Luke 5:1-3
I love this scene. Jesus is down by the lakeside – happens to be the big lake in Galilee, sometimes called Gennesaret. The people are all crowded around Jesus while he is talking. It is not a formal setting, like the synagogue. Some of the men in the crowd go on cleaning their nets. Kids are playing by the water’s edge. I’m sure there is a lot of activity going on as people do whatever they’re doing and listen to this traveling rabbi speaking about big ideas in manageable bites.
Although from Nazareth, Jesus has been around this lake country long enough that people are familiar with him. News about his teachings and miracles is already spreading and so the crowd is getting bigger. Some people are having a hard time seeing or hearing him, there are so many people.
As Jesus talks, he notices a couple of boats close by at the water’s edge, and the fishermen cleaning their nets in the water. Jesus knows these guys. One, Simon, is a guy with whom Jesus is already acquainted. In fact, Jesus has been to his house, healed his mother-in-law, had dinner, and probably stayed the night.
So Jesus climbs into Simon’s boat. He’s been around enough he already knows which boat is Simon’s. Doesn’t have to ask. But he does ask Simon to put out from shore – just a little bit. And then he sits down and continues to teach.
This is centuries before megaphones are invented. Even so, it was already known that water surfaces make a natural megaphone. When I was in graduate school, my apartment faced a swimming pool which had a hot tub at its far end. My roommate and I could hear people talking in that hot tub late at night, whether we wanted to or not. I could write a book…
Jesus understands this dynamic – not just because he created it, but also because it was common knowledge for anyone that hung around such a body of water. So Jesus takes advantage of this natural megaphone, not to get away from people, but so they can understand him better.
Sometimes platforms distance speakers from their audiences. When that happens, a sad dynamic unfolds. For distance is the opposite of what Jesus intended with his life’s work. As Luke writes, the people are “listening to the word of God.” Not just in random form, but as one of the fishermen listening that day would later put it, the word come in the flesh. It is the word of God communicated in relationship. These were people getting to know Jesus fairly well by now, a fact that added meaning to what he was teaching.
The other day I finally joined Facebook, at the prompting of an old friend. Heard immediately from another old friend who, when she wrote, sounded just like she talked. It was uncanny. Her voice came through loud and clear, regardless the years and miles. That’s what happens with Jesus’ words to this crowd. He’s not foreign to them and thus his words hit home.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
First Things First
Luke 4:42-44
After that very productive Sabbath in Capernaum where Jesus taught in the synagogue and healed all kinds of people, he likely spent the night at Simon’s house. Such were the hospitality rules of the day. But early the next morning (the NIV says “daybreak”), Jesus went out to a solitary place. He’d been around people a lot. In fact, staying overnight at Simon’s house likely meant sleeping in a room with other people. In any case, he’d had no time for himself.
Jesus had one custom he would not abandon. He would give himself to people until he was way past tired. But he would not forsake getting away by himself to be with his Father, and often it was early in the morning when life hadn’t gotten too busy yet.
Jesus was human. He needed rest just like everyone else. He also needed to reconnect with his Father in heaven, both because he was divine and because he was human.
In other settings, he would explain that he and his Father are one – theirs is a unity that can not and must not be broken. Jesus is nothing apart from his Father. Yes, he had to be about serving and blessing people. But unless he spent time with his Father, his serving and blessing were impossible. Even more so in that Jesus was fully human. He understood that without that connectedness, he was totally finished.
Back in Nazareth, there had come yet another temptation to Jesus from the Evil Tempter, that time in the voices of his home town people. They wanted Jesus to prove his authority by healing people. Jesus refused. It was the same form of temptation that had come in the desert when the devil had suggested that Jesus turn stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger – to use for selfish means that which God had given him to bless others. Father God alone was to satisfy Jesus needs – be it hunger or vindication.
Temptations come daily and in very subtle ways. There are always pressing needs around us – no end to them in fact, especially in the case of Jesus. But Jesus understood that if he gave in to the crowds, there would be no end. It was a principle he fought hard to keep all his earthly ministry, even at the expense of grave misunderstandings.
Now he is confronted with a dilemma. There are still people who need help in Capernaum. And when the people discover that Jesus has left Simon’s house already that morning, they go looking for him and, when they find him, they beg him to come back.
Two temptations are here. One is to neglect that time he must have with his Father. Temptations don’t look bad on the surface. There is so much to be done. Spending time alone with God or helping people who desperately need help – the choice is tough. The other is, Why should Jesus move on when he hasn’t finished taking care of all the needs in this village first? Jesus understands his marching orders and can resist the second temptation because, in resisting the first temptation, he has heard from his Father. The more temptations are resisted, the stronger our ability to resist becomes.
There is a method to Jesus’ decisions which doesn’t become readily apparent at this point. All Jesus says at this point is that he has been sent to preach good news among the Jews and until he has gotten to all the towns, he cannot settle down. Thus he must move on. Through the Spirit’s promptings, Jesus understands what needs are to be met and what needs are to be left for God to meet in some other way or some other time. Painful as it is to resist, we are not to give in to the tyranny of the urgent. The desire to do good can drive us to our grave – and to hell itself – unless we understand that we serve Father God and not the needs of the hour.
After that very productive Sabbath in Capernaum where Jesus taught in the synagogue and healed all kinds of people, he likely spent the night at Simon’s house. Such were the hospitality rules of the day. But early the next morning (the NIV says “daybreak”), Jesus went out to a solitary place. He’d been around people a lot. In fact, staying overnight at Simon’s house likely meant sleeping in a room with other people. In any case, he’d had no time for himself.
Jesus had one custom he would not abandon. He would give himself to people until he was way past tired. But he would not forsake getting away by himself to be with his Father, and often it was early in the morning when life hadn’t gotten too busy yet.
Jesus was human. He needed rest just like everyone else. He also needed to reconnect with his Father in heaven, both because he was divine and because he was human.
In other settings, he would explain that he and his Father are one – theirs is a unity that can not and must not be broken. Jesus is nothing apart from his Father. Yes, he had to be about serving and blessing people. But unless he spent time with his Father, his serving and blessing were impossible. Even more so in that Jesus was fully human. He understood that without that connectedness, he was totally finished.
Back in Nazareth, there had come yet another temptation to Jesus from the Evil Tempter, that time in the voices of his home town people. They wanted Jesus to prove his authority by healing people. Jesus refused. It was the same form of temptation that had come in the desert when the devil had suggested that Jesus turn stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger – to use for selfish means that which God had given him to bless others. Father God alone was to satisfy Jesus needs – be it hunger or vindication.
Temptations come daily and in very subtle ways. There are always pressing needs around us – no end to them in fact, especially in the case of Jesus. But Jesus understood that if he gave in to the crowds, there would be no end. It was a principle he fought hard to keep all his earthly ministry, even at the expense of grave misunderstandings.
Now he is confronted with a dilemma. There are still people who need help in Capernaum. And when the people discover that Jesus has left Simon’s house already that morning, they go looking for him and, when they find him, they beg him to come back.
