Sermon from 4th February 2007
Rejected at Home
Today one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, preaches on the reading from Luke 4:14-30, that sees Jesus rejected in his own town of Nazareth.
Many modern businesses have a mission statement, a brief statement of their purpose, aims and values. In a way, our Parish Aim, printed every Sunday on the front of our service sheets, is our mission statement. And the passage from Luke we’ve just read contains what some people have described as Jesus’ mission statement. That is perhaps a rather simplistic way of looking at it, but in verses 18-19 Luke includes a quotation from Isaiah which Jesus used to describe what he came to do, in other words, to describe his mission. Last Sunday Cameron spoke about Jesus’ encounter with the Devil in the wilderness. Events have moved on since then. Jesus started his public ministry in Galilee, but now he had come to the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth. He was handed the scroll, unrolled it and read some famous words from the prophet Isaiah, recorded in verses 18-19. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.” Jesus clearly applied this passage to himself. In verse 21, he told his listeners, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” He adopted this passage as his mission statement. But what does it mean? On one level it appears quite straightforward. After all, it doesn’t contain any complicated theological words. But as soon as you start to explore the commentaries and find out what people have written about it, the picture is far from straightforward. Some say that it is a special message to a particular socio-economic group, literally good news for the poor. For others, for liberation theologians, it is a very political message, endorsement of political liberation for oppressed minorities, by revolution if necessary. Yet others have spiritualised these verses, claiming that the poor are those who are spiritually, rather than economically, poor. As we’ve discovered from the series on Mark that we did before Christmas, many Jews were waiting for a political Messiah. After centuries of oppression at the hands of foreign powers, they were longing for a Messiah who would lead them to freedom by driving out the Romans. But we saw that Jesus wasn’t that type of Messiah. He came to die on the Cross, to give us the opportunity to repent and to get right with God. Jesus wasn’t himself a political leader, but nevertheless I think it would be wrong to conclude that he had no interest in political matters. It’s been nearly 2,000 years since Jesus said that he had come to bring good news to the poor, but there are still countless millions of people living in poverty. But again I think it would be wrong to conclude from this that Jesus was merely referring to the spiritually poor. When Jesus said he was bringing good news to the poor, he meant the economically poor. That is the plain meaning of the word, that is what it means in context and that is how his listeners would have understood it. And if you look at Jesus’ ministry, you will see that we spent a lot of his time with the poor and down-trodden, with beggars living in destitution. But it is also true to say that “the poor” includes more than the economically poor; it also covers the marginalised and disadvantaged of society more generally. But to limit it to the spiritually poor would be a serious mistake. And I think later events in Luke’s Gospel bear this out. In chapter 7 we read that when John the Baptist was in prison, he sent messengers to Jesus to ask him if he was the Messiah. And Jesus answered, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Jesus was healing the blind, the lame, people with leprosy and the deaf. All these miracles were very real, very physical; to give “the poor” a spiritual meaning would be to ignore the context. But as I’ve said, the poor weren’t just simply the economically poor. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus frequently associated with those on the margins of society, with what were described as the tax collectors and sinners. Now, we may resent at times the amount we pay in tax, and HM Revenue & Customs may not be our favourite government department. It has been said there are two types of people who complain about paying their income tax: men and women! But we recognise we need to pay taxes to finance the NHS and the essential services upon which we rely. And we don’t think a large amount of our taxes is going straight into the pocket of the taxman. But in Jesus’ time the tax collectors were the lowest of the low. They were local Jewish people, and the Romans employed them to collect a set amount of taxes, and anything above that amount they could keep. So they lined their pockets at the expense of their fellow Jews. No wonder they were hated, regarded with contempt as traitors. Jesus made it very clear that he was bringing good news to them as well. Jesus brought good news to the poor and he brought sight to the blind. But that’s not all that’s said in the quotation from Isaiah. Jesus also said that he had been sent to proclaim liberty to the prisoners and to set free the oppressed. Now, there are those who say that Jesus couldn’t have meant this literally. He must have meant this spiritually because he didn’t actually free prisoners; he didn’t go around emptying the prisons. And nor did he liberate the oppressed from political oppression. So what did Jesus mean here? Once again the context gives us a clue. The quotation from Isaiah ends by referring to “the year of the Lord’s favour”. The Messiah has been sent to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. This is a very clear reference to the Year of Jubilee. The idea of Jubilee comes from the OT. After the Israelites had