Believing Jesus and Justice

Text: Luke 4:1-11
Other texts: Portions of Isaiah

For people and for nations, suffering reveals in them deep and cold theological questions. For faithful people, and especially people who, like Israel, had been chosen and named as God’s people, the question is not whether God exists. God does. The question in the darkest times is whether God cares. Does God care for them? And if God does care, is God good? And if God cares and is good, is this caring, good, God stronger than evil?

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is introduced to the world and prepared for his ministry in it by the Holy Spirit. It is the power of the Spirit that impregnates Mary. The Spirit who reveals the identity of Jesus to Simeon when Jesus was just a baby. It is the Spirit who comes at his baptism. It is the Spirit that fills Jesus before it leads him out into the desert to be tempted by the devil. It is the Spirit who escorts him back to Galilee to preach his first sermon. The one we just heard him preach today. It is the Spirit that will anoint him as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, making him the Messiah, the anointed one. There is no question in Luke’s mind about the source of the ministry of Jesus. It comes from the Holy Spirit.

Nor is there a question of where his ministry is going. This passage we just heard is Jesus’ first public act in the Gospel of Luke. And that act is a sermon. Jesus opens the Bible—taking the scroll of Isaiah—and finds the words of God he wants to talk about. He reads from the 61st chapter of Isaiah, a reading that echoes the themes of the Magnificat that Mary his mother sang when Jesus was still in the womb. About the poor, the prisoner, the blind, the oppressed. About the year of the Lord’s favor (the Jubilee, when debt is forgiven and slaves freed—imagine that!). Putting the reading aside, Jesus delivers his very short sermon—one sentence—relating the scripture people have just heard to their lives, as all sermons should. This reading, he says, has been fulfilled in their hearing.

This story is like an overture to the whole of story of the ministry of Jesus in Luke. Or an abstract, a précis. It explains how Jesus came to be here—by the power of the Spirit. Who he is—the anointed one. His mission—to proclaim good news to the poor and oppressed. And, in the verses just beyond today’s passage: what will happen to him—rejection and eventually execution. This passage ties Jesus to salvation history—God’s work in the world—and to the prophecy of a new world, one that is good and one that is just.

It ties him to the people’s hope of a messiah. But by choosing Isaiah as the reading for the day, Jesus reveals his particular messianic program and the focus of his attention. A return to the fundamentals, as Isaiah saw them.

Isaiah condemned the ceremony and piety of the Israelites, who had forgotten to care for the poor and dispossessed. The Book of Isaiah starts with God saying: “I’ve had enough of burnt offerings, new moons, sabbaths and convocations … I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.” That’s pretty clear. And later God judges their self-serving piousness, saying “Look, you serve your own interests … [while you] oppress all your workers.” And God reminds them that God’s call to them is “to loose the bonds of injustice, … to let the oppressed go free, … to share your bread with the hungry, … and bring the homeless poor into your house.”

By choosing the passage that he did from Isaiah, Jesus is announcing that it is this tradition on which he now stands, into which he has now been anointed. He is reiterating God’s primary call to attend to the needs of others. He has come to restore Israel and the world. And his program to do that: is to restore justice, equity, compassion, and care for the uncared-for.

You might understand, as some have over the years, you might understand this sermon of Jesus to be a declaration. An argument for the proof of his divine authority. He is speaking of godly pronouncements and, even more, of godly intentions. He claims the favor of the Holy Spirit and to be the anointed one. He fulfills the prophecies.

Or you might understand this sermon to be an exhortation: a call to action, a command. Jesus has come to restore justice and we should, too. He is not just saying this is a good idea, but that it is way of being that God commands and that is essential to the salvation—the healing—of the world. If we do not do as Jesus claims here (and will later command more explicitly), then what is broken will remain so.

Or you might understand this to be an announcement of good news especially to those whom he names: people who are poor, who are blind, prisoners of war (which is what “captive” means), to free those who are oppressed and abused (the word he uses means to be bruised). Or more generally people who suffer because of poverty, because of illness or accident; people who are imprisoned, enslaved or indentured; people who are exploited by others; people who are tyrannized by debt.