Two temptations are here. One is to neglect that time he must have with his Father. Temptations don’t look bad on the surface. There is so much to be done. Spending time alone with God or helping people who desperately need help – the choice is tough. The other is, Why should Jesus move on when he hasn’t finished taking care of all the needs in this village first? Jesus understands his marching orders and can resist the second temptation because, in resisting the first temptation, he has heard from his Father. The more temptations are resisted, the stronger our ability to resist becomes.
There is a method to Jesus’ decisions which doesn’t become readily apparent at this point. All Jesus says at this point is that he has been sent to preach good news among the Jews and until he has gotten to all the towns, he cannot settle down. Thus he must move on. Through the Spirit’s promptings, Jesus understands what needs are to be met and what needs are to be left for God to meet in some other way or some other time. Painful as it is to resist, we are not to give in to the tyranny of the urgent. The desire to do good can drive us to our grave – and to hell itself – unless we understand that we serve Father God and not the needs of the hour.
Monday, March 23, 2009
A Full Day in Capernaum
Luke 4:38-41
We were talking last time about Jesus exorcising that demon in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Afterward, Jesus visits the home of Simon. This is the first time Simon (or Peter, as we know him better) appears in Luke’s gospel. But the parallel passage in Matthew comes after the Twelve have been called and Peter is already following Jesus.
When I run across a passage in the Scriptures that doesn’t chronologically make sense, I try to treat it like I would an old friend who suddenly exhibits a hint of inconsistency. I suspend judgment until I can get a clearer picture, preferring to give the friend the benefit of the doubt – to declare innocence until proven guilty. So too with studying the Word.
There are actually a number of ways to sort out this chronological confusion. For our present purposes and limitations, let’s taking the story at face value and see what we come up with.
What is happening here? Jesus gets to Simon’s house where Simon’s mother-in-law would normally be busy getting food ready for whoever Simon happened to bring home from synagogue meeting that day. It wouldn’t take long for word to get to her that Simon was bringing home a rabbi – news travels fast in small places. But in this case, the hostess is in bed running a high fever.
Nowadays, we have a lot of medical options to treat fevers, especially those of us living in more financially well off countries. In Jesus’ time, a high fever could easily bring on death in just a few hours. A fever was not something to be taken lightly. So Jesus is asked to do something about it. Already the people in that area are beginning to expect that Jesus will have solutions to problems as they arise, even these deadly ones.
So Jesus goes to her bed. Matthew records that Jesus touches her hand, whereas Luke reports that Jesus rebukes the fever. We can assume he did both. In any case, the fever leaves her, apparently immediately. In fact, she is so quickly restored that she immediately begins to assume her proper role in waiting on the guests who have come into her house.
As daylight waned, people brought to Jesus all kinds of sick people. Word had gotten out during the day how Jesus healed the demon-possessed man in the synagogue and how he healed Simon’s mother-in-law. So, as would be expected, people assume that Jesus is in the healing business. Most people couldn’t afford doctors and medical practices were so primitive, doctors could rarely affect a cure anyway. So when a solution presented itself, people were quick to make use of it.
All kinds of people came and Jesus healed them. Luke, a doctor himself, notes that Jesus touched each one – “laying his hands” is the way the NIV puts it. Medical research has demonstrated the power of touch; how much more so is there power when the one doing the touching is touched by God.
When the healing involved demon exorcism, the demons left declaring Jesus’ identity. To which Jesus replied, by rebuking these evil spirits and forbidding them to speak, again wanting to protect his self-disclosure process.
It had been a full day, so much different from his reception in Nazareth. Here in Capernaum, the people had responded freely to Jesus and so Jesus in turn gave freely to them. No wonder Jesus preferred hanging out in Capernaum over Nazareth.
We were talking last time about Jesus exorcising that demon in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Afterward, Jesus visits the home of Simon. This is the first time Simon (or Peter, as we know him better) appears in Luke’s gospel. But the parallel passage in Matthew comes after the Twelve have been called and Peter is already following Jesus.
When I run across a passage in the Scriptures that doesn’t chronologically make sense, I try to treat it like I would an old friend who suddenly exhibits a hint of inconsistency. I suspend judgment until I can get a clearer picture, preferring to give the friend the benefit of the doubt – to declare innocence until proven guilty. So too with studying the Word.
There are actually a number of ways to sort out this chronological confusion. For our present purposes and limitations, let’s taking the story at face value and see what we come up with.
What is happening here? Jesus gets to Simon’s house where Simon’s mother-in-law would normally be busy getting food ready for whoever Simon happened to bring home from synagogue meeting that day. It wouldn’t take long for word to get to her that Simon was bringing home a rabbi – news travels fast in small places. But in this case, the hostess is in bed running a high fever.
Nowadays, we have a lot of medical options to treat fevers, especially those of us living in more financially well off countries. In Jesus’ time, a high fever could easily bring on death in just a few hours. A fever was not something to be taken lightly. So Jesus is asked to do something about it. Already the people in that area are beginning to expect that Jesus will have solutions to problems as they arise, even these deadly ones.
So Jesus goes to her bed. Matthew records that Jesus touches her hand, whereas Luke reports that Jesus rebukes the fever. We can assume he did both. In any case, the fever leaves her, apparently immediately. In fact, she is so quickly restored that she immediately begins to assume her proper role in waiting on the guests who have come into her house.
As daylight waned, people brought to Jesus all kinds of sick people. Word had gotten out during the day how Jesus healed the demon-possessed man in the synagogue and how he healed Simon’s mother-in-law. So, as would be expected, people assume that Jesus is in the healing business. Most people couldn’t afford doctors and medical practices were so primitive, doctors could rarely affect a cure anyway. So when a solution presented itself, people were quick to make use of it.
All kinds of people came and Jesus healed them. Luke, a doctor himself, notes that Jesus touched each one – “laying his hands” is the way the NIV puts it. Medical research has demonstrated the power of touch; how much more so is there power when the one doing the touching is touched by God.
When the healing involved demon exorcism, the demons left declaring Jesus’ identity. To which Jesus replied, by rebuking these evil spirits and forbidding them to speak, again wanting to protect his self-disclosure process.
It had been a full day, so much different from his reception in Nazareth. Here in Capernaum, the people had responded freely to Jesus and so Jesus in turn gave freely to them. No wonder Jesus preferred hanging out in Capernaum over Nazareth.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Competing Voices
Luke 4:31-37
The reception in Capernaum is very different than the rejection Jesus experienced in Nazareth, his home town. He’s been here before. And he seems to make Capernaum, this lakeside market and trade hub, a home base of sorts during his ministry in Galilee. Not everyone likes him here either, but there is enough receptiveness that he is free to do his thing.
In this case, his “thing” is to exorcise a demon. And he does it in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Later Jesus will entail much opposition from the Pharisees for doing good deeds, like healings, on the Sabbath. But now it is early in his career and the opposition hasn’t yet gotten mobilized.
So on this particular Sabbath, Jesus is teaching. He is an itinerant rabbi and it is common for such rabbis to be given a welcome to expound on the Scriptural passages of the day. Jesus’ teaching is different from what they have heard for it carries a weight of authority. It seems as if it possesses a self-confirming truth, something they’re not used to hearing.
