January 26: the Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January is a month for inaugurations: There was the inauguration of a new mayor for Richmond, which was postponed by the water crisis (it hasn’t happened yet). There was a presidential inauguration, which was scaled down and moved indoors due to the frigid weather.
And there is this Epiphany season. Epiphany is an inauguration season, in which we see in various ways how God is manifest in Jesus, how God is revealed in the person of Jesus. Epiphany began with the journey of the Magi to worship the new-born king and continued with the baptism of our Lord at the river Jordan.
Last Sunday we heard the story of the wedding at Cana of Galilee and the water being changed into wine, the first public sign that Jesus performed in John’s gospel.
Last year at this time, in Mark’s gospel, we had the story of Jesus visiting a synagogue in Capernaum, where a man who was possessed by a demon loudly outed Jesus as the Holy One of God. Jesus exorcised the demon and set the man free, to the astonishment of the congregation.
In John and Mark we get miracles. In this liturgical year, in Luke, we get a sermon as Jesus’ inaugural act as the Messiah (Luke 4:14-21).
It’s the rare story of Jesus in a synagogue. We get just one or two synagogue stories in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Luke does portray Jesus as a regular in the synagogue: he had the habit of observing the sabbath by participating in the prayers of the local congregation. But we don’t get any warm, inspiring vignettes of congregational life. Instead, the gospels all show that discipleship is mainly to be lived outside the cozy confines of the congregation—out in the world, where people are broken and beaten down, distressed and depressed. Jesus is a man with a mission, and his mission is to mobilize a movement, to inspire others to live and love after his example, boldly and bravely.
In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit at the Jordan; he goes into the wilderness for 40 days and nights, where he is beset by the devil, who tempts him to make a spectacular public display to prove that he is the Son of God; Jesus resists the devil, who leaves him. Jesus returns from wilderness and goes back to Galilee. Far from being depleted by his ordeal, he is full of the Spirit when on the he sabbath enters the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth. He stands up to read and is handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He chooses what to read, stitching together two prophetic texts. Jesus proclaims that he is anointed by the Spirit to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. He proclaims a jubilee year, which, according to the law given by God to the Israelites, was to be observed every 50 years. In the jubilee year, slaves are to be freed, debts cancelled, land returned to those who are impoverished, and the land itself allowed to rest from agricultural production.
Jesus reads the proclamation of jubilee and then sits down. The congregation was staring at him in anticipation of what he might say next—you could hear a pin drop in that silence.
Many years ago in a preaching class, I was given this advice: Big occasion—small sermon. And that advice has served me and my fellow preachers very well. Whatever the grand occasion—a seminary student preaching for the first time in her home congregation, or a preacher on his last Sunday with a congregation—one should keep the sermon short and the message simple.
Jesus is the inspiration for this sage advice about sermon brevity. With everyone leaning forward, he delivers his inaugural sermon in a single sentence: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Boom! Mic drop.
If we read forward in Luke, we’ll hear how the congregation is amazed by his message. And so are we! Amazed and perhaps perplexed. We might well ask: How? How is it fulfilled in our hearing?
Jesus’ inaugural sermon is a prospectus for everything that follows in the Gospel and in the acts of the apostles—how Jesus, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, manifested God in word and deed; how his life, death, resurrection, and ascension formed a fellowship of disciples, who at Pentecost were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to bring the kingdom of God to their nearest neighbors and far beyond the boundaries of Roman Palestine—to extend the wideness of God’s mercy and compassion by building a community of cherished belonging that transcended culture, ethnicity, and geography.
We might wonder: are his words to be taken literally or metaphorically? And the answer is yes: it’s both. Jesus restores sight to some who were blind. And he opens the eyes of others, so that they might see clearly who he is and how they are to live and love like him and help others to do the same.
But how can his words be true? Our biggest objection might be the state of the world today. It is hard to see any signs of prophecy fulfilled, of jubilee, of health and freedom for all. As a matter of fact, the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer. People are drowning in debt of all kinds: educational, medical, and commercial. The U.S. has less than five percent of the world’s population and almost 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Wars and the threat of war are everywhere. Childhood infectious diseases are making a comeback. Plastic waste is polluting our waterways and food sources. The signs of climate change are unmistakable and catastrophic, yet we insist on exploiting and degrading the earth without regard for posterity. Many in positions of power and authority pretend not to see, or else they recklessly, gleefully, and maliciously dismantle the policies, laws, institutions, and norms designed to protect us and promote the dignity of every human being and the wellbeing of creation. It seems like it’s now okay to be cruel and to foment fear …
Well, that’s enough for the bad news! “Scripture is more full of hope than of peace on earth proclaimed where there is no peace, the inversion of unjust power hierarchies proclaimed where they are firmly in place. At first glance,” writes Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, “it all seems a bit premature: will we not look foolish, [proclaiming] our liberation while we are still in chains?”
“Yet the proclamation of liberty always proceeds its actual birth. In 1776, the American Declaration of Independence resolved ‘That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved.’ It is worth noting,” Crafton reminds us, “that this assertion marked the beginning of the struggle for independence, not its end. The end was still seven bloody years away. All political ideas live in the human imagination before they become flesh in the human community. So it is with all prophecy. So it is with Jesus: he proclaimed liberation and healing before it came to pass.”
God’s dream for the world is a community of cherished belonging for all, in which everyone has equal dignity and all flourish. Our hope is in God’s agency, God’s initiative, God’s grace, God’s gift of Jesus. God is faithful. God has ordained and commissioned the church to bring about God’s dream of cherished belonging.
How do we get to be a community of cherished belonging? For inspiration I look to the saints in ages past and to those leaders today who seek to embody compassion and justice, and who practice what they preach, including the Bishop of Washington, Maryann Edgar Budde, who authored a book called How We Learn to Be Brave. Their lights help me to see that cherished belonging is birthed and built by our actions: We don’t look away from what is broken or diseased. We stand up for what is right. We don’t stay silent but speak truth to power. We plead with the powerful for mercy for those who are vulnerable. We recognize the dignity and gift of every human being. We leave no one out. We come together as living members of the Body of Christ to make God manifest in both word and deed.
The very good news is that we are already in Christ, which is to say, we are part of the church, a community of cherished belonging. Here every moment, every smile, every affirmation, every hand extended in fellowship, every gift, every truth spoken in love, every insight and lesson, every prophetic proclamation of hope, every confession, every challenge brings us closer together and helps us to more fully embody the hope we hold in our hearts.
For St. Mary’s Episcopal Church may this be a jubilee year, a year of the Lord’s grace and favor to all. May the church strive always to be a community of cherished belonging in which strangers become friends. May we extend our hands in love beyond the boundaries of this parish. May we be Christ’s disciples in the world. May we seek to embody justice—remembering that justice is what love looks like in public—so that all may know that they are cherished by God. May it be so. Amen.
The Rev. Greg Bezilla