“Interesting News”    

Date:  January 24, 2010

Script:  Luke 4:14-21

Revd William F. Meier    ~   First United Methodist Church, Saint Cloud, Minnesota

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Each morning I like to read the newspaper while I eat breakfast.  The news of the world I usually get from NPR, so the local stuff I focus upon…get the pulse of the community…find out what people are thinking.  I especially look for who is going to get it in the Letters to the Editor— which politician, what cause, which public official, what project, which political party or what policy that is deemed evil in one way or another.  This Thursday the title of the Letter to the Editor was, “Our Churches need more relevant, lively sermons.”  I suddenly realized why newspapers across the country are having such difficulty surviving as I thought about dropping my subscription.

The article read in part: 

“Church services in Minnesota are boring.  It seems clergymen [his term] put themselves on automatic and go through the motions service after service.  Congregants’ eyes glaze and thoughts drift, occasionally interrupted by children or the collection plate.  Sermons are not holding their interest.

“Variety is the spice of life and there is no spice in conservative Minnesota religion.”[1]

He goes on to praise places that are acceptable to him where the music was outstanding and the liturgy and ritual interesting, but then criticizes it for being repetitive.  He apparently really loves a clergyperson in Arizona who teaches in an entertaining way that provokes thought, and admits that he takes a drink now and then.  He then wraps it up by anticipating a counter-argument that if church is boring it is partly because of a lack of faith, or focus or involvement on people’s part.  True, he says, but it is up to the preacher to make it interesting. 

As I got the phone book out to cancel my newspaper subscription it hit me; he’s right.  It is up to the preacher to make it interesting.  So I put the phone book back in the drawer. 

But how to make it interesting?  How to introduce spice without dumbing-down, entertaining only…without having to divulge whether I have an occasional Scotch or not?  

Jesus didn’t seem to have difficulty making his sermons interesting.  He drew crowds to Synagogues or hillsides, temples or beaches.  His first sermon was a rouser in his hometown, Nazareth.  The reception was initially very positive:

“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

But by the time it was all over the tides had shifted and they ran Jesus out of town in anger and tried to kill him by throwing him off a cliff.  (No boredom that Sabbath I guess.  There’s nothing more entertaining than a lynching).

If that is the end-result of interesting sermonizing I’m content with your eyes collectively glazing over and falling asleep.  Perhaps I will send a donation to the Newspaper for extending my life-expectancy with this realization!

It has become common for organizations to have mission statements— some guiding vision or principle that indicates how the group intends to act to accomplish its goal, and what that goal is.  Some individuals have developed their own mission or purpose statement; an expression of who they are and how they see their purpose being lived out.  The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren is an example of this.  (A friend of mine intends to write a book titled “The Aimless Apathetic Life,” but I doubt he’ll get around to writing it.)  In Warren’s book he encourages all to develop and live out this purpose…be driven by it.  He has Scripture citations throughout the whole thing, only he never explores Jesus’ mission statement in Luke 4— this powerful, succinct statement of Jesus’ purpose apparently wasn’t considered relevant for informing a Christian’s life purpose.[2]

Yet this passage is clearly Jesus’ mission statement.  It is his keynote, his agenda, his platform that the whole rest of his ministry unfolded and lived out.  Perhaps we should unpack this sermon to see why it drew such rave reviews and crowds in the thousands…and, such anger…violent, guttural anger that led to his elimination.

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,
¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

This citation from the Prophet Isaiah came across as good news indeed.  The focus of this new movement was help for the poor.  Those in the small town of Nazareth were far from the power-brokers in Jerusalem and were oppressed by feudal landlords, taxes in the 50-60% range, and experienced the daily struggle for the necessities.  Good news for the poor— sign us up!

Release to the captives.  Jesus indicates that prisoners of war and political prisoners would be part of his work.  The Galilee was known as a hotbed of political zealots; more than one rebellion against Rome was squashed effortlessly with massive military campaigns in the region.  No doubt everyone there knew someone who was held captive or oppressed by Rome in some way.  Release— we’re on board Jesus!  (Interesting stuff here.  I’m learning).