In the midst of Jesus’ teaching, a man cries out at the top of his voice, highly disturbing everyone present, no doubt. What the man says has a ring of truth to it, for he – or actually the evil spirit possessing him – recognizes that Jesus is someone sent from God. But there is fear present as well.
Fear is a sign that God’s work is not present. And this man, possessed by something very other than the Spirit of God, is filled with fear and projects that fear to the crowd. The good folks in Nazareth didn’t need an evil spirit to project fear on them; they could conger up fear on their own well enough. Jesus didn’t want that same fear spreading in Capernaum.
Jesus’ response is to silence the man and then to command the evil spirit to come out of him. Which is exactly what happens. The people are amazed, naturally, and the word gets out rapidly that this Jesus is something special.
Several things are happening in what Jesus is doing. Obviously he is freeing this man from the spirit that controls him. Jesus had come, as he proclaimed in Nazareth, to free those who are oppressed, whatever form their oppression takes, and he is demonstrating just that.
But beyond that, Jesus is doing what he often does in his ministry, silencing those who will say too much too soon about his true identity. It is a strange thing. You would think that Jesus would want the word to get out. After all he himself has said that he has been sent by God, and now he doesn’t want this to be known?
People have all kinds of expectations, all kinds of baggage attached to their understanding of this One who will be sent by God. And Jesus wants time to define himself to others. He doesn’t need this half-cocked evil spirit mixing a message of truth with a message of darkness. Messages of darkness are not totally wrong – in deception, truth and falsehood are mixed up so much together, it is nearly impossible to sort it all out.
Moreover, Jesus is not about to let this evil spirit outdo him even if the evil spirit is acting like a Jesus promoter. You can usually tell when something is in the wrong, especially when it comes in the name of the Lord, for it tends to steal the spotlight from God. That which is holy will draw everyone’s attention to God, something even Jesus himself practices. This attention-getting spirit is not of God and so must be silenced. Which Jesus does.
The reception in Capernaum is very different than the rejection Jesus experienced in Nazareth, his home town. He’s been here before. And he seems to make Capernaum, this lakeside market and trade hub, a home base of sorts during his ministry in Galilee. Not everyone likes him here either, but there is enough receptiveness that he is free to do his thing.
In this case, his “thing” is to exorcise a demon. And he does it in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Later Jesus will entail much opposition from the Pharisees for doing good deeds, like healings, on the Sabbath. But now it is early in his career and the opposition hasn’t yet gotten mobilized.
So on this particular Sabbath, Jesus is teaching. He is an itinerant rabbi and it is common for such rabbis to be given a welcome to expound on the Scriptural passages of the day. Jesus’ teaching is different from what they have heard for it carries a weight of authority. It seems as if it possesses a self-confirming truth, something they’re not used to hearing.
In the midst of Jesus’ teaching, a man cries out at the top of his voice, highly disturbing everyone present, no doubt. What the man says has a ring of truth to it, for he – or actually the evil spirit possessing him – recognizes that Jesus is someone sent from God. But there is fear present as well.
Fear is a sign that God’s work is not present. And this man, possessed by something very other than the Spirit of God, is filled with fear and projects that fear to the crowd. The good folks in Nazareth didn’t need an evil spirit to project fear on them; they could conger up fear on their own well enough. Jesus didn’t want that same fear spreading in Capernaum.
Jesus’ response is to silence the man and then to command the evil spirit to come out of him. Which is exactly what happens. The people are amazed, naturally, and the word gets out rapidly that this Jesus is something special.
Several things are happening in what Jesus is doing. Obviously he is freeing this man from the spirit that controls him. Jesus had come, as he proclaimed in Nazareth, to free those who are oppressed, whatever form their oppression takes, and he is demonstrating just that.
But beyond that, Jesus is doing what he often does in his ministry, silencing those who will say too much too soon about his true identity. It is a strange thing. You would think that Jesus would want the word to get out. After all he himself has said that he has been sent by God, and now he doesn’t want this to be known?
People have all kinds of expectations, all kinds of baggage attached to their understanding of this One who will be sent by God. And Jesus wants time to define himself to others. He doesn’t need this half-cocked evil spirit mixing a message of truth with a message of darkness. Messages of darkness are not totally wrong – in deception, truth and falsehood are mixed up so much together, it is nearly impossible to sort it all out.
Moreover, Jesus is not about to let this evil spirit outdo him even if the evil spirit is acting like a Jesus promoter. You can usually tell when something is in the wrong, especially when it comes in the name of the Lord, for it tends to steal the spotlight from God. That which is holy will draw everyone’s attention to God, something even Jesus himself practices. This attention-getting spirit is not of God and so must be silenced. Which Jesus does.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Without Honor
Luke 4:24-27
Funny thing about people who really, really know you, like the people in your home town, the ones you grew up with. They never can take you seriously. That’s because people who think they know you stop listening to you after a while.
Nobody’s unchanging. Everyone who is alive is growing and growth means change. Some people stop growing and yet still have a heart beat. These are the living dead, the ones to whom Jesus came to give life – abundant life, which means lots and lots of change. But people don’t like change. It’s too painful. So they (we included) prefer a status quo, even a bad one, to change of any sort.
Such is the situation Jesus faces in his home town of Nazareth. He who grew up among these people looking for all the world just like them. He, who in his first thirty years showed no signs of being other than just like them, now suddenly claims to be the Messiah. It is far too much for them to handle. I think we can all relate to that. We don’t want our buddy to suddenly become something other than what we thought he or she was, better or worse. We want life to go on as it always has, even if we hate it.
Jesus likens his situation to the two Old Testament prophets – Elijah and Elisha – and their parallel experiences of reaching out to people who were outsiders, foreigners no less. In a time of severe famine, Elijah is not sent to minister to all the widows in Israel, but to a foreign widow. With all the lepers in Israel, Elisha is sent to heal a soldier in the enemy army of Syria.
Jesus says this in context of a prophet not being accepted in his hometown. What is the connection? His message that he has come to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy is being rejected by his hometown friends in Nazareth. They aren’t ready to receive that, but they also want Jesus to treat them like he has treated people in Capernaum (town rivalry?), where he performed healings. The good folks of Nazareth are not being schizophrenic in denying Jesus can be the Messiah and yet expecting miracles from him. Healings and miracles were not uncommon among itinerant rabbis like Jesus. Declarations of Messiahship were, however.
And so, like Elijah and Elisha, Jesus recognizes that he will have better reception elsewhere. The only miracle he performs in Nazareth is to walk away unscathed. They are angry to the point of wanting to kill him. Jesus doesn’t return the anger, he just leaves. He goes to those who will receive his good news and there is no record in the gospels that he ever returns to his hometown.
I find people amazingly incurious about each other. People thought they knew Jesus so well, they stopped wanting to know him better. There is an old English saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” I think familiarity can also breed disinterest. We don’t want to know more about others because it may require change in us. So we keep our level of ignorance at a constant.
People who are Believers in places where Believers have been around for a long time look at places where the Gospel is new and are jealous of what God is doing in these new places. Why doesn’t God work here like He does there, they ask? And then they turn around and reject what God is doing here because it doesn’t look like there or what we have come to expect from Him here. We like our God in a manageable package.
