empty hands.
[Luke 1:52-53]
The Isaiah
reading starts: “The Lord’s Spirit has come to me,
because he
has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor.”
I wonder what
the good news to the not poor might be. Or is it only good news to the
poor?
The people in
the synagogue in Nazareth, have heard of the healings and other miracles
already performed by Jesus, and they want a piece of the action. After all, he
grew up there, they know him, Joseph’s boy, as a child he would have played with
some of them and sat next to them in class.
All is well
until Jesus reminds the people that the good news is for all people, remember when
Elijah helped a woman from Sidon and Elisha healed a hated Syrian. And the
people wonder about this Good news.
The good
news, the freedom and release they were waiting for, was for them freedom from foreign
rule that had dominated so much of the history of Israel.
Is it good
news if your enemy is healed?
Is it good
news if your neighbour is fed?
Is it good
news if people are no longer homeless?
I think we would
all say yes, but what if that healing and food and accommodation costs us?
Jesus is
transforming the way the world works, healing, freedom, sight to the blind; all
things we will see Jesus do in his ministry.
The people wanted
the good news to be what they expected to be for them, and when Jesus speaks of
good news, of freedom and salvation for all people, then they cannot take it. They
ask who does he think he is, we remember him, Joseph’s boy. and they try to kill him.[ii]
Jesus does not turn
to the Gentiles because those in Nazareth reject him. They reject him because
he turns to the Gentiles.[iii]
What about
today, can we accept that the good news is for all people?
For those
addicted to drugs?
Those who
surf on Sundays?
Those who are
unemployed?
Those with chronic
illness?
Those who live
in different countries?
And if the
good news is for those who are poor and oppressed and in need of healing, what
about us; what about us who have food in our cupboards and can move around without
being harassed for our skin colour or our religion or our birthplace.
Is this good
news for us?
As you read
this passage at home later, I want you to think about being in the Synagogue,
you are not Jesus, we are the people in the crowd. In most of the stories we read
in the gospels, we will be part of the crowd. We will be the ones who question
and follow and don’t understand and get angry because Jesus has upset our predictable
lives.
And we don’t like
that.
We don’t like
it when Jesus challenges us to share our wealth or our food or our caring.
But you know
what – Jesus does not give up on us.
The good news
does not disappear, it is still good news, for the world.
This is not an
individual good news, this is good news for the world, for the left out, the
excluded, the invisible people.
Something I read
this week:
When the gospel
has become bad news to the poor,
to the oppressed,
to the broken-hearted and imprisoned,
and good news to the proud,
self-righteous and privileged instead,
it is no longer the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[Beth Moore dec 9, 2018]
[i]
Judith Jones https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/sermon-at-nazareth/commentary-on-luke-414-30
[ii]
Judith Jones https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/sermon-at-nazareth/commentary-on-luke-414-30
[iii]O.
Wesley Allen, Jr. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/sermon-at-nazareth-2/commentary-on-luke-414-30-2