Recovery of sight.  Healing, wholeness, perception restored, reality clarified.  By now Jesus is on a rhetorical roll, like Howard Dean at a political rally clicking off all the states he’s going to win on the campaign, and the people are right there with him.  Sight restored— sounds great!  So by the time Jesus throws freedom from oppression in there they are nearly screaming.  Who doesn’t feel oppressed by “The Man”?  You go, Jesus! 

He then takes it higher by bringing in the concept and practice of the “year of the Lord’s favor” or “the year of the Lord.”  And the crowd is nearly ecstatic.  The Year of Jubilee was an ancient Hebrew practice from way back.  Every seventy years the agricultural lands lay fallow— rested.  Those who had been sold into slavery were released and could go home free once more.  Debts were forgiven or concluded and all land that was sold to wealthy landlords in lean times in order to survive was to return to the original families.  It was like re-booting society.  Everyone goes back to square one in the game of life and starts over.  The resources that were taken and concentrated in a few powerful were redistributed among all.

[Jesus own family was among the poor.  Joseph, and probably Jesus a carpenter or construction worker—not a skilled craftsman of the middle class—but lower than a peasant for his family had lost their land at some point within the last seventy years.]

Jesus is on a roll.  Each new feature in his plan going higher and higher.  They are loving it.  “ ‘…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…’   And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.” 

To us it reads like a great wrap up to a sermon.  But to those ears in that dusty Synagogue it was like he left off the best part.  Quote one more half verse and the place would have erupted!  But he stopped… mid-sentence…and sat down.

The climax that Jesus left off was the second part of verse 2 of Isaiah 61:  “and the day of vengeance of our God.”  Those unsaid words rang in the minds of those present… and the silence of Jesus in these words filled them with vengeance.  Who doesn’t want good things for us, and God’s punishment on the bad guys? 

But Jesus didn’t go there.  In fact, in the rest of his sermon he points out how God has dealt graciously with those who are outsiders… outside the faith, outside the country, the bad guys…and how often there was more faith in them than in us.  (This is more than interesting now… it is meddling, threatening).  So they led him to the nearest cliff outside of town to throw him off. 

Jesus’ personal mission statement was to bring about change to the order of society; the Good News was for the poor and oppressed those on the edges of society.  He was out to liberate folk from the structures that choked the life right out of them…healing, release, restoration was coming.  A whole new order was what he had in mind, a whole new way of being together as society.  His teaching, table fellowship, forgiveness and miraculous healings all challenged the status-quo, the purity system that held everyone in place, locked down and out, servants of the rich and powerful.  It is no wonder some wanted to kill him from day one.

This is not a Gospel of “Me and Jesus”, concerned only with individuals getting their souls into some post-mortem heaven.  Rather, it is clearly a social Gospel.  Jesus’ first passion was the Kingdom of God; this radical reality (all around and within us, “at hand”) that is in-breaking this worldly reality and turning it upside down, re-booting it, transforming it.  This first, all-consuming passion of Jesus led to his second passion on the cross.

So far in Luke’s Gospel we’ve seen the Spirit of God show up as a dove at Jesus’ baptism.  We’ve seen that same Spirit drive him into the wilderness for a time of discernment, and now we’ve seen that same spirit upon Jesus, anointing, empowering his ministry of release into a new order.  “The Holy Spirit came and taught Jesus what was real: to say no to the false options and temptations in this world and yes to God’s good purposes for all people; to say no to self-glory in all its forms and yes to helping the poor and the captured of all kinds; to say no to trying to get your God to work for you and yes to working for your God with urgency and compassion.”[3]

Maybe Church will be interesting (not when we are entertained), but when God’s Spirit drives us into mission…when we have something to do for God.  When we have something to do for God that relates to good news to the poor and release of those captivated and imprisoned by systems and structures that oppress them.  We have work to do in Haiti for God.  The Spirit is calling us to it.  We have work to do for God in our own ministry (Children, youth, adults, families that need wholeness, good news, empowerment).  We have work to do for God in our Great River Interfaith Partnership, the Salvation Army and others that have a compassionate eye for the marginalized, the oppressed, the poor in the area. 

The Newspaper’s work is to bring the news every morning.  Our work is to bring Good News, (along with others), of a whole new order of things—God’s order called the Kingdom of God.  And then to work for it.  Amen.