Strange thing about God – He is always breaking out of our expectations. And if we don’t accept Him, He just might move on to more responsive audiences.
Funny thing about people who really, really know you, like the people in your home town, the ones you grew up with. They never can take you seriously. That’s because people who think they know you stop listening to you after a while.
Nobody’s unchanging. Everyone who is alive is growing and growth means change. Some people stop growing and yet still have a heart beat. These are the living dead, the ones to whom Jesus came to give life – abundant life, which means lots and lots of change. But people don’t like change. It’s too painful. So they (we included) prefer a status quo, even a bad one, to change of any sort.
Such is the situation Jesus faces in his home town of Nazareth. He who grew up among these people looking for all the world just like them. He, who in his first thirty years showed no signs of being other than just like them, now suddenly claims to be the Messiah. It is far too much for them to handle. I think we can all relate to that. We don’t want our buddy to suddenly become something other than what we thought he or she was, better or worse. We want life to go on as it always has, even if we hate it.
Jesus likens his situation to the two Old Testament prophets – Elijah and Elisha – and their parallel experiences of reaching out to people who were outsiders, foreigners no less. In a time of severe famine, Elijah is not sent to minister to all the widows in Israel, but to a foreign widow. With all the lepers in Israel, Elisha is sent to heal a soldier in the enemy army of Syria.
Jesus says this in context of a prophet not being accepted in his hometown. What is the connection? His message that he has come to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy is being rejected by his hometown friends in Nazareth. They aren’t ready to receive that, but they also want Jesus to treat them like he has treated people in Capernaum (town rivalry?), where he performed healings. The good folks of Nazareth are not being schizophrenic in denying Jesus can be the Messiah and yet expecting miracles from him. Healings and miracles were not uncommon among itinerant rabbis like Jesus. Declarations of Messiahship were, however.
And so, like Elijah and Elisha, Jesus recognizes that he will have better reception elsewhere. The only miracle he performs in Nazareth is to walk away unscathed. They are angry to the point of wanting to kill him. Jesus doesn’t return the anger, he just leaves. He goes to those who will receive his good news and there is no record in the gospels that he ever returns to his hometown.
I find people amazingly incurious about each other. People thought they knew Jesus so well, they stopped wanting to know him better. There is an old English saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” I think familiarity can also breed disinterest. We don’t want to know more about others because it may require change in us. So we keep our level of ignorance at a constant.
People who are Believers in places where Believers have been around for a long time look at places where the Gospel is new and are jealous of what God is doing in these new places. Why doesn’t God work here like He does there, they ask? And then they turn around and reject what God is doing here because it doesn’t look like there or what we have come to expect from Him here. We like our God in a manageable package.
Strange thing about God – He is always breaking out of our expectations. And if we don’t accept Him, He just might move on to more responsive audiences.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Inaugural Address – Part VI
Luke 4:19
What exactly do Isaiah, Jesus and Luke mean by the phrase, “the year of the Lord’s favor”? Jesus, in quoting Isaiah, says he has come to proclaim this year of the Lord’s favor.
Long before this day in Galilee where Jesus is preaching his inaugural address, the nation of Israel had been taught by God to observe what was called the Year of Jubilee. Basically it was a year that came every 50 years in which all debts were cancelled, the agricultural fields and farm animals rested, slaves were set free and economic and social wrongs were righted. Sadly for the people of Israel, they didn’t do a very good job of observing this Jubilee year. And in fact the exile into Babylon was in part to give the land its long overdue rest because the Jubilee year wasn’t observed, nor was the injunction to give the land rest every seven years.
The Year of the Lord’s favor is even bigger than the Year of Jubilee. Jesus is not talking about a calendar year only, he is talking about a new age in which people really do operate in the spirit of Jubilee. With the advent of Jesus, it becomes the Age of the Spirit, first as expressed in Jesus, then after that famous day of Pentecost, as expressed in his Body of Believers. The Year of the Lord’s favor means just that, the time when God’s favor or blessing or grace is showered down on the people of this earth. The listeners of Jesus would have balked that this blessing would also be extended to the Gentiles, but both Isaiah and Jesus make it clear that the blessings of God are to be extended to the entire human race. Regardless.
For these blessings to be so extended, a whole new way of operating among people has to unfold. The way we view each other. The way we relate to each other. The way we forgive each other. Jesus doesn’t go into all this detail at this time, but as his teachings unfold over the next three years, it becomes evident that Jesus is taking a radically new approach that, if lived out, will revolutionize the way things are done in this fallen world.
The fact that God’s favor comes so freely is radical enough. The Year of the Lord’s favor means that grace comes completely to all of us. This is not favor that has to be earned. This is being favored by God, treated as special, just because He loves us. Such a concept is impossible to understand unless we can see it modeled for us.
So Jesus proceeds to model it. He touches the untouchables, embraces the misfits, includes those who have been excluded. He is always turning social convention on its head, always acting outside of social norm, always thinking outside of the box. Precisely because he is not captive to our human boxes. As much as he lived among us as fully human, he is from another realm and that realm is the antithesis of our prisons and our bondages and our oppressions.
Such radical news! Jesus came to proclaim the age of the Spirit, the year of God’s favor. The poor would receive that news gladly, but for too many people, it was too good to be true. And they choked on it, like a starving man overwhelmed by a banquet.
Still Jesus extends God’s favor to all who will accept the offer. No one will be denied for any reason whatsoever. No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace. That is the message Jesus came to give us. Good news indeed!
What exactly do Isaiah, Jesus and Luke mean by the phrase, “the year of the Lord’s favor”? Jesus, in quoting Isaiah, says he has come to proclaim this year of the Lord’s favor.
Long before this day in Galilee where Jesus is preaching his inaugural address, the nation of Israel had been taught by God to observe what was called the Year of Jubilee. Basically it was a year that came every 50 years in which all debts were cancelled, the agricultural fields and farm animals rested, slaves were set free and economic and social wrongs were righted. Sadly for the people of Israel, they didn’t do a very good job of observing this Jubilee year. And in fact the exile into Babylon was in part to give the land its long overdue rest because the Jubilee year wasn’t observed, nor was the injunction to give the land rest every seven years.
The Year of the Lord’s favor is even bigger than the Year of Jubilee. Jesus is not talking about a calendar year only, he is talking about a new age in which people really do operate in the spirit of Jubilee. With the advent of Jesus, it becomes the Age of the Spirit, first as expressed in Jesus, then after that famous day of Pentecost, as expressed in his Body of Believers. The Year of the Lord’s favor means just that, the time when God’s favor or blessing or grace is showered down on the people of this earth. The listeners of Jesus would have balked that this blessing would also be extended to the Gentiles, but both Isaiah and Jesus make it clear that the blessings of God are to be extended to the entire human race. Regardless.
For these blessings to be so extended, a whole new way of operating among people has to unfold. The way we view each other. The way we relate to each other. The way we forgive each other. Jesus doesn’t go into all this detail at this time, but as his teachings unfold over the next three years, it becomes evident that Jesus is taking a radically new approach that, if lived out, will revolutionize the way things are done in this fallen world.