Jesus’ sermon is greeted with praise. All spoke well of him and were amazed, it says. It seems that they believe Jesus. And that they approve of his claim. And his plan. Yet, a couple of minutes later, in verses that immediately follow, they try to throw him off a cliff. There is a reason for that. Which is that he tells them that he will do lots of great things, but not for them, his hometown neighbors.

Why is this sermon at first greeted with such praise? And then with such anger? You might think that the crowd Jesus is speaking to is made up mostly of oppressed persons, a crowd of poor blind captives. But that is probably not so. It was a mixed audience.

Everyone is thrilled. Everyone is thrilled because no one likes an evil world, in spite of appearances. People do not like injustice, even if they benefit from it. They do not like imprisoning people, even if they pass laws to make it happen. They do not like oppressing people even when their actions bolster oppression.

They praise Jesus because they believe him. They think maybe he really can restore the world to the way it should have been and should be. Back to the Garden. That is why his neighbors are so unhappy when he quickly denies their hopes for a miracle. They are extremely disappointed, which only makes sense if they were extremely hopeful.

Jesus is making an announcement, which is this: you are right to think that evil is evil, and that this is not the way the world was made or the way the world has to be. God does care, God is good, God is stronger than evil.

Jesus is making a declaration, good news for all. It is this: reality is good and just, or can be. That what seems to be injustice can be reversed. That poverty can be undone. That exploitation can be stopped. That love is stronger than hate. The evil of the world can be fought and defeated. It is the messiah who will bring that about. And God is behind it.

But finally, it is also a charge to us, an exhortation, a should. The exhortation is this: that we—especially Christians—should live our lives as if there was a least a possibility of this becoming true. Not to dismiss it as either irrelevant or mythical or unrealistic or impractical. We should live as if the promise of justice is possible. For us and the world.

And the charge is this: that the day to day decisions of our lives—the things we do, the way we vote, the way we earn and spend, the things we say, the way we look at and evaluate situations, the way we judge and forgive, the way we deal with every other person—should be made in light of that promise.

A Motley Crew

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Martin Luther was against the practice of serving the Lord’s Supper in private. Wealthy parishioners would ask the priest to come to their homes so that they could eat the body and blood of Christ without have to journey to the church, or to take the time, and without having to associate with the riffraff. Luther wrote that the essence of Holy Communion was not just in the words of institution—this is my body, this is my blood—but in the gathering of the people who come to hear those words and to share the meal together in one place. When Jesus said “do this,” he did not just mean say some words, as if they were magic; he meant the whole event of the Last Supper at which he spoke: the assembly of the people, called together, hearing the Word of God together, reflecting and praying together, and eating together.

The apostle Paul had the same issue with his congregation at Corinth. The people were not eating together. Some ate ahead of time, some went hungry, Paul says, and some came in drunk. “Do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” he asks them. It’s a rhetorical question. They do.

A church is a congregation, a word whose root means to collect into a flock. There is no such thing as a congregation of one. Can you imagine a church with only one person? A preacher, but no one to hear. A person adding a prayer to the prayers of the people, but no one to share his or her concerns and celebrations. Some one sharing the Lord’s Supper, but no one to share it with. A colleague in a dwindling church once told me that sometimes there were only four persons present on a Sunday: “The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and me,” he said. That might be a fine and worthwhile experience, but it was not church.

Paul writes this, his first letter to the church at Corinth, because the church is full of dissension and division. Some people evidently think themselves to be better than others, more valuable, more deserving, or more essential. Some think of themselves as too good for the others. Paul writes this letter to correct them. “I do not commend you,” is his polite way of putting it.

A church is made up of all sorts of people. They are an odd assortment. They are odd for two reasons. First, the only thing they have to have in common, what unifies them, is their confession that Jesus is Lord. Second, within that one common thing they are a motley crew. Not shabby, but variegated. These two things: unity and diversity, define the church.

The church is a place of unity. Unity is essential. We are not just any old odd assortment of people. We are a particular odd assortment of people who see God’s presence in our lives and the life of the world, and who try to follow Jesus.

We can see that we are each recipient of gifts of the Spirit. But the gifts are the work of the Spirit, Paul writes, not our work. We all have different gifts, but we see that they come from God. It is the same God for all of us. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” Paul says. The same Lord. The same God. These gifts are given to us through God’s grace (grace and gift share the same root).