entered the Promised Land following the Exodus, land was allotted to tribes, and then each family received a piece of land. In an agricultural society ownership of land was vital; without it you would plunge into poverty. If a family had a bad year, it might have to borrow some money. If it couldn’t repay the loan, it would have to send one of the family members to work for the lender. And if things got even worse, it might have to sell the land. And in agricultural society that was a disaster. The family would have no means of subsistence and would end up in servitude to the lender. Without land there was no way out of poverty. So once every 50 years, once in a lifetime, a Year of Jubilee was declared; it was a year when debts were cancelled, people were returned to the families they came from, slaves were released and property was given back to its original owner. The poverty trap was sprung. The Year of Jubilee was good news, indeed great news, for the poor. And prisoners were released, because slaves had to be set free. Jesus’ listeners would undoubtedly have heard what Jesus said in economic and political terms, and it would be wrong to spiritualise it. Jesus was declaring that God was intervening in the world in a new way, that God’s kingdom was coming. But it wasn’t the kingdom that most of Jesus’ listeners were expecting or hoping for. Jesus was inviting everyone to share in the kingdom; the poor, the powerless, the outcasts of society and the foreigners. By driving out demons, healing the sick and raising the dead Jesus was demonstrating the presence of God’s kingdom in a very physical way. But there was also another side to Jesus’ mission. He also preached the forgiveness of sins and called on people to repent. Jesus was giving people a foretaste of the kingdom that one day will remake the whole world. But that day hasn’t yet arrived. One day Jesus will come again in glory, but we are living in the in-between period, between Jesus’ first and second comings. And that is why there is still so much poverty, suffering and injustice in the world. God’s kingdom has invaded, but full physical and spiritual deliverance is still to come. So, as we are living in the in-between period, our task as a church is to be pointer towards the kingdom of God, to live out the values that Jesus expressed in his life. As we implement our decisions from the Listening Day, let’s keep an eye on whether we are reaching out to the poor and marginalised of society. So, what sort of response did Jesus get to his words? Now, the latter part of this passage has always puzzled me, because Jesus initially seemed to get a positive response, but he then turned on his listeners. We read in verse 22 that they spoke well of him and were amazed at his gracious words. I would have expected Jesus to have been pleased with their reaction. I know I would be pleased if I preached a sermon and the congregation marvelled at what I had said! It would be odd if instead if accepting the praise, I turned on the congregation and attacked them for their lack of faith. Yet, at first sight, this is precisely what Jesus seems to have done. As I often do when I’m puzzled by a passage from the Bible, I turned to Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary for help, and it seems that an undercurrent of tension has got lost in translation. According to Tom Wright the people were probably not best pleased with what Jesus said. Tom Wright paraphrases verse 22 like this: Luke actually means “they were astonished that he was speaking about God’s grace – grace for everybody, including the nations – instead of grace for Israel and fierce judgment for everyone else”. That fits in perfectly with what followed. Jesus sensed that his listeners weren’t following him; they were ready to taunt him to do some great miracles for the sake of show. But why? What was so wrong with what he was saying? Jesus responded to his listeners with an explanation which must have stunned and shocked them. Jesus pointed out what happened in the days of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was sent to help a widow, but not a Jewish one. Elisha healed only one leper out of many, and the one he healed was the commander of the enemy army. And that’s what drove Jesus’ listeners to fury. The message they wanted to hear was that God was going to liberate Israel from foreign oppression. They wanted God to condemn and destroy their enemies. Instead, Jesus pointed out that when the great prophets were active, it wasn’t Israel who benefited, but only the foreigners. That’s a bit like someone in Britain or France during World War II speaking of God’s healing and restoration for the German people. It’s not what people wanted to hear. But it’s what Jesus was saying; he had come to bring God’s love and mercy to all people. And everyone, rich and poor, can avail themselves of God’s love and mercy through repentance and receiving forgiveness. But it is very hard for the person who has it all, a large house, a Porsche, good looks and good health to throw him or herself on God’s mercy, to be dependent on someone else. It’s very easy to become complacent and attached to the status quo. The tax collector and sinner are a constant refrain in Luke’s Gospel of the type of people who were drawn to Jesus. The poor, the sick and the suffering came to him. They realised the helplessness of their situation, that they needed a Saviour. Where do we stand? Are we caught up in a comfortable, materialistic lifestyle, or do we realise our need for a Saviour? Let’s pray: Good news to the poor, liberty to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. Father, help us to realise our own helplessness, and empower us to be part of a church that wants to reach out to the poor, the prisoners and the blind. Amen.