The fact that God’s favor comes so freely is radical enough. The Year of the Lord’s favor means that grace comes completely to all of us. This is not favor that has to be earned. This is being favored by God, treated as special, just because He loves us. Such a concept is impossible to understand unless we can see it modeled for us.
So Jesus proceeds to model it. He touches the untouchables, embraces the misfits, includes those who have been excluded. He is always turning social convention on its head, always acting outside of social norm, always thinking outside of the box. Precisely because he is not captive to our human boxes. As much as he lived among us as fully human, he is from another realm and that realm is the antithesis of our prisons and our bondages and our oppressions.
Such radical news! Jesus came to proclaim the age of the Spirit, the year of God’s favor. The poor would receive that news gladly, but for too many people, it was too good to be true. And they choked on it, like a starving man overwhelmed by a banquet.
Still Jesus extends God’s favor to all who will accept the offer. No one will be denied for any reason whatsoever. No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace. That is the message Jesus came to give us. Good news indeed!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Inaugural Address – Part V
Luke 4:18
The passage in Isaiah that Jesus quotes on this momentous occasion, the inaugural address launching his ministry, contains a lot more information than is recorded in Luke. Whether Jesus only said as much as Luke records, we can only conjecture. But the unrecorded part carries the same theme.
What is recorded is that Jesus says he has come to bring good news to the poor. What follows is a brief elaboration of what it means to bring “good news to the poor. Jesus is saying he has been sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
When we read the words “prisoners”, “blind” and “oppressed”, we can take them as figuratively or literally, as spiritual or in a variety of other metaphors, such as material, physical, and social. I sense that with Jesus, he is talking about every way that blocks people from knowing and trusting and experiencing the goodness of God the Father. That is the ultimate purpose for which Jesus has come, after all.
We can argue all day long about what exactly this means. Like the Pharisees who chose to discuss whether a certain sickness was caused by a man’s sins or his parents. Jesus’ response was to say, Just deal with it whatever the cause. Every bit of it is curse and Jesus has come to wipe out all curse. Each situation requires the unique creativity of the Spirit to know how to deal with it. No two circumstances are alike. Thus the need for the Spirit’s anointing. But beyond that, why draw lines and limits of human understanding on the work of the Spirit? Jesus certainly doesn’t.
If a man is spiritually blind, Jesus wants to open his eyes to see things as God sees them. If a woman is blind physically, he wants to heal that physical blindness and it is all God’s work whether it comes through touching her eyes and bringing miraculous healing or through the healing works of medicine and science – all are blessings from God. If a person is blind emotionally due to much pain and abuse, God wants to heal that emotional blindness so that the person is truly free.
We all come at God from our own angles and in doing so we tend to limit what God can do because we are hesitant to accept what our brother or sister understands of God. And they do the same with us. God is much bigger than any of us – than all of us put together. The Pharisees did not deny the miracle-working power of God to heal; they just said it could not be applied on one day of the week. Others were uncomfortable with the idea of miracle-working altogether and preferred to believe that God would operate through the known medical methods of the day. Still others said that it was unspiritual to go to a doctor, that to do so was a sign of a lack of faith.
There is a saying that “All truth is God’s truth.” In other words, if it is truth, then it has to have its source in God. To take that further, “All true goodness is of God.” There is no goodness apart from God. It doesn’t matter who does the good thing or who blesses. No one does good or blesses except that God works through him or her to do that goodness and blessing.
This is a new day, Jesus is saying, when the poor will receive the good news for which they have been waiting so long, when the prisoners will be freed, the blind will see and the oppressed will be released.
The passage in Isaiah that Jesus quotes on this momentous occasion, the inaugural address launching his ministry, contains a lot more information than is recorded in Luke. Whether Jesus only said as much as Luke records, we can only conjecture. But the unrecorded part carries the same theme.
What is recorded is that Jesus says he has come to bring good news to the poor. What follows is a brief elaboration of what it means to bring “good news to the poor. Jesus is saying he has been sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
When we read the words “prisoners”, “blind” and “oppressed”, we can take them as figuratively or literally, as spiritual or in a variety of other metaphors, such as material, physical, and social. I sense that with Jesus, he is talking about every way that blocks people from knowing and trusting and experiencing the goodness of God the Father. That is the ultimate purpose for which Jesus has come, after all.
We can argue all day long about what exactly this means. Like the Pharisees who chose to discuss whether a certain sickness was caused by a man’s sins or his parents. Jesus’ response was to say, Just deal with it whatever the cause. Every bit of it is curse and Jesus has come to wipe out all curse. Each situation requires the unique creativity of the Spirit to know how to deal with it. No two circumstances are alike. Thus the need for the Spirit’s anointing. But beyond that, why draw lines and limits of human understanding on the work of the Spirit? Jesus certainly doesn’t.
If a man is spiritually blind, Jesus wants to open his eyes to see things as God sees them. If a woman is blind physically, he wants to heal that physical blindness and it is all God’s work whether it comes through touching her eyes and bringing miraculous healing or through the healing works of medicine and science – all are blessings from God. If a person is blind emotionally due to much pain and abuse, God wants to heal that emotional blindness so that the person is truly free.
We all come at God from our own angles and in doing so we tend to limit what God can do because we are hesitant to accept what our brother or sister understands of God. And they do the same with us. God is much bigger than any of us – than all of us put together. The Pharisees did not deny the miracle-working power of God to heal; they just said it could not be applied on one day of the week. Others were uncomfortable with the idea of miracle-working altogether and preferred to believe that God would operate through the known medical methods of the day. Still others said that it was unspiritual to go to a doctor, that to do so was a sign of a lack of faith.
There is a saying that “All truth is God’s truth.” In other words, if it is truth, then it has to have its source in God. To take that further, “All true goodness is of God.” There is no goodness apart from God. It doesn’t matter who does the good thing or who blesses. No one does good or blesses except that God works through him or her to do that goodness and blessing.
This is a new day, Jesus is saying, when the poor will receive the good news for which they have been waiting so long, when the prisoners will be freed, the blind will see and the oppressed will be released.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Inaugural Address – Part IV
Luke 4:18
What exactly is it that Luke records Jesus saying in this passage where he quotes Isaiah? As we’ve noted, Jesus tells his listeners that today this passage from Isaiah is fulfilled in their hearing. What that means ever so clearly to his listeners is that this Messianic text applies to Jesus.
Jesus says first of all that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. Luke notes that the Spirit of God comes on Jesus when he comes up out of the waters of baptism down at the Jordan River. He has also noted that the Spirit of the Lord has led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted and that Jesus leaves that wilderness experience and returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.
Everything about Jesus’ ministry from this point on is marked by the presence and power of the Spirit. Jesus, who left his own omni-everything behind when he came to earth and entered humanhood, now walks in the power of God’s presence in a new way. A way that models the empowering that comes upon his followers in Luke’s sequel, The Acts of the Apostles.
