We are so familiar with the scene in today’s gospel that we often skim over the essence of what Jesus proclaims. We have the scene etched in our minds: Jesus stands up and unrolls the scroll, reads from Isaiah and then sits down. At least I have it etched in my mind. It’s really a remarkable scene that dramatically has Jesus, returning to his hometown, going to his childhood synagogue on the sabbath. Luke tells us that going to a synagogue on the Sabbath was what Jesus typically did. All of that is important, letting us know that Jesus was a faithful Jew and worshipping in the synagogue was, what Luke called “a habit.” All of that is important, but arguably, the most important thing that happens in this scene is what Jesus does after reading from Isaiah.
To understand the significance we have to take a deep dive into the reading that Jesus shares with the congregation.
First, let me remind you what Jesus has been up to now that Luke is in his fourth chapter. We have witnessed a lot after the birth narrative of Chapter 2. If you were reading Luke’s gospel, you have seen the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus at his Baptism in Chapter 3 and then the same Holy Spirit leading him into the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil for 40 days and nights. At this point, Jesus is about to launch into his public ministry and does so by returning to his home country of Galilee. After he reads from the prophet Isaiah, we are told that he was praised by everyone. I wonder if they weren’t paying any better attention than we are.
It’s interesting Jesus chose to start his public ministry in this way. He’s back home, in Nazareth, surrounded by those who knew him as a child and knows his family. Clearly those who oversaw the synagogue were honoring Jesus by asking him to read and reflect on Isaiah. It’s not a stretch to think that Jesus is already becoming known as a great teacher, so what better way to honor him than to invite him to talk on the Sabbath?
In a lot of ways, this is an extremely important event because these are the first words Jesus’ speaks about his public ministry. I guess you could call this Jesus inauguration speech or at least one that he had thought through. For the next three years Jesus would do a lot of teaching, preaching, healing, exorcisms, and even raising the dead. With that in mind, this first opportunity to speak is so significant, we need to pay close attention. If this were a movie, we’d hush everyone around us so that we could listen carefully, because if we wanted to know the context of Jesus’ ministry, then this would be it. So, he chooses the prophet Isaiah to begin it all. He reads: “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, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (a conflation of Isaiah 61:1-2a and 58:6). Then Jesus gives a one-sentence interpretation: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
So, what is it that we hear? Jesus says that the Spirit anoints him, sends him, to do a handful of things: bring good news to poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, hope for the oppressed and lastly, he says that the Holy Spirit has anointed him “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” To give you the cliff notes version: Jesus’ ministry is to bring good news to everyone who is bound up, pressed down, broken in spirit, impoverished, imprisoned, and so downtrodden that they have forgotten what good news is.
There is a temptation for some to spiritualize all this. I think that temptation is there because if what Jesus says is taken literally and physically, then the Gospel becomes a threat to those in power. Frankly, Mary’s Magnificat was threat enough but if Jesus meant these words to be taken as he spoke them, then the Gospel becomes a radical enjoinder to all who prefer it remain a safe, Sunday school like proclamation.
In fact the word translated “poor” in this reading has to do with both economic status and those things that affected ones status in the first century’s world- gender, genealolgy, education, occupation, health and disability and even religion. Hold on here, this is radical stuff. If Jesus really meant what he said, and he certainly did, his ministry was directed to outsiders, those who sat on the margins of society. If I may be so bold as to paraphrase Jesus, it would go something like this: “I (Jesus) have come not for the satisfied and comfortable. I have come to let you know that I am here for those who the world has rejected. You are the ones who I seek to offer God’s grace and mercy. Which should lead us all to identify with all those the world rejects or places as beyond the reach of God’s grace and mercy.
We could leave this right here and leave a bit shaken because this runs contrary to what we have been told. I read on social media and hear from many prosperity preachers that God’s favor is found in material wealth and in lives where everything is put together pretty well. That sells books and many people will send money to hear such things. But that’s not what Jesus preaches here.
Oh it gets a bit more tangled. We might be able to find some way to come to terms with all of this if Jesus would have just left it here. But he makes a point that he is called to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” A cursory read of this may lead you to believe that this just means that God is simply favoring the world by sending Jesus. But this is much more profound than that.
Jesus is referencing something that isn’t from Isaiah but rather, he is taking it from Leviticus 25. It is here that God commands something called “The Year of Jubilee.” This was a year in which indentured servants were to be released, debts forgiven and land and property returned to families who had either leased or sold them. It was a year that Biblical scholars call “radical restoration.” There is little evidence that this was ever practiced in ancient Israel. It had become known as a promise that would someday happen….someday in the future.
It’s not a stretch to see who this promise of radical restoration would appeal to…. The closest thing I cold come up with would be if suddenly we heard that all of us with a mortgage suddenly found it paid, those with college loans, no longer in debt. I am pretty sure that there would be a lot of people happy and a lot of people not. I wonder which side of that divide I would be on. Perhaps it was not good news to all who heard Jesus proclaim the Year of Jubilee was upon them, because as we will hear next week, the praise of Jesus will quickly turn to rage and murderous intent. Oh how things have not changed. Good news is seen differently from those who find life easy and comfortable compared to those who are up to their eyeballs with debt discomfort.
But it’s not difficult to see why there would be different reactions. The “year of the Lord’s favor” isn’t seen in the same way by all, especially when you get down into the grass, close to where it would all play out. Indeed, who wants all this if your life is comfortable. And what would we do when we are faced with dealing with those who don’t deserve such radical restoration. What if they were to show up here? I’m wondering if we would find ways to exclude these free loaders. After all, we worked hard to get ours, why should they be just “forgiven” and allowed to move forward without the burden that they surely thrust upon themselves? Maybe we should just go back and spiritualize this gospel so that we can go back to our comfortable lives and keep those on the margins at bay.
I think we have to admit to that temptation if we are to leave this gospel and return to our regularly scheduled programs. But if we risk listening and hearing the call that Jesus sends us to join him in his ministry, our lives will change. They won’t reflect the values we may have worked so hard to maintain in our lives, but will rather become more like radical gospel living followers of Jesus. Or perhaps we can just hope that this isn’t meant for us, it’ll play out some time later. It’s more comfortable to make all this a future hope than a present reality. But if that’s where we find ourselves, there is an unfortunate reality that we see in this mornings Gospel. Jesus proclaims that today this scripture is fulfilled in him. We cannot project this all into a future hope. Jesus has eliminated that possibility.
Following Jesus seems like an easy thing to do. Pray the sinner’s prayer, get yourself into that book of life, look forward to going to heaven and then we can just keep rejecting people and making sure the margins hold. Or we can do something radical. We can actually follow Jesus by living like he calls us to live.