These gifts of the Spirit are not something to be hoarded or displayed on a shelf. They are given to us for the common good, Paul says. They are given in context of the church community. They appear not as a private skill, but as a public offering, to be shared and enjoyed—and admired—by all. In that sense, gifts are a calling. They are given to us not just for us to take, but to help us serve others.

The church is a place of diversity. Diversity is essential. The gifts are allotted to each of us, Paul says, just as the Spirit chooses. This does not mean the the Spirit blesses some more than others. All gifts are blessings. They are all manifestations of the Spirit. It does mean that what we get does not depend on who we are or what we have accomplished. Paul’s point is that no gift—no ability, we would say now days—is better than the next; his complaint with the Corinthians is that they think the opposite—and act accordingly. As we often do.

Both the unity of the church and diversity of the church come from God. They are essential in the sense that without both, an institution is not a church. But this does not mean that God assembles us like different Lego pieces into some pre-designed finished project. We are called here, but not because some gift we have is needed. It is the other way around. We are called here because we are. And the resulting church is the church that emerges from our gathering.

The church—this church, Faith Lutheran Church—is what it is because of the gifts we all bring together now, in this moment in history. The church cannot exist as a monolith—unity without diversity. But the particular way it exists depends on the particular flock collected here by God. We are all needed in common because this church would not be this church if even one of us was not here. It would be some other church.

Hospitality, tradition, and doctrine create a framework on which we construct the church, just like the scaffold in the pictures you see around here of this building being constructed one hundred years ago. We read a common scripture, and we sing common hymns and pray common prayers. These things are important and good and influential, but they do not define this place.

The church is not without history. Its unity and diversity extend back in time, to include all those who came before us and forward to all who will come later. (Because we have such a rapidly changing membership, we can see that in the small even now; as people come and go, you can see the church change.) Those who sat in these pews before us also make the church what it is now. And we make it what it will be decades hence. That realization is a big part of why the Building Faith capital campaign even exists. It is our turn.

We are calling today Commitment Sunday, because today we begin to record people’s promises—their commitments—to help repair, maintain, and improve this building which is the center of this church’s ministries. But what we do today is a small part of a larger reality. It is an extension of a commitment you and everyone who is part of this community of Faith has already made. We are all in this endeavor just in the way Apostle Paul described it. We have been given gifts of the Spirit—a variety of gifts—and the interplay of those gifts makes Faith what it is. By just being here today, you are a part of what the church is and will be.

These gifts are manifestations of the Spirit. It is a good word for this season of Epiphany. When Paul writes, the word he uses for manifest shares the same root as the word epiphany. Like epiphany, manifest means to reveal. The church is not just a beneficiary of the gifts of the Spirit. It also reveals them. Sometimes only God can see at first what a person’s gift is. And sometimes people in a church can see the gifts of others that the others do not recognize in themselves. And sometimes, as in Building Faith, the work of the church calls out—reveals—astounding gifts that have up until now remained hidden to us. God gives us gifts, God sees the gifts, God reveals the gifts.

Today especially we give thanks for the variety of gifts of the Spirit that makes us who we are. Today especially, as we all hear the Word of God, pray with one another, and share in Holy Communion, we celebrate our life together in this church.

What Shall We Call Today?

Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Other texts: Isaiah 43:1-7

Today, as you can see, is called the Baptism of Our Lord. But perhaps we should call it something else.

There is a lot of ink in the scholarly press about the baptism of Jesus. There is a lot of theological theorizing and worrying about it. Preachers are advised to preach today about the meaning of baptism, and of the relationship between baptism and the sinful life.

But in the Gospel of Luke, at least, baptism is not the main point. In fact, it is hardly a point at all. “Now when all the people were baptized,” it says, “and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened.” There is a lot more going on here than the baptism of Jesus, which is mentioned only in passing.

To focus on this baptism in the life of Jesus is to miss an important part of Luke’s story of Jesus. Jesus is a person of the people. Throughout Luke, Jesus is allied with the poor and the oppressed. Jesus is poor. It is easy to imagine—and people do—to imagine Jesus standing in line with all the other people waiting for his turn. (Though it does not say so in the Bible, and who knows whether there were any lines). To emphasize unduly the moment of baptism is to spiritualize Jesus in a way that Luke would not have admired or intended.