This “Spirit of the Lord” is on Jesus because, following Isaiah’s prophetic message, the Spirit has anointed him. That is first evident with Jesus when the Spirit descends on him like a dove. The Spirit manifests Himself in different ways – there is something very unpredictable, at least to the human mind, about the manners and methods of the Spirit. The Spirit does not appear in the same way every time. It is not because the Spirit is unstable, but simply because His ways are so far beyond us as mere mortals.
But one thing that is consistently clear is the Spirit’s ultimate purpose. He comes, He anoints, and He empowers to cause people, including God’s only Son, Jesus, to do the work of God the Father, to bring Glory to God the Father, and to bring to life God’s Kingdom among His creation, particularly mankind.
The Spirit has anointed Jesus to preach or proclaim good news to the poor. The poor, by whatever definition or category we speak, are those who lack, who are weak, who are without, who are destitute, downtrodden, and in over their heads, be that poverty spiritual, physical, emotional, material, social, relational, or mental in nature. What can good news for the poor mean other than that they who are poor will no longer be poor? As Mary said in her wonderful song back in the first chapter of Luke, “He has been mindful of the humble state of his servant” and “has done great things for me.”
The poor are those who do not have recourse to solve their poverty, do not have means to get out of their situation. But good news means that all that is changing, that the poor now have someone fighting on their behalf.
As this is an inaugural address, Jesus is not laying out all the specifics of his plan to rescue the poor. This comes clearer as we read through this gospel and then as it is clarified in the Scriptures as a whole. For now, Jesus is simply and profoundly declaring his intent – he has come to bring good news to the poor. Whatever we choose to make of it, this is the central message of Jesus coming to earth. He has come to declare God’s goodness to those who are without and outside of God’s blessings. As Isaac Watt’s famous Christmas carol extols, he has come to make his blessings known “far as the curse is found.” This is joy to the world indeed.
What exactly is it that Luke records Jesus saying in this passage where he quotes Isaiah? As we’ve noted, Jesus tells his listeners that today this passage from Isaiah is fulfilled in their hearing. What that means ever so clearly to his listeners is that this Messianic text applies to Jesus.
Jesus says first of all that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. Luke notes that the Spirit of God comes on Jesus when he comes up out of the waters of baptism down at the Jordan River. He has also noted that the Spirit of the Lord has led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted and that Jesus leaves that wilderness experience and returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.
Everything about Jesus’ ministry from this point on is marked by the presence and power of the Spirit. Jesus, who left his own omni-everything behind when he came to earth and entered humanhood, now walks in the power of God’s presence in a new way. A way that models the empowering that comes upon his followers in Luke’s sequel, The Acts of the Apostles.
This “Spirit of the Lord” is on Jesus because, following Isaiah’s prophetic message, the Spirit has anointed him. That is first evident with Jesus when the Spirit descends on him like a dove. The Spirit manifests Himself in different ways – there is something very unpredictable, at least to the human mind, about the manners and methods of the Spirit. The Spirit does not appear in the same way every time. It is not because the Spirit is unstable, but simply because His ways are so far beyond us as mere mortals.
But one thing that is consistently clear is the Spirit’s ultimate purpose. He comes, He anoints, and He empowers to cause people, including God’s only Son, Jesus, to do the work of God the Father, to bring Glory to God the Father, and to bring to life God’s Kingdom among His creation, particularly mankind.
The Spirit has anointed Jesus to preach or proclaim good news to the poor. The poor, by whatever definition or category we speak, are those who lack, who are weak, who are without, who are destitute, downtrodden, and in over their heads, be that poverty spiritual, physical, emotional, material, social, relational, or mental in nature. What can good news for the poor mean other than that they who are poor will no longer be poor? As Mary said in her wonderful song back in the first chapter of Luke, “He has been mindful of the humble state of his servant” and “has done great things for me.”
The poor are those who do not have recourse to solve their poverty, do not have means to get out of their situation. But good news means that all that is changing, that the poor now have someone fighting on their behalf.
As this is an inaugural address, Jesus is not laying out all the specifics of his plan to rescue the poor. This comes clearer as we read through this gospel and then as it is clarified in the Scriptures as a whole. For now, Jesus is simply and profoundly declaring his intent – he has come to bring good news to the poor. Whatever we choose to make of it, this is the central message of Jesus coming to earth. He has come to declare God’s goodness to those who are without and outside of God’s blessings. As Isaac Watt’s famous Christmas carol extols, he has come to make his blessings known “far as the curse is found.” This is joy to the world indeed.
Friday, March 6, 2009
The Inaugural Address – Part III
Luke 4:18-19
Even today, Jesus’ words that he quoted of the Prophet Isaiah can give us a double take when we reexamine them to see what he is really saying. To those of us familiar with the passage, we get so used to these words that we no longer hear them as someone reading them for the first time. We read into them our own worldview, a world shaped in our own image. We see in them what we want to see and hear in them what we want to hear. But to the first time hearer, they are revolutionary – for they really are.
Good news doesn’t come to the poor. Talk about ministering to the poor and what do you hear? Jesus own words taken out of context and thrown back in his face: “The poor you always have with you.” So we reinterpret what “poor” means or we spiritualize the ideas in the passage. We who say we take Scripture literally are in the end afraid to do just that. We want to believe that God’s word is true, but we don’t take Him at His word when he says he will release prisoners and set people free and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Why we don’t even bother to research what “year of the Lord’s favor” actually means. We don’t check back to see what the context of these lines were in Isaiah, a context with which Jesus and all his listeners were so intimately familiar. When he read those few lines, he was not lifting them out of Isaiah, he was drawing all of Isaiah, that entire context, with them into his “here and now.”
“Today, right here, these words are fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus was saying. The world as you know it is going to be turned upside down. The old order is passing away. The new order is being born. Not two thousand years or so later when I return (if that is when I return), but right now in this poverty ridden and Roman oppressed crossroads in Galilee.
Most of his listeners reject what he has to say as farfetched. Others seize on it only to be disappointed when he doesn’t overthrow the Romans and restore the earthly kingdom of Israel. See, we say, that passage wasn’t to be taken literally. We have to spiritualize it. And when not every blind person gets their sight back, we just think of it as nice poetry, some sweet hyperbole.
What is Jesus saying here? Jesus is saying that the Age of the Spirit is dawning, when all God’s people will be anointed and not just a chosen few. When all who respond to God’s voice will be able to follow Jesus in turning the world upside down. But, we say, we look around us and the world has not changed. There are still prisoners and oppressed and blind.
And the reply is that this New Order overcomes the old not by banishing the old first, but by the new infiltrating the old in this very world in which we live. We don’t declare justice after injustice is done away with. We don’t bring mercy after the unmerciful disappear. We don’t start loving when hatred is banished.
Slowly it dawns on us like this new order dawns on the world. The promise is not at some future eschaton. The eschaton is right now. Does this mean that there is nothing to anticipate in the future? No, as Luke will later point out, Jesus will some day come back and finish what he is now beginning. But that is the point, he is beginning something right here, right now, in his home town in Galilee. And that something is of the same substance as what he will bring to completion someday.
He puts the focus on the present. Now is the time. Here is the place. Where the oppressed are to be set free. Where the blind are to see. Where justice will roll down like waters and all the earth will know and understand that our God is a God of mercy and love.