Today one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, preaches on the reading from Luke 4:14-30, that sees Jesus rejected in his own town of Nazareth.
Many modern businesses have a mission statement, a brief statement of their purpose, aims and values. In a way, our Parish Aim, printed every Sunday on the front of our service sheets, is our mission statement. And the passage from Luke we’ve just read contains what some people have described as Jesus’ mission statement. That is perhaps a rather simplistic way of looking at it, but in verses 18-19 Luke includes a quotation from Isaiah which Jesus used to describe what he came to do, in other words, to describe his mission. Last Sunday Cameron spoke about Jesus’ encounter with the Devil in the wilderness. Events have moved on since then. Jesus started his public ministry in Galilee, but now he had come to the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth. He was handed the scroll, unrolled it and read some famous words from the prophet Isaiah, recorded in verses 18-19. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.” Jesus clearly applied this passage to himself. In verse 21, he told his listeners, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” He adopted this passage as his mission statement. But what does it mean? On one level it appears quite straightforward. After all, it doesn’t contain any complicated theological words. But as soon as you start to explore the commentaries and find out what people have written about it, the picture is far from straightforward. Some say that it is a special message to a particular socio-economic group, literally good news for the poor. For others, for liberation theologians, it is a very political message, endorsement of political liberation for oppressed minorities, by revolution if necessary. Yet others have spiritualised these verses, claiming that the poor are those who are spiritually, rather than economically, poor. As we’ve discovered from the series on Mark that we did before Christmas, many Jews were waiting for a political Messiah. After centuries of oppression at the hands of foreign powers, they were longing for a Messiah who would lead them to freedom by driving out the Romans. But we saw that Jesus wasn’t that type of Messiah. He came to die on the Cross, to give us the opportunity to repent and to get right with God. Jesus wasn’t himself a political leader, but nevertheless I think it would be wrong to conclude that he had no interest in political matters. It’s been nearly 2,000 years since Jesus said that he had come to bring good news to the poor, but there are still countless millions of people living in poverty. But again I think it would be wrong to conclude from this that Jesus was merely referring to the spiritually poor. When Jesus said he was bringing good news to the poor, he meant the economically poor. That is the plain meaning of the word, that is what it means in context and that is how his listeners would have understood it. And if you look at Jesus’ ministry, you will see that we spent a lot of his time with the poor and down-trodden, with beggars living in destitution. But it is also true to say that “the poor” includes more than the economically poor; it also covers the marginalised and disadvantaged of society more generally. But to limit it to the spiritually poor would be a serious mistake. And I think later events in Luke’s Gospel bear this out. In chapter 7 we read that when John the Baptist was in prison, he sent messengers to Jesus to ask him if he was the Messiah. And Jesus answered, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Jesus was healing the blind, the lame, people with leprosy and the deaf. All these miracles were very real, very physical; to give “the poor” a spiritual meaning would be to ignore the context. But as I’ve said, the poor weren’t just simply the economically poor. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus frequently associated with those on the margins of society, with what were described as the tax collectors and sinners. Now, we may resent at times the amount we pay in tax, and HM Revenue & Customs may not be our favourite government department. It has been said there are two types of people who complain about paying their income tax: men and women! But we recognise we need to pay taxes to finance the NHS and the essential services upon which we rely. And we don’t think a large amount of our taxes is going straight into the pocket of the taxman. But in Jesus’ time the tax collectors were the lowest of the low. They were local Jewish people, and the Romans employed them to collect a set amount of taxes, and anything above that amount they could keep. So they lined their pockets at the expense of their fellow Jews. No wonder they were hated, regarded with contempt as traitors. Jesus made it very clear that he was bringing good news to them as well. Jesus brought good news to the poor and he brought sight to the blind. But that’s not all that’s said in the quotation from Isaiah. Jesus also said that he had been sent to proclaim liberty to the prisoners and to set free the oppressed. Now, there are those who say that Jesus couldn’t have meant this literally. He must have meant this spiritually because he didn’t actually free prisoners; he didn’t go around emptying the prisons. And nor did he liberate the oppressed from political oppression. So what did Jesus mean here? Once again the context gives us a clue. The quotation from Isaiah ends by referring to “the year of the Lord’s favour”. The Messiah has been sent to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. This is a very clear reference to the Year of Jubilee. The idea of Jubilee