It is hard to say how far we should take this thinking. Jesus was not the only one baptized. Was he the only one to hear the voice from heaven, which we assume to be God’s voice? You are my son, whom I love, God says. But does not God love all God’s sons and daughters? Does God love Jesus especially? Maybe God murmurs in the ears of all the newly baptized: I love you. You who were baptized as adults, how was it in the moment? Did you hear such a whisper?

No matter how or whether we answer these questions, it is clear that this particular event in the life of Jesus is a kind of inauguration. Plus a transfer of power. This event—and not only in Luke’s Gospel—marks the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. From this day forward he is Jesus whom the people follow, all in hope, some even to their deaths. And John fades to the background (in the verses we skipped, Herod puts him in jail).

How then, should we call this day?

Maybe we should call it the Call of Our Lord Sunday. We could compare the voice of God to Jesus embodied in the dove-like thing with the voice of God to Moses embodied in the burning bush. Luke often relates Jesus to Moses. Perhaps God’s message to Jesus was his call to ministry, as it was to Moses. The message to Jesus would then have been a loving invitation. An invitation coupled perhaps with a little arm twisting.

If this is a call to Jesus, was Jesus surprised? We think not, since we know the rest of the story, plus we have in our minds 2000 years of interpretation. But that is not how it unfolds in Luke. We just do not know. And if he was surprised, was it a pleasant surprise? How does Jesus, human Jesus, see his short, miraculous, homeless, and violence-touched life ahead of him? Is he eager or suspicious or reluctant though willing? Being called by God is a mixed bag more often than not. Ask any prophet.

Or maybe we should call it the Announcement to Our Lord Sunday. In Matthew and Mark, who also in other years have a thing to say about this event, this interchange with Jesus is more public. For them, it is a confirmation that Jesus, this particular man, has been singled out and everyone had better know it. In those Gospels, Jesus strangely has not much to do with it, other than to be an object of God’s remark.

But in Luke, it seems that only Jesus hears this particular communication. It is addressed directly to Jesus. Is this a secret between the two of them, father and son? Perhaps God here is preparing Jesus for the journey ahead. Or as God did Elijah, encouraging Jesus not to despair of hardship and the upcoming temptations which follow almost immediately. Or simply reminding Jesus who he is, a child of God, not alone.

Or maybe we should call it God Says I Love You Sunday. There are lots of ways to translate what God says to Jesus, and each Bible does it differently. We have our Bible: You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased. Or the similar: you are my beloved son. Or the slightly more direct: My beloved son, in you I am well pleased. I like this one: In you I have found delight. Or this one, which is from the paraphrase Bible called the Message: You are my son, pride of my life. But I like best this one from the fairly rigorous translation of the NIV: You are my son, whom I love. Which is, after all, the point.

What is happening here is sheer grace. God is declaring God’s love for his child, Jesus. This is not a statement of approval or reward for past actions. It is not a statement laying out future conditions or expectations. It has nothing to do with anything that Jesus did or will do. It is a free offering of love of Jesus from God.

It is especially powerful after the off-putting hopes for unquenchable fire that we just heard from John. It echoes the first reading from Isaiah, in which God so beautifully says to Israel:

I have called you by name, you are mine. … I will be with you. … you are precious in my sight, … and I love you.

Today is a special day of celebration for this church. Today the four communities of faith that worship here in this building gather again to share a meal together. To give thanks together for all that God has provided us in this place. And to prepare for its future together.

One of the things we learn from the Bible is how God works. In the world and in our lives. There is no doubt that we all and each have been called here. The evidence surrounds you. No doubt some of us find that surprising and others are hardly surprised at all.

God has reminded us that we are God’s church, as all churches are, but not any less. God has issued us a loving invitation. We are inclined to accept.

We go forward now, remembering what we have always known: We are God’s children, precious in God’s sight, loved by God.

Light in Darkness

Text: Readings for Epiphany

A generation that has been traumatized by an event of human or natural suffering and destruction can sometimes only be healed by the next generation to come. The Israel that Isaiah describes was torn from its land and was exiled to Babylon. But later Persia freed the Israelites and allowed them to go home. The passage we heard from Isaiah comes from this period. It describes a time when the sons and daughters of Israel come home and comfort their parents with a joyful vision of what is to be.