When I was a boy people used to preach about a “full gospel.” As I grew up, I realized that we who spoke of that full gospel were as focused on select passages as much as other people were. We really didn’t understand “full gospel” any more than anyone else. Jesus comes preaching all the gospel to all people – and it is still a far too radical message for moderns to hear as it was for those in tiny, ancient Nazareth. Our God is a radical God and what He says He will do He does.
Even today, Jesus’ words that he quoted of the Prophet Isaiah can give us a double take when we reexamine them to see what he is really saying. To those of us familiar with the passage, we get so used to these words that we no longer hear them as someone reading them for the first time. We read into them our own worldview, a world shaped in our own image. We see in them what we want to see and hear in them what we want to hear. But to the first time hearer, they are revolutionary – for they really are.
Good news doesn’t come to the poor. Talk about ministering to the poor and what do you hear? Jesus own words taken out of context and thrown back in his face: “The poor you always have with you.” So we reinterpret what “poor” means or we spiritualize the ideas in the passage. We who say we take Scripture literally are in the end afraid to do just that. We want to believe that God’s word is true, but we don’t take Him at His word when he says he will release prisoners and set people free and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Why we don’t even bother to research what “year of the Lord’s favor” actually means. We don’t check back to see what the context of these lines were in Isaiah, a context with which Jesus and all his listeners were so intimately familiar. When he read those few lines, he was not lifting them out of Isaiah, he was drawing all of Isaiah, that entire context, with them into his “here and now.”
“Today, right here, these words are fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus was saying. The world as you know it is going to be turned upside down. The old order is passing away. The new order is being born. Not two thousand years or so later when I return (if that is when I return), but right now in this poverty ridden and Roman oppressed crossroads in Galilee.
Most of his listeners reject what he has to say as farfetched. Others seize on it only to be disappointed when he doesn’t overthrow the Romans and restore the earthly kingdom of Israel. See, we say, that passage wasn’t to be taken literally. We have to spiritualize it. And when not every blind person gets their sight back, we just think of it as nice poetry, some sweet hyperbole.
What is Jesus saying here? Jesus is saying that the Age of the Spirit is dawning, when all God’s people will be anointed and not just a chosen few. When all who respond to God’s voice will be able to follow Jesus in turning the world upside down. But, we say, we look around us and the world has not changed. There are still prisoners and oppressed and blind.
And the reply is that this New Order overcomes the old not by banishing the old first, but by the new infiltrating the old in this very world in which we live. We don’t declare justice after injustice is done away with. We don’t bring mercy after the unmerciful disappear. We don’t start loving when hatred is banished.
Slowly it dawns on us like this new order dawns on the world. The promise is not at some future eschaton. The eschaton is right now. Does this mean that there is nothing to anticipate in the future? No, as Luke will later point out, Jesus will some day come back and finish what he is now beginning. But that is the point, he is beginning something right here, right now, in his home town in Galilee. And that something is of the same substance as what he will bring to completion someday.
He puts the focus on the present. Now is the time. Here is the place. Where the oppressed are to be set free. Where the blind are to see. Where justice will roll down like waters and all the earth will know and understand that our God is a God of mercy and love.
When I was a boy people used to preach about a “full gospel.” As I grew up, I realized that we who spoke of that full gospel were as focused on select passages as much as other people were. We really didn’t understand “full gospel” any more than anyone else. Jesus comes preaching all the gospel to all people – and it is still a far too radical message for moderns to hear as it was for those in tiny, ancient Nazareth. Our God is a radical God and what He says He will do He does.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Inaugural Address – Part II
Luke 4:17-21
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”
Like an American president, Jesus preaches what Luke seizes on as his inaugural address. Here he sets out his keynote theme, the message that will define his earthly ministry for all time.
Jesus is handed the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. He hasn’t asked for that particular scroll. It is just the set time for Isaiah to be read. Jesus unrolls that scroll to a certain passage. Happens to be what we know as Isaiah 61:1-2. Everyone listening knew the entire context, not just the specific verses Jesus was reading. No one carried their Bibles to synagogue – scrolls were too cumbersome, too expensive, and besides most folks knew much of their Scriptures by heart. They knew that Isaiah was talking about the year of the Lord’s special favor, when glory would return to Zion, when the nation’s shame would be replaced by joy.
It was a thrilling passage, one that spoke of the work of the Promised Messiah, when God would right all wrongs and turn all mourning into dancing. This was a message of great hope. A real crowd pleaser.
Then, as was the custom, Jesus rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the guy who took care of these heavy documents, and started to speak on the text. “Today,” he said, “this passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The audience, still taken by their own young model of homeboy-done-well, did not really catch his meaning.
Only when he began to stir them with the idea that they would not accept his teaching did they stir to the realization that they did not like what he was saying. Why was Jesus egging them on, baiting them like this? He wanted them to wake up and hear what he was really saying.
This message of hope was not for some future generation. It was not for some other village. It was for them right then and there. Today, right now in your midst, this passage is being fulfilled. It is coming to pass even as I speak.
“What is he saying?” they asked. “What possibly does he mean?” He means exactly what it sounds like, that what Isaiah has predicted is finally coming to pass. Jesus is saying that the Spirit of God has come upon him and brought him to their very town to declare and to demonstrate Good News to the poor – to reconcile the alienated, to free the oppressed and to embrace the misfit.
This message was not well received. They couldn’t accept the idea that their long awaited hope – that the Messiah would come from their own village – was now coming true. People want you to do well until you do. Then they don’t like you because you have become what they’d hoped you’d become. Grow up, speak the truth, do what is right. And so you do that and then people don’t know what to do with you.
Everyone wants Good News. Everyone wants good things to happen to those in short supply of good things. Then when that very thing happens, they can’t handle it. Like the Israelites of old they start getting homesick for the torture and hunger and sickness that was their experience in Egyptian bondage. Take us back to that mess – at least it was a familiar mess. And so we prefer awful familiarity to wonderful strangeness.
Reality check, when Messiah comes he will turn your world upside down – or actually right side up. Is that what you really want?
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”
Like an American president, Jesus preaches what Luke seizes on as his inaugural address. Here he sets out his keynote theme, the message that will define his earthly ministry for all time.
Jesus is handed the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. He hasn’t asked for that particular scroll. It is just the set time for Isaiah to be read. Jesus unrolls that scroll to a certain passage. Happens to be what we know as Isaiah 61:1-2. Everyone listening knew the entire context, not just the specific verses Jesus was reading. No one carried their Bibles to synagogue – scrolls were too cumbersome, too expensive, and besides most folks knew much of their Scriptures by heart. They knew that Isaiah was talking about the year of the Lord’s special favor, when glory would return to Zion, when the nation’s shame would be replaced by joy.
It was a thrilling passage, one that spoke of the work of the Promised Messiah, when God would right all wrongs and turn all mourning into dancing. This was a message of great hope. A real crowd pleaser.
Then, as was the custom, Jesus rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the guy who took care of these heavy documents, and started to speak on the text. “Today,” he said, “this passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The audience, still taken by their own young model of homeboy-done-well, did not really catch his meaning.
