Preached on January 24, 2016
at First Church in Sterling, MA Scripture: Luke 4: 14-21 click here for audio. Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts together be acceptable unto you oh God our rock and our redeemer. Amen. 18 ‘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, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (Luke 4: 18-21) Amen. [Preacher sits down.] Hi. I’m back. What were you thinking when I sat down? “Is she for real?” or “Has she run out of things to say already? It’s her second year.” or “Did she forget to write her sermon or something?” or “Is she OK? Is she sick?” or “Maybe she thought she’d have a snow day this morning.” or “How much do we pay her again?” or “Well, that sermon was blessedly short! Best church day EVER.” Did you know that John Davis pays me five bucks if I keep the service under an hour? We are surviving on one salary right now in my family…and we need all the help we can get. Sometimes we preachers talk far more than is necessary, when there really is only one thing to say, or we could just let the text speak for us. Sometimes we speak when we should keep silence—we have so little silence in our lives already. My preaching professors and wise senior colleagues used to say that most preachers only have one sermon in them, and they spend their whole career trying to say the same thing over and over again in different ways. Well, Jesus had one sermon in him, too. Yes, he told a lot of stories called parables, and he healed a lot of people, and he said a lot of things. Mostly he DID things at let his actions speak for him. But his words and his deeds all boiled down to one core message throughout. A mission statement. And we heard Jesus’ mission statement today. In our scripture that Dave read today from Luke, Jesus is beginning his ministry. He has returned to his hometown of Nazareth in Galilee, and everyone has heard about him at this point. He had begun to teach in the synagogues, and word was spreading. He was “praised” everywhere he went. He was on his way to becoming, in other words, a bit of a celebrity preacher. And so Jesus gets to Nazareth where he grew up, to his hometown congregation in Galilee. The people there are probably pleased as punch, the way we all feel when our kids come home from college. Kind of like how when our Ben Davis was here last week, home from UVM, to read some scriptures, and some words from Martin Luther King. There’s an “awwwww” factor, and an “awe” factor going on. Hometown boy makes good. So, Jesus gets up to preach, looks over the crowd, unrolls the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. Expectation fills the room. People catch their breath. He stands in front of them, probably thinking a flood of thoughts. Looking over the crowd and seeing his Hebrew teacher from first grade, and the elder who wasn’t too nice to him when he took too much cake at social hour. Maybe his palms were sweaty, and maybe he swallowed hard. And Jesus cleared his throat, and read this text from the Prophet Isaiah: 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, To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. And then, with all eyes on him, and all of the people waiting with baited breath to hear what he might say next, Jesus sits down. I call this “Jesus mic drop.” Jesus takes the scroll, reads the text, decides it’s all the words he needs to say, and drops the mic. And then he sits down. I can only imagine what the people in that Temple were thinking when Jesus sat down. They were expecting to hear a sermon—some commentary on the text. They were expecting so much more than what he gave them, which was from the scrolls that they had heard probably hundreds of times already. “The eyes of all the synagogue were fixed upon him,” the text says. They stare. “DUDE. Did he forget to write his sermon or something?” “Is he for real? THAT’S IT?!” And all eyes still on him, still sitting in his chair, maybe because he senses they need more from him, Jesus adds: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s it. That’s his commentary. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Dianna Butler Bass, in her sermon “the power of today” says: “(The people in the synagogue) were likely shocked. What do you mean that the Spirit of the Lord is HERE? Now? Today? That the poor hear good news, that prisoners are being released, the blind see, and the oppressed receive justice? This is the year of Lord's favor? Have you been watching the news, Jesus? Are you aware of how horrible things are? That there is more inequality than ever, more people in prison unjustly, more illness of all sorts, more violence and terrorism than our ancestors ever knew? This now--today--is the kingdom of God? Are you crazy? "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Today.’” (see her sermon here) You are probably thinking the same thing. Have you been reading the news, Jesus? There is no way that this scripture is being fulfilled today. Today, I heard on the news about the Syrian war and the worst refugee crisis in the history of the world, and I read about more racism and homophobia being perpetuated by famous politicians and by the churches that should be safe harbors, not places of hate, and I read today on the news about more hurt and brokenness, and suffering beyond measure. You can’t be serious that this scripture has been fulfilled TODAY. But that’s exactly what Jesus says. That’s his whole sermon. Today the scripture has been fulfilled. And Jesus’ mission statement is also for the Church, since the Church belongs to Jesus—since Jesus left us with the power to continue on with his work--which is now ours' to do. So this mission statement is ours’. We claim ownership of it; including the now-ness of it. Today the spirit of the Lord is upon US. Today WE have been anointed to bring good news to the poor. Today he has sent US to proclaim release to the captives. TODAY the sight of the blind has been recovered. TODAY the oppressed will go free. TODAY is the year of the Lord’s favor. And yet, in the Church, we don’t often talk about the power of today. Instead, we spend a lot of time reminiscing about the past, and freaking out about the future. We