Mason Senior Sermon
Apr 29, 2009
Lisa Mason
Lev 25:8-14
Ps 147
Luke 4:16-21
Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus accepts the scroll and reads a passage from Isaiah...a passage which proclaims release and healing, the hope of being made whole....to proclaim good news to the poor, to free those held captive by the hands of the oppressor, and to declare the time of the Lord's favor: a year of jubilee- liberation, forgiveness from indebtedness to another, and returning home. This is a passage of good news.....of hope....of restoration.
Jesus reads this prophetic text, then sits down to preach the sermon as was the custom....we can just imagine the scene in our minds...Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, returning home and being called upon to be the reader in the synagogue that evening. Word had already spread to Nazareth about Jesus...he held such promise...Joseph and Mary must be so proud. You can just imagine the beaming faces as Jesus reads..., elbows nudging each other and heads nodding in approval He did a fine job until he speaks the words....today the scripture has been fulfilled....what? what does this mean, how can this be?
Jesus is claiming to be the one anointed by God to go into the world to live out the words in that passage from Isaiah...and to carry out God's redemptive plan of salvation to all people......all people....that was the catch...this passage in Luke goes on with Jesus recalling the time of the prophet Elijah when the only people from his hometown who were healed or restored were Gentile or foreigners...not the Israelites. Jesus reveals in this moment that the mission of God is redemption is for all.
The atmosphere in the synagogue turns from one of warmth and welcome to one of icy anger towards Jesus. Who does he think he is.....Joseph's son claiming to speak to them as the anointed one....even more importantly, who does he think he is, speaking about the year of Jubilee being for anyone but them. The anointed one is supposed to be coming to save them...God's chosen...to free them from the power of the Roman empire....the message from this passage of Isaiah shifts from being a comfortable, hopeful text to one of great discomfort.... From the understanding that they are to be the sole recipients of the good news to a call to participate in bringing about the good news to all.....you know what happens next....the crowd drives Jesus out to the brow of the hill intending to cast him over the edge of the cliff out of anger and fear...how dare he?
God's plan of reconciliation and unity is indeed good news, but it is not comfortable news to hear or easy news to live into for any of us. Often we hear this text and our minds imagine those in the world that we know need healing or release from different types of captivity, often thinking about how we can contribute to that work in the world. We tend to think of those outside of ourselves and our communities who need restoration instead of including ourselves as both the recipients of this promise of liberation and as those who can help bring about restoration in our own lives and to those in our very own midst. To respond to this call to reconciliation as individuals and as the Body of Christ requires a different way of being and a different way of living.
Reconciliation requires seeing ourselves and our neighbors as children of God. Just as the Jews were suffering from heavy tax burdens they could not afford and limited allowable religious practices both at the time that the prophet Isaiah proclaimed these words and when Jesus proclaimed that the scripture had been fulfilled, we too are at a time in which we as the church in the world desperately need to sound the trumpet proclaiming the time of Jubilee and a new life in Christ.
Fear is running rampant in the world...fear of financial ruin, fear of mounting debt, individually and corporately, fear of suffering and dying from extreme poverty and disease, fear of war and terrorism...fear of broken relationships....fear for survival....fear of divisions at many levels both political and religious. We are called as Christians to live out the gospel in this world....for me, this challenge can seem insurmountable at times. We are called to love as Christ loves. We are to preach liberation and restoration to those who are suffering and to those who are oppressed or in the margins.....but who are we talking about?
The boundaries that separate those in the margins from those not considered in the margins have become quite blurred, especially in the last year. Who are the poor? Those who live in fear, those without spiritual hope, those who are torn away from anything or anyone familiar or dear to them, those who are hungry and thirsty, those who literally live on the streets. And who are the blind? Hope for some seems impossible to see while for others, being blind means not being able to see the needs or hurt of anyone outside of themselves. Who are those oppressed and what and who is holding them captive?
No longer do we have an upper class that is comfortable and secure....many of those considered to be the ones who live in secular abundance have had the ground ripped out from under them and face a future of great uncertainty....this is captivity with a new definition. Political powers and those who control the ebb and flow of the financial markets are teetering in a new found place of extreme vulnerability. People who have worked their whole life believing they are prepared to enjoy retirement are faced with an uncertain future. The cost of living is increasing and the availability of health care for all is precarious at best, and consumerism continues to eat away at our society. The world is desperately looking for hope. With these now very permeable boundaries defining who is marginalized, people, some for the first time, are looking around them and seeing the poor and the outcasts with newly opened eyes and a glimpse of a first hand understanding of what it means to be captive.
While the upper and middle classes are being redefined, the number of those suffering from extreme poverty is growing by the moment. People are starving to death, suffering from addictions, and dying from diseases. People continue to be killed for no other reason than they represent the other.... What will it take for our divisions to cease and to be healed from this immense pain and fear?