Only when he began to stir them with the idea that they would not accept his teaching did they stir to the realization that they did not like what he was saying. Why was Jesus egging them on, baiting them like this? He wanted them to wake up and hear what he was really saying.
This message of hope was not for some future generation. It was not for some other village. It was for them right then and there. Today, right now in your midst, this passage is being fulfilled. It is coming to pass even as I speak.
“What is he saying?” they asked. “What possibly does he mean?” He means exactly what it sounds like, that what Isaiah has predicted is finally coming to pass. Jesus is saying that the Spirit of God has come upon him and brought him to their very town to declare and to demonstrate Good News to the poor – to reconcile the alienated, to free the oppressed and to embrace the misfit.
This message was not well received. They couldn’t accept the idea that their long awaited hope – that the Messiah would come from their own village – was now coming true. People want you to do well until you do. Then they don’t like you because you have become what they’d hoped you’d become. Grow up, speak the truth, do what is right. And so you do that and then people don’t know what to do with you.
Everyone wants Good News. Everyone wants good things to happen to those in short supply of good things. Then when that very thing happens, they can’t handle it. Like the Israelites of old they start getting homesick for the torture and hunger and sickness that was their experience in Egyptian bondage. Take us back to that mess – at least it was a familiar mess. And so we prefer awful familiarity to wonderful strangeness.
Reality check, when Messiah comes he will turn your world upside down – or actually right side up. Is that what you really want?
Monday, March 2, 2009
The Inaugural Address – Part I
Luke 4:13-30
Years ago and even now in some smaller churches, there is a custom that when a visiting preacher suddenly shows up, he (it is usually a “he”) is invited to preach. I recall such a preacher coming to our church when I was a boy. He spoke on the end times. He had some wild things to say. He never came back and I don’t think he would have had such a welcome at his second coming.
In Jesus’ time, Jewish boys grew up trained in the Rabbinical teachings of the Scriptures. It was common for them to be called upon in Sabbath meetings after a certain age to read from the appointed passage in the scrolls and to elaborate on the text. As these men visited other synagogues, they would be treated in the same manner.
Jesus had already begun traveling around, in the custom of an itinerating rabbi or teacher. So far, he’d been getting high praise for his efforts. Young speakers often are, listeners being impressed with the ability and wisdom in one so young.
I remember when I was in my early twenties and speaking at a church where they knew my family and they’d known me as a wee lad. The pastor gave me such high praise at the end of the service I was turning red-faced. At a minister’s meeting a few weeks later, he raved on again. Another slightly more cynical minister asked him what I’d shared, to which the pastor blanked. He couldn’t remember. I wondered if he’d even heard what I said.
The folks who praised Jesus as he traveled may have only been half listening. They were taken with something about this young man and were caught up in the moment of it. There was something very powerful about Jesus’ words, but not everyone heard him preach in the same way.
We see this mix of reactions when Jesus comes back to his hometown. He’s been out preaching and now he returns to Nazareth where he grew up, where they knew him like no other village did. At first they only half listened. Nice boy, this Jesus Josephson. He’s a home town boy and we’ve always produced the best.
But wait, what is that he’s saying? And the more they listen the more they turn on him, until they are ready to kill him – literally. What a dramatic change in the crowd. People are like that, fickle. One minute you can do no wrong. The next you can do no right. People also tend to be all either-or. No in between. Objective evaluation is trumped by emotional response every time. Expressiveness beating substance in the guise of anointing.
For years we lived in a large city in Northwest China. Foreign (non-Chinese) Christians would visit our city on prayer tours. A funny thing about their responses. Their sense about the spiritual condition of the city was all too frequently related to the weather. They would say, this is a spiritually dark city – and I’d note the gray gloom of pollution and dust hiding any semblance of bright. Or they’d say, this is a surprisingly spiritually vibrant city and I’d observe the rare brilliant sunny day and nearly blue sky. I’d wonder about their spiritual discernment.
Jesus was speaking in the anointing, the empowering of the Spirit. That has already been established by Luke. The people of Nazareth were not warmed by that anointing. Likewise they were not turned off by anointing or any lack thereof. They were taken in by their own inclinations, lost in their own world of biases and closed circuit thinking.
Jesus went on to say that prophets are welcomed everywhere but in their own hometown. Familiarity often breeds predetermined “understandings” blinding us to the truth.
Years ago and even now in some smaller churches, there is a custom that when a visiting preacher suddenly shows up, he (it is usually a “he”) is invited to preach. I recall such a preacher coming to our church when I was a boy. He spoke on the end times. He had some wild things to say. He never came back and I don’t think he would have had such a welcome at his second coming.
In Jesus’ time, Jewish boys grew up trained in the Rabbinical teachings of the Scriptures. It was common for them to be called upon in Sabbath meetings after a certain age to read from the appointed passage in the scrolls and to elaborate on the text. As these men visited other synagogues, they would be treated in the same manner.
Jesus had already begun traveling around, in the custom of an itinerating rabbi or teacher. So far, he’d been getting high praise for his efforts. Young speakers often are, listeners being impressed with the ability and wisdom in one so young.
I remember when I was in my early twenties and speaking at a church where they knew my family and they’d known me as a wee lad. The pastor gave me such high praise at the end of the service I was turning red-faced. At a minister’s meeting a few weeks later, he raved on again. Another slightly more cynical minister asked him what I’d shared, to which the pastor blanked. He couldn’t remember. I wondered if he’d even heard what I said.
The folks who praised Jesus as he traveled may have only been half listening. They were taken with something about this young man and were caught up in the moment of it. There was something very powerful about Jesus’ words, but not everyone heard him preach in the same way.
We see this mix of reactions when Jesus comes back to his hometown. He’s been out preaching and now he returns to Nazareth where he grew up, where they knew him like no other village did. At first they only half listened. Nice boy, this Jesus Josephson. He’s a home town boy and we’ve always produced the best.
But wait, what is that he’s saying? And the more they listen the more they turn on him, until they are ready to kill him – literally. What a dramatic change in the crowd. People are like that, fickle. One minute you can do no wrong. The next you can do no right. People also tend to be all either-or. No in between. Objective evaluation is trumped by emotional response every time. Expressiveness beating substance in the guise of anointing.
For years we lived in a large city in Northwest China. Foreign (non-Chinese) Christians would visit our city on prayer tours. A funny thing about their responses. Their sense about the spiritual condition of the city was all too frequently related to the weather. They would say, this is a spiritually dark city – and I’d note the gray gloom of pollution and dust hiding any semblance of bright. Or they’d say, this is a surprisingly spiritually vibrant city and I’d observe the rare brilliant sunny day and nearly blue sky. I’d wonder about their spiritual discernment.
Jesus was speaking in the anointing, the empowering of the Spirit. That has already been established by Luke. The people of Nazareth were not warmed by that anointing. Likewise they were not turned off by anointing or any lack thereof. They were taken in by their own inclinations, lost in their own world of biases and closed circuit thinking.
Jesus went on to say that prophets are welcomed everywhere but in their own hometown. Familiarity often breeds predetermined “understandings” blinding us to the truth.
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