romanticize the past. "Our old governance system was better." "What happened to the line drawing of the church on the front of the bulletin?" "I miss when our minister had a beard." "Remember when everyone wore their Sunday best to church?" "Back in the 1990s, our youth group attracted people from miles around!" "In the 1950s, our pews were full because people all went to church every Sunday back then." "In my day, there were no soccer practices on Sunday morning. The stores weren’t open. We didn’t sing these newfangled hymns." “Those were the good old days.” And on the other hand, we wring our hands about the future. “We need to get more children here, or the church will die with us!” “What if we don’t make enough money in the stewardship campaign to fund all these new staff people?” “I keep hearing that Protestant churches all over the state are closing and shuttering their doors for the last time…is that going to happen to us?” These millennials are never going to come back to church…not even when they have children. “Do we need to get a rock band?” Is Twitter the new Facebook or is Instagram the new Snapchat?” Beloved, ultimately, neither the past nor the future is what matters. “Harness the power of TODAY,” Jesus says, in his one-line commentary. Jesus sounds like a self-help guru when I say it like that, doesn’t he? But that's what he says. Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And this scripture is fulfilled by the people of this church, TODAY. We have been anointed by the spirit, to bring good news to the poor, and the poor is all of us—we who live in a culture that starves the spirit, thrives on separation and greed, and feeds empty consumerism. Our good news is the message that all are loved, that all are welcome, that there is depth and joy beyond the culture of MORE and better. We are doing this today—proclaiming this Good News. Today the scripture is fulfilled. We are bringing good news to the poor. We are releasing captives today, too: those of us held captive by the illusion of control, by addiction and bad relationships and bad financial decisions, and those of us held captive by the boxes we are put in, and the expectations of others. People are being set free by our shared faith. I can’t tell you how many people come into my office, or tell me at social hour: for the first time in my life I feel like I am worth more than what holds me back. I used to feel like a captive of a prison of my own making, and now I feel free. Today the scripture is fulfilled. We are setting the captives free. The blind are receiving sight right now. Our eyes are being opened TODAY to what we were once oblivious to—to what was once hidden or covered over. 90 people gathered to talk about shedding light on racism in our communities on Wednesday night, here in our parish hall. 90 people. Our outreach team has shared with us the hidden needs of people suffering in our community—the least, the last and the lost, here where we live. Our eyes are opened more and more, and we are responding. We were blind, but now we see. Today the scripture is fulfilled. We are recovering sight to the blind. The oppressed are being set free. We are coming together to raise money and send another medical mission team for the 19th year in a row to a deeply oppressed population of Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic. Close to 200 people gathered in the parish hall last night to fund this trip. We are giving these workers medical care and clean water, and hope for a better tomorrow. We are looking for ways to connect with our Muslim neighbors, and to serve the poor and lonely in our own community in partnership with them. TODAY the scripture is fulfilled. The oppressed are going free. And still, there is more work to do. This is annual meeting Sunday, the day when we all meet immediately after this service is over to do the “business” of the church. To vote on the budget, to hear about the progress in the strategic plan together, to figure out who among us will lead us effectively today to share our good news, to release captives, to recover sight to the blind, to lift up the oppressed, to help bring about the kingdom of heaven here on this earth, with the help of God. We will decide just how much money it will cost to serve our people TODAY—to gather in the spirit of Jesus TODAY; to create heaven on earth TODAY; to expand our vision of the beloved community TODAY. And then we will put our money where our mouth is, because it matters NOW, and so we will raise our pledges. TODAY. Not because of our nostalgia for what once was, and not even for some vision of the distant future, but because it matters TODAY. Because the people we serve TODAY need us now more than ever. And perhaps the business of the church may sound boring to you and old fashioned or unfashionable, or expensive, or like none of it really matters that much anyway. But the governance of our church is freedom, is grace, is salvation, healing, life-saving to many--a church where all have worth and dignity; where all have a voice; a church that reaches out into our community with its hands and with its funds, and to communities all over the world. Our church that provides a spiritual home for children, youth and adults that is safe for their precious and fragile souls. Our church that stands by us in the toughest and most tender moments in our lives. Our church that holds the hands of people who are dying. Our church that seeks to build a world worthy of our children’s promise. Our church that challenges us to be better people; our church that commands of us; that claims us; that shakes us; that challenges us to put our money toward our deepest held values. Our church that gathers in the spirit of Jesus, and commits to creating heaven on earth. 18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon us because he has anointed us to bring good news to the poor. He has sent us to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. AMEN.
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AuthorRev. Robin Bartlett is the Senior Pastor at the First Church in Sterling, Massachusetts. www.fcsterling.org Archives
February 2021
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