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If you get The Chronicle News, you may have read Catherine Moser’s article entitled Joy to the World dated December 22. Catherine writes “What’s Cookin” in Trinidad” in which she shares her recipes and insights about food in her special folksy way. This particular article was different, instead of focusing on a certain food, she focused on some childhood memories, one of which really cracked me up when she talked about her “drug” problem.
I am familiar with this problem because I too had it as a youth. Like Catherine, I was dragged to church every time the doors were open. Sunday morning services, Sunday evening services, mid-week Wednesday services, youth group, and so on! You get the picture.
It seems that Jesus had the same in his youth. Joseph and Mary “raised him right” as this girl from the South would say. He attended Hebrew school. They brought him to the synagogue every week–as a baby, a child, a teenager. He kept going, even as an adult. If you will note in verse 16, “Jesus went into the synagogue as was his custom.” So, he continued to worship in the synagogue long after his “drug” problem was over.
Do you think it was hard for Jesus to walk into the synagogue for the first time after he had been away? He had become well known preaching in Galilee. In the power of the Spirit, he taught in the synagogues and everyone praised him. News about him had spread through the whole countryside. I am sure that a lot of the people at the temple were familiar, just older. People who remembered him as Joseph’s little boy. Maybe some remembered him fondly, maybe others not so much. But a hometown boy made good was certainly a source of pride and a draw to get people in the synagogue doors. I would think he might have been somewhat apprehensive. There is something about being around folks who knew you when you were a little kid that can be somewhat unnerving.
But, apprehensive or not, Jesus returns to that Nazareth synagogue and is asked to read the lesson from the prophets. We don’t know if they used a lectionary to determine what the day’s readings were to be, or if it was Jesus’ choice to select what to read. However, it would not surprise me one bit that the Isaiah passage just happened to be the lectionary reading for the day because we know that is how the Spirit works! Jesus is handed the scroll and placed it on the lectern. He unrolls it to a place near the end of the scroll and reads Isaiah 61:1-2.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Finished with these few verses, Jesus rolls up the scroll, returns it to the attendant, and takes his seat.
In the synagogue, it is the custom for teachers to sit, rather than to stand, so when Jesus sits, everyone looks at him, expecting some commentary, some explanation of this text, a text well known to many of them. There are no professional clergy in the synagogue. The synagogue president can invite any appropriate person to comment on the text. Sometimes, these remarks are less than inspiring. While the people are biblically literate, commentary on scripture by local folks is often just rote recitation of lessons they learned at an early age.
However, Jesus doesn’t recite something he learned in Hebrew school. He overthrows the ho-hum expectations of the people around him. Instead, this local boy done good hits them with a real zinger!
“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus does the unexpected, the unimaginable, on that sabbath morning in Nazareth. In today’s business vernacular, he claims for himself Isaiah’s prophetic words as his own mission statement. He boldly stated why he was here on this earth. He wasn’t Mary and Joseph’s little boy anymore. He was a man with a God-given mission. He was to “bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free”.
Spoiler alert! He then proceeds to poke at them with a few Biblical stories you will hear about in next week’s gospel, to the point where all the people in the synagogue were furious with him. They drove him out of town and attempted to throw him off a cliff! But of course, he evades them and continued living out his mission statement of preaching the good news to the poor, healing the broken hearted, and so on.
And he lives out his mission statement until finally it kills him. Some people welcomed Jesus’ message but others did not. He upset their unfair advantage, questioned their complacency, and pushed them to recognize their habitual infidelity to God. They find their discomfort increasingly intolerable and think that his judicial murder will bring an end to the matter. They are wrong, of course, we know the rest of the story. Jesus rose from the dead and continues his mission today, through us, his Church.
All of us who are baptized into his body enable Jesus to live out his mission statement. The poor gain hope because we feed their bodies and their souls. The captives experience freedom because all are captive in sin without Jesus saving power and we share that freeing message with them. The blind in Christ receive sight when they are enlightened with the good news we share. The oppressed are set free, whether oppression is a abusive living environment or a chemical dependence.
However, some people are hesitant to help Jesus live out this mission statement. They don’t feel like they have the gifts needed to preach, or teach, or praise the Lord in song. They may not feel like they have much to offer in his service. But they are wrong.
Let’s go back to our First Corinthians passage. I want to point out three key points from that Corinthians passage that Paul mentions.
Number One. All members of the Church have gifts for ministry.
Number Two. The members of the Church have different gifts for ministry; we are not clones of each other, we are unique.
Number Three. The different gifts come to life in the context of the whole. We are many parts that make up the Body of Christ.
We all have gifts. We don’t all preach or sing or play a musical instrument or feed the hungry. But we all have gifts to give. Remember that because of donations of food, clothing, and money, there are people who are fed, wearing warm coats, and the homeless become housed. There are people from Afghanistan that are being welcomed in love. Everyone has some special gift they offer both within our congregation and outside our walls.
Let me tell you about a lady named Debbie. She attended St. Andrew’s ELCA church in South Glens Falls, New York. Debbie was a hugger! She was one of those people who just seemed to know when you needed a big ole hug, and she was there for you! She could give you a great bear hug and you walked away knowing that you were loved! It seems like a small thing, a simple hug. But Debbie’s hugs meant so much to me, especially when I learned that she was fighting cancer, again. She ultimately went home to the Lord where I am sure she is part of the official hug team at the pearly gates and I can’t wait to see her there!
Everybody may not have the gift of hugs like Debbie, and probably during these times of COVID they are not medically recommended but I sure miss them. But what other gifts can you offer to others to drive home Jesus’ mission statement? Maybe you can give someone a hello that you haven’t spoken to before, meet a neighbor you haven’t met. You can write cards and letters or make phone calls to someone you haven’t talked to in a while. Send a simple text that says I am thinking about you. There are ways we can connect in our masked pandemic world that can bring us together and share a bit of God’s love.
I love the old Spiritual, There is a Balm in Gilead. Now, if I had one of Becky’s gifts, I would sing it to you but sorry, you are just going to have to be happy with me reciting the 3rd verse. “If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus, who died to save us all.” Hey, all of us can do that!
Amen!