The vision was a restored Jerusalem. Not only restored to its former glory, though there was that, too. But to be restored as a fitting people of God. The Israelites were God’s people. They had been given great gifts. The law and the promises which flowed into and from it were a guide to the right kind of life, a life which was in sync with God’s manner and intentions, which is what the word righteous means.

Israel was to be a light to the rest of the world—the nations, the gentiles. The light was a beacon—a marker of the kind of nation that was God’s nation—and an illumination—revealing God and God’s way. The world was a mess—as if it were covered with a thick darkness, as the world often seems to be. Israel was to be the model, an example to the world of the way all nations could be.

And now, says Isaiah, it will be so. Nations will come to your light, it says, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. But the radiance of Jerusalem was not the light of Israel, though. It was not owned by Israel, not inherent in its nationality. It was the radiance of God shining through and in the people of God.

What the other nations were drawn to see was not the power of Israel. Not its success and riches. Not the grandeur of its army. It was something else.

The kings of Israel were anointed by prophets and operated under the law of God. Psalm 72, which we just sang, is a prayer for an inauguration, the crowning of a new king. The prayer accomplishes three things. The prayer makes the king: it calls on God to empower the king to fulfill God’s intent. And it reminds the king of what that intent is. And it prepares a way to judge the king, in case the king should fail in remembering or in acting. As kings and leaders sometimes do.

The rulers of other lands would be drawn to Israel because of the way of life of the people that was embodied, as the psalm describes it, in the job description of the king. The king has three responsibilities: to ensure justice, righteousness, and peace.

Justice means that the poor are not neglected nor exploited by the rich. A just society is when things are even-handed, where the prosperity of some is shared with the needs of others. Justice is not fairness or equality (or retribution), but a force that restores right order and reconciles the needs and resources of all. The king defends the needy, the psalm says, rescues the poor, and crushes the oppressor, delivers those who cry out in distress and have no helper.

Righteousness means that the principles of the culture are lined up with the will of God. We’ve talked about this before. There is a way of God. Righteousness is not purity or strictness as much as it is an alignment of point of view, goals, and methods. It is more than doing what God says to do; it is being in sync with God and God’s creation.

And peace—shalom—is peace between nations and people, peace of mind, and also—as it is translated in one of the two times is appears here—is also prosperity. It is what we mean when we say “a time of peace.” Not just safety and defense, but a time without fear or anxiety. A kind of pervasive contentment.

Kings will come to Israel because it is governed in a way that ensures justice, righteousness, and peace. This is God’s call to Israel. And it is to us, who hear this same call from Jesus.

It is not surprising that Matthew borrows the images of these readings—foreign rulers bringing gold and frankincense, for example—to tell the story of the wise men who come to honor Jesus. The three kings, which is what we call them by tradition—Three Kings Day, and We Three Kings of Orient—though they are not kings and not three.

This day is properly called Epiphany, which means to be revealed or made known or make manifest. It is more completely called in some traditions the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. This is helpful, because on this day we celebrate not only the appearance of Jesus in general, but his appearance in the midst of all the people of the world, not just a particular group.

You will have noticed that all the readings, even the one from Paul, talk about foreigners and strangers. It is important to Matthew that Jesus comes for the sake of all nations, not just Israel. Luke, who is especially concerned about the poor, has lowly shepherds greet the birth of Jesus. But Matthew puts there instead educated scientists—of a sort—from foreign lands. As it is with Paul, Jesus is a way for God’s grace to be made available to all sorts of people, even ones who do not expect him and who find him not in tradition or scripture or doctrine, but in other signs and pointers. And who perhaps end up not following him but go on by another road.

What is not different is that the light that shines in Jerusalem, according to Isaiah, and the light that shines in Christ through his teaching and his life is the same godly light. And in the same way it is a beacon and an illumination to all people.

The job of the king was to be the protector of justice, righteousness, and peace. Later, this job was delegated to all the people, and eventually through Christ it has become our job. It is given to us in baptism—may your light so shine before others. As with kings, we are not called to be recruiters, but we are called to act so that others may see God’s light.

The king’s charge is to, as the psalm says, be like refreshing rain upon the field, nourishing showers that water the earth. We have inherited that charge with this purpose: that justice, righteousness, and peace will prevail in all the world.

It is a joyful vision of what is to be.