January 27th,
2019 “The Lukan Messiah” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Luke 4:14-21 with 1
Corinthians 12:12-26
If you were here last week, you might
remember that I told you that this year we would be looking at Jesus’ ministry
in the gospel of John and the gospel of Luke.
Last week, we read about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in John’s
gospel. In that gospel, Jesus’ ministry
begins at a wedding and it begins with a miracle. Because he is able to turn water into wine,
people begin to believe in him. His
miracle is called a sign, pointing to who he is as one who brings the abundant generosity
of God to life. Our reading for this
morning is from Luke’s gospel and in this gospel, Jesus begins his ministry in
an entirely different manner. This is
our first glimpse of the Lukan Messiah, or the Messiah according to the gospel
of Luke.
(Read Luke 4:14-21)
We can see the contrast right
away. Instead of becoming famous for
miracles and signs, in the gospel of Luke, Jesus is famous for being a good
teacher. When Jesus’ adult life begins in
Luke’s gospel we have the story of his baptism, which we read a few Sundays ago,
followed by the story of his period of temptation in the wilderness, which we
will read in March as we begin the season of Lent. Following these events, Luke tells us that
Jesus was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and he began to teach. Everyone loved his teaching, and praised him,
and before long, news about him began to spread across the land.
Eventually Jesus returns to his
hometown of Nazareth and he does there what he has done elsewhere, preaching in
the synagogue. He gathers with the
community for Sabbath worship and volunteers to read from the scroll of
Isaiah. He reads about the coming
Messiah, and all that he was promised to do, and then he sits down to
teach. As the eyes of all look on to see
what he will say, Jesus claims that “today this scripture has been
fulfilled.” Jesus claims that he is the
Messiah, and it is pretty shocking.
We will have to wait until next week to
find out how the hometown crowd reacts, but this week we can look at who the
Messiah is in Luke. Remember last week,
in the gospel of John, Jesus’ actions showed who the Messiah was. He was one who celebrated with the people,
who was the sign of a new religion, who was the embodiment of Old Testament
promises fulfilled, and who gave with abundant generosity. We concluded last week that our response to
the Messiah of John’s gospel was to share the abundance we have with the world.
This week we see who the Messiah is in
Luke. Pulling from the prophet Isaiah,
Jesus tells us that he has been anointed by the Holy Spirit, and he has come
for a specific purpose: “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,
and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” or the Jubilee year. Luke makes is really clear who Jesus is and
what he has come to do. So what is our
response to this Messiah?
The tasks of the Messiah become the
tasks of the church and throughout history the church has interpreted this in
several ways. The easiest way to read
this is to spiritualize the text. If
these tasks of good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of
sight are spiritual then they are easy to understand and act upon. Jesus gives good news to us, releases us from
being captives to sin, and opens our eyes to the truth of God. The year of the Lord’s favor or Jubilee year
is a forgiveness of debts and to spiritualize this implies the forgiveness of
the debt of sin we owe to our Lord. It’s
easy to take this spiritualized Messiah as a model for the church because it
doesn’t ask anything of us. Jesus has
come to forgive us of our sins, the end.
The problem is, a spiritualized
interpretation of this text does not line up with the rest of Luke’s
gospel. Luke isn’t preaching a
spiritualized Messiah, instead he is preaching a socio/political Messiah. He is talking about a Messiah who literally
brings good news to poor people, who literally releases people who are in
bondage, who literally opens the eyes of blind people, who literally frees
those who are oppressed, and who literally forgives all monetary debts and
slavery. Luke is preaching a Messiah who
bucks the power system and changes the world.
The Messiah Luke is preaching is a threat to those in power, a threat to
the traditional church structure, and a threat to us. Luke is telling us that if we are not working
on behalf of the poor in real ways, if we are not working for freedom in real
ways, if we are not working to end oppression and debt in real ways then we are
not the real church. It’s that simple.
A few months ago, the Brown Bag Book
Group read “Convictions” by Marcus Borg and in that book Borg discusses several
ways that American Christianity has gone off the rails or become diverted from
the truth of the Bible’s call upon our lives.
One example of this is just what I am talking about, how we have
spiritualized who Jesus is rather than look at what he literally is doing and
what he literally asks of his followers.
