On A Mission From God

Scripture:  Isaiah 61:1-7; I Corinthians 12:12-31; Luke 4:14-21

 

 

 

The 1980 movie “The Blues Brothers” starring Dan Akroyd and John Belushi, told the tale of Jake Blues, just released from prison, who learned that the Catholic orphanage where he and his brother Elwood were raised, would be closed and sold unless an overdue tax bill was paid in 11 days.  Perhaps we here at Emanuel can feel some connection to the movie’s plotline, given our church’s role in founding the orphanage that became Bethany Children’s Home.  But I digress…..   Anyway……Jake and Elwood put together their old band to raise money to save their orphanage, explaining in a deadpan voice to anyone who asked, “We’re on a mission from God.”   Braving pursuit by police and a flamethrower-wielding Carrie Fisher, among other obstacles, they manage to get the orphanage’s tax bill paid, just before being sent back to prison.

 

In our reading from Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus beginning his mission from God, to save, not just an orphanage, but the world.  While Jake Blues just returned home from prison, Jesus has returned home after being baptized by John and after 40 days’ temptation in the wilderness.  And the baptism and temptation in the wilderness were formative, character-developing, life-changing experiences for Jesus – the folks in Jesus’ hometown who had watched Jesus go off to be baptized by John found that Jesus came back to them changed, speaking and acting with a conviction that hadn’t been there before.  He had departed his hometown as the carpenter’s son, and returned as one on a mission from God.  Luke tells us that “Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”

 

We’re told that Jesus went to his hometown synagogue and stood up to read.  The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and he found the place where these words were written:

"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 favor."

And we’re given the first sentence of Jesus’ sermon:  “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  Yet what had changed during the moments in which Jesus read?  Apparently, nothing – except for Jesus’ proclamation.  And yet it is Jesus’ proclamation that changes everything – because Jesus is claiming his own ministry as the fulfillment of this text.  This proclamation sets the tone for what we are to expect from Jesus’ ministry from this point on.

 

Jesus’ choice of this text is intriguing.  Actually, it’s two texts, Isaiah 58:6 and Isaiah 61:1-2.  So this passage did not occur in Isaiah as a single connected text; Jesus himself brought these Scriptures together into one text for his reading in the synagogue.   In reading this passage, Jesus is proclaiming good news – but good news targeted in a particular way.  Let’s listen again:

            He has anointed me to bring good news – to the poor

            He has sent me to proclaim release – to the captives

            Recovery of sight – to the blind

            To let go free – the oppressed

            To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

If you are poor, a captive, blind, or oppressed, Jesus’ words are indeed good news.  If, however, we’re wealthy, if in our privilege we can say that the world is your oyster, if we’re oppressors – the good news Jesus proclaims may pass us by, and Jesus’ words may leave us cold.

 

That last phrase – “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” – had a particular meaning in Jesus’ context that we may miss in our own.  The year of the Lord’s favor is a description of the year of Jubilee, that time that was supposed to take place every fifty years, in which debts were to be forgiven and slaves freed, and lands that had been seized for debts were to go back to the original owners.  In our context it sounds impossible, and we don’t know how faithfully it was observed in Biblical times either.  But the idea is one to which I think we can all relate – that it’s not God’s will for some to become fantastically wealthy while others are forced into destitution.  The Jubilee was an every fifty years attempt to reset the clock, to wipe the slate clean and give people a chance to begin again on a playing field that was, if not level, at least not outrageously stacked against them.  And this is also part of the mission of Jesus – to wipe our slates clean and give us a chance to begin again. 

 

These are the parts of the Isaiah passage that Jesus included in his reading in the synagogue that day.  It’s also notable what he left out.   In the original passage, Isaiah not only writes about “the year of the Lord’s favor” but “the day of the Lord’s vengeance.”  But Jesus left the vengeance part out – vengeance wasn’t on his agenda.  The message Jesus came to proclaim was one of grace, of second chances – and of the importance of caring for our neighbors, especially the poorest and those furthest on society’s margin.

 

The message Jesus proclaimed in his hometown synagogue is the message the church is called on to proclaim today.    Jesus has called us to be on a mission for God.  We, as church, are called, in Jesus’ name, to proclaim good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, release of the captive and liberation of the oppressed.     And while we probably will not, like Jake Blues, encounter Carrie Fisher and her flamethrower, we’ll surely encounter the flames of opposition in other forms. We are called upon to provide an alternative to the world’s way of doing things, an alternative to empire.