In this passage, God proclaims God's desire for the world...the desire for all of us to live as a reconciled people...God wants nothing less for God's people that for us to begin to comprehend the abundant love out of which we are created and have our being. But in order for this unconditional love and wholeness to be present in the world, God empowers and equips each of us to see ourselves and each other as God sees us and to reach out to each other to experience this amazing grace together. We, the church need to be blowing the trumpet loudly so as to be the voice of resurrection, healing, and reconciliation in the world.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in a recent commencement sermon, preached the following: We have an extraordinary God, this omnipotent one who created all that is...without our help. And yet forever thereafter waits. Waits for us to become God's partners, God's collaborators, to help accomplish God's purposes. Quite astounding! And God is prepared to jeopardize the God project rather than dispense of our collaboration.
This sermon excerpt reiterates that it is our call as Christians to take action as participants with God in the ministry of reconciliation... to live in relationship with each other...to encounter the other and walk together... to be willing to lift the burden off the shoulders of a brother or sister, to be able to look into the faces of those with whom we disagree and those who have hurt us or others and see them as God's beloved.
A man from my parish is preparing to begin a prison sentence as a result of not being able to find healing from his addiction to viewing pornography on the internet. After his private confession and absolution, he wanted to seek reconciliation with the parish, fully aware of the risk of becoming an outcast. A letter revealing this difficult circumstance went out to the parish from the rector, and people who wanted to talk with each other met on several occasions. From the vestry to the rest of the parish, all of the dialogues were full of concern for this person and his family as well as the expressed desire to support him as part of this Christian community and the Body of Christ during the time of investigation, sentencing, and in prison. Not one person spoke of casting him out or abandoning him, but rather encouraged him to continue to attend worship.
Prior to his planned departure date, the laying on of hands and prayers of healing were held within the Sunday liturgy. One by one, members of the congregation came forward to lay hands on him and each other. I will never forget the sacredness of that moment and the immense desire to forgive and affirm the love of Christ through this community for this man. The awareness of the healing that occurred was palpable as this man and each person present experienced the healing power of the Holy Spirit at work. God is doing amazing acts of reconciliation through God's people. But there is the need for so much more.
We too, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, are called to the mission prophesied in Isaiah and claimed by Jesus. We too are the anointed ones....we are each anointed at our Baptism as members of the Body of Christ. As we experience the death and resurrection of Christ through the immersion into and out of the waters of baptism, our work of bringing about new life in the kingdom of God begins. As each of us are sealed by power of the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever, we take on the mission of Christ: to participate in God's redemptive plan of salvation for all....to see the world as God sees it....as God desires it...
We are loved by a God who walks with us in darkness, but a God who also calls us into the light...the light of hope and of new life. We too are called to walk with each other in times of darkness and to discover the path into the light together. This journey can be messy and challenging; it means venturing to places unknown both inside of ourselves and with others and willingly encountering ourselves and each other at an intimately deep and vulnerable level, but a level of relationship that allows God to work in and through us to find release from the earthly bonds that enslave us in order to find healing and hope in a God that restores us to wholeness. A God who loves us and abides with us through our deaths and resurrections...over and over and over...
Rowan Williams writes that it is the empowering love of God that lifts us up as the church in the world to call humanity to its best humanity. The Holy Spirit is active where the broken flesh and shed blood of Christ become the sign and promise of human wholeness and union with the Father. For all of us who are students, we are being formed during our time here by the faculty and community to be sent out into the world at this particular time as leaders and ministers to preach the reconciling mission of God....for some, it means heading off to a new diocese and perhaps unfamiliar ground; for others of us it means returning to the dioceses and the communities who sent us....and to people who are anxious to see what seminary has done to us and for us as we answer God's call to minister to them and with them with the love of Christ.
We are all called to preach, teach, and live the gospel among those with whom we are called to serve...this is big work, challenging work...it is us...all of us that are called to blow the trumpet for release, healing, and for new life. My prayer is that we, like Jesus in Nazareth, make people shift in their seats as we strive to live and proclaim the gospel in love and in hope. Preaching the gospel may in fact at times result in us finding ourselves being driven to the edge of a cliff by the people we love and serve... metaphorically and perhaps at times almost literally. At the least, we may witness downcast eyes or reddened faces with pursed lips as people leave church or be the unpopular topic of conversation over lunch after the service.The gospel should cause us to be uncomfortable.... and call us into action both individually and as the Body of Christ. But the God who loves us abundantly never lets us go...any of us go...ever
We are not called to do this alone. As Christians, we find our love in the triune God who created us and who breathed life into us, we find compassion, humility, and an understanding of suffering in the crucified Christ, and our hope is fueled by the fire of the Holy Spirit assuring us of new life in a resurrected Lord.
And now Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. ...filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