Borg thinks this is caused by our ideology of individualism. He writes:
“The United States
has the greatest income inequality in the developed world and it is the product
of the political ideology of individualism – the belief that how our lives turn
out is largely the result of our efforts as individuals. Individualism emphasizes what used to be
called the “self-made man.” If our lives
have turned out well, it is because we have worked hard and deserve to keep
what we have made. It favors “the
gifted” – whether gifted by a genetic inheritance of good health and
intelligence, family values that emphasize education and hard work, the economic
class into which we are born, inherited wealth, and so forth. It has a cruel corollary: if our lives have
not turned out well, it is largely our own fault because we failed to make use
of our opportunities. Many Americans
embrace the ideology of individualism and studies indicate we are the most
individualist country in the world.”
I would argue, this embrace of
individualism, leads us to reject the Messiah in the gospel of Luke. I don’t need to care about the poor if being
poor is their own fault. I don’t need to
care about the oppressed because I myself am not oppressed. I don’t need to care about those crushed
under the weight of debt because I am managing my personal finances just fine
on my own. I don’t need a Messiah who
does these things in an ideology of individualism; I just need a Messiah who
forgives my sin.
While the spiritual significance of
the Messiah and the forgiveness of sins is important, it is not the only
message, or even the dominant message of Luke’s gospel. In Luke’s gospel the call for social justice,
for actions of faith, and for the common good, outweighs the writings about
personal salvation.
Over and over again, the Biblical
texts tell us that what happens to the poor should matter to us even if we
aren’t poor. In our reading from Paul’s
letter to the church in Corinth we find his famous argument about the church as
the body of Christ. Just as the body is
one and has many members, so too, we though many are a part of the one body of
Christ. I think this metaphor for
wholeness extends beyond the church and into our society and the world at
large. Just as Paul argues the eye, the
head, and the foot are all essential parts of the body, so too, all individuals
on this planet are essential members of the body of Christ. Be they poor, blind, captive, or oppressed
they are all of value to God. Paul
writes, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is
honored, all rejoice together with it.”
This should be true of all of us and all of those we meet in our world
this day.
Again, Marcus Borg writes:
“The alternative –
or necessary compliment – to the ideology of individualism is a politics that
takes seriously “the common good.” It is
grounded in a number of realizations. None
of us is self-made, however disciplined and responsible we may have been. We benefited from what previous generations
did for “the common good” including universal education, civil rights, gender
equality, government-created infrastructure, and so forth. Moreover, the common good should concern all
of us, not only for moral but also for pragmatic self-interested reasons. Countries that take seriously the well-being
of all are safer and healthier: they experience less crime and mental illness,
lower infant mortality, longer life expectancy, less desperation, and so
forth. In all of these categories, the United
States lags behind most of the developed nations of the world.”
The Messiah we find in Luke’s gospel
calls us to turn away from the American ideology of individualism and embrace
instead the common good. Jesus in the
gospel of Luke cares deeply about the poor and the oppressed and calls us to do
the same. And Paul reminds us that if
these members of the body of Christ suffer, than we should suffer with
them.
What happens to other people matters. It matters to me and it should matter to
you. If we are going to embrace the
Messiah in Luke’s gospel than we need to embrace his mission and make it our
mission as well. We are called to bring
good news to those who are poor and have little, by sharing the abundance we
have and encouraging others to do the same.
We are called to open people’s eyes to Jesus’ work and ministry and the
call to justice. We are called to release
those who are being held prisoner by unjust systems or social structures. We are called to labor to end oppression in
any form. And we are called to create a
community of forgiveness. These things
are the marks of those who follow Jesus and they are the marks of the true
church.
Today is our annual meeting, and the
time when we reflect on the good work we have done this past year and on who
God is calling us to be in the year ahead.
This is a perfect time to consider who we are as a church and how we are
fulfilling the call of the Lukan Messiah to bring good news to the poor and
freedom to the oppressed. If we are
going to embrace the common good of our brothers and sisters then that needs to
be a common goal of this church family.
The message that Jesus brought to the
hometown synagogue was a challenging one.
He clearly stated who he was, the Messiah, and what his mission was,
justice, freedom, forgiveness, and abundance.
Those who would follow this Messiah can see their mission here as
well. As the church of Christ, we are
called to do these things in our world.
This is the measure of our faith.
May God help us embrace the Lukan Messiah and share his mission and
ministry in our world. Amen.
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