 

Because all of us, poor, rich, or anywhere in between, need release from bondage.   Many, especially here in Philadelphia, are literally dying to be released from bondage to poverty, to unemployment, to debt, to foreclosure, to addiction, to illness and lack of access to medical care.  But those on the other end of the economic spectrum are in bondage as well – to addiction to wealth and privilege and the fear that comes with trying to supply those addictions.   While poverty causes some to end up without a home, wealth leads others to barricade themselves, to imprison themselves,  in gated communities, where they only associate with their own kind – and what an empty existence that must be.  While physical illnesses such as diabetes brings blindness to many in the poor and middle-class, wealth and privilege can bring spiritual blindness, as the wealthy cannot see the realities that lie outside the bubble worlds of their own creation.

 

The messages of empire, of the world’s way of doing things – whether the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day or the corporate empires of our own day – some of which have more wealth and wield more power than individual nations - divide us into opposing factions – rich and poor, urban, suburban, and rural, immigrant and native-born, different races, different languages, and so forth.   It’s a game of divide and conquer, in which the very wealthy set struggling people of different races and languages and neighborhoods in competition and in animosity against one another, so that they cannot unite to challenge what Paul called the powers and principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places.  But Paul’s message to the church at Corinth reminds us that, in Christ, we are all connected, each of us individual limbs of Christ’s one body.  And this body includes believers around the globe.  So when poverty, war, environmental devastation impact believers – whether our members here at Emanuel, or whether they affect our neighbors elsewhere in Philadelphia, or in the portions of New Jersey and New York City still recovering from Hurricane Sandy, or in another part of the country affected by drought or fire, or in a distant country, as Christians we cannot just turn our heads away – because they are part of the one body of Christ, as we are.   One part of the body of Christ cannot say to another, “I have no need of you.”  If one part suffers, the whole body suffers.  If one part is exalted, the whole body is lifted up.  It’s like that on the small scale of life here at Emanuel – as few as we are, we all need to pitch in, to give and receive help - and it’s like that on a global scale as well.

Recently, I got to see a little glimpse of what it looks like when the different parts of the body of Christ work together.  In late December, after Christmas,  I spent a day in Ocean Beach, NJ – and in January, I spent a day in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay neighborhood.  These communities, with surrounding communities, were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, and are struggling to rebound – in Ocean Beach, nearly all of the businesses were closed, entrance in and out of Ocean Beach was restricted, subject to police permission, and there was a strict curfew to limit looting.  In these 3 months since the hurricane, the news cameras, along with the American Red Cross have long since moved on – and most of the folks I talked to in Ocean Bay said that the Red Cross wasn’t all that helpful after the first three days.  FEMA has continued to do good work in Ocean Bay, but in many cases FEMA simply wants to bulldoze damaged homes, while the owners want to try to repair and preserve what they have.  But volunteers from many organizations – Americorps, church groups, various organizers who had been involved in Occupy Wall Street and various local Occupy movements – are working together, providing mutual aid on a day-by-day basis.   And since I told folks I was from Emanuel United Church of Christ in Philadelphia’s Bridesburg neighborhood, you were all with me in spirit.  In Ocean Beach, I was with a group who shoveled sand dunes off eight properties that were just a few blocks from shore.  And, oh boy, did I feel it the next day – I lunge into those situations thinking I’m still 30 and thin and running 10k races regularly, but then my body rapidly reminds me that in reality I’m 50 years old and 50 pounds overweight and short of breath.  But anyway – in helping my neighbors in New Jersey, I wound up meeting my neighbors in Pennsylvania – among them a Presbyterian church group from Lansdale and a number of young adults from an Amish or Mennonite community in central Pennsylvania.   Had it not been for a disaster in New Jersey, would I have met these Pennsylvania neighbors?  On a day in January, in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, I met neighbors from far away – one of the volunteer coordinators had grown up in the Bronx and later moved to Florida – when she heard about the devastation, she returned to NYC to help.  The young man who served as head of the neighborhood volunteer office, run as part of the Occupy Sandy assistance network, had hitchhiked his way across country from California, and over the past three months has become a major presence in the neighborhood, going door-to-door, knocking on peoples’ doors every day and asking folks how they are – this California kid, probably around 20 years old, skinny as a rail, silver metal rings adorning not only his ears but his nose and his lips as well, is like a block captain for a neighborhood in Brooklyn.  In Sheepshead Bay, as in many hard-hit neighborhoods in New York City, mold is a big problem – as is the sometimes slipshod work from the contractors FEMA has hired to do the home cleanouts.  Sometimes, in addition to their own cleanout work, it’s the volunteers helping to keep the contractors honest and helping to advocate for the homeowners when repairs fall through the cracks – one part of the body helping another.

 

Jesus said, quoting 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 favor."

May we at Emanuel Church find the power of the Holy Spirit upon us, liberating us from our bondage to sin and to the powers of empire, and calling us, in Jesus’ name, to proclaim God’s liberation to others.