comes from the OT. After the Israelites had entered the Promised Land following the Exodus, land was allotted to tribes, and then each family received a piece of land. In an agricultural society ownership of land was vital; without it you would plunge into poverty. If a family had a bad year, it might have to borrow some money. If it couldn’t repay the loan, it would have to send one of the family members to work for the lender. And if things got even worse, it might have to sell the land. And in agricultural society that was a disaster. The family would have no means of subsistence and would end up in servitude to the lender. Without land there was no way out of poverty. So once every 50 years, once in a lifetime, a Year of Jubilee was declared; it was a year when debts were cancelled, people were returned to the families they came from, slaves were released and property was given back to its original owner. The poverty trap was sprung. The Year of Jubilee was good news, indeed great news, for the poor. And prisoners were released, because slaves had to be set free. Jesus’ listeners would undoubtedly have heard what Jesus said in economic and political terms, and it would be wrong to spiritualise it. Jesus was declaring that God was intervening in the world in a new way, that God’s kingdom was coming. But it wasn’t the kingdom that most of Jesus’ listeners were expecting or hoping for. Jesus was inviting everyone to share in the kingdom; the poor, the powerless, the outcasts of society and the foreigners. By driving out demons, healing the sick and raising the dead Jesus was demonstrating the presence of God’s kingdom in a very physical way. But there was also another side to Jesus’ mission. He also preached the forgiveness of sins and called on people to repent. Jesus was giving people a foretaste of the kingdom that one day will remake the whole world. But that day hasn’t yet arrived. One day Jesus will come again in glory, but we are living in the in-between period, between Jesus’ first and second comings. And that is why there is still so much poverty, suffering and injustice in the world. God’s kingdom has invaded, but full physical and spiritual deliverance is still to come. So, as we are living in the in-between period, our task as a church is to be pointer towards the kingdom of God, to live out the values that Jesus expressed in his life. As we implement our decisions from the Listening Day, let’s keep an eye on whether we are reaching out to the poor and marginalised of society. So, what sort of response did Jesus get to his words? Now, the latter part of this passage has always puzzled me, because Jesus initially seemed to get a positive response, but he then turned on his listeners. We read in verse 22 that they spoke well of him and were amazed at his gracious words. I would have expected Jesus to have been pleased with their reaction. I know I would be pleased if I preached a sermon and the congregation marvelled at what I had said! It would be odd if instead if accepting the praise, I turned on the congregation and attacked them for their lack of faith. Yet, at first sight, this is precisely what Jesus seems to have done. As I often do when I’m puzzled by a passage from the Bible, I turned to Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary for help, and it seems that an undercurrent of tension has got lost in translation. According to Tom Wright the people were probably not best pleased with what Jesus said. Tom Wright paraphrases verse 22 like this: Luke actually means “they were astonished that he was speaking about God’s grace – grace for everybody, including the nations – instead of grace for Israel and fierce judgment for everyone else”. That fits in perfectly with what followed. Jesus sensed that his listeners weren’t following him; they were ready to taunt him to do some great miracles for the sake of show. But why? What was so wrong with what he was saying? Jesus responded to his listeners with an explanation which must have stunned and shocked them. Jesus pointed out what happened in the days of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was sent to help a widow, but not a Jewish one. Elisha healed only one leper out of many, and the one he healed was the commander of the enemy army. And that’s what drove Jesus’ listeners to fury. The message they wanted to hear was that God was going to liberate Israel from foreign oppression. They wanted God to condemn and destroy their enemies. Instead, Jesus pointed out that when the great prophets were active, it wasn’t Israel who benefited, but only the foreigners. That’s a bit like someone in Britain or France during World War II speaking of God’s healing and restoration for the German people. It’s not what people wanted to hear. But it’s what Jesus was saying; he had come to bring God’s love and mercy to all people. And everyone, rich and poor, can avail themselves of God’s love and mercy through repentance and receiving forgiveness. But it is very hard for the person who has it all, a large house, a Porsche, good looks and good health to throw him or herself on God’s mercy, to be dependent on someone else. It’s very easy to become complacent and attached to the status quo. The tax collector and sinner are a constant refrain in Luke’s Gospel of the type of people who were drawn to Jesus. The poor, the sick and the suffering came to him. They realised the helplessness of their situation, that they needed a Saviour. Where do we stand? Are we caught up in a comfortable, materialistic lifestyle, or do we realise our need for a Saviour? Let’s pray: Good news to the poor, liberty to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. Father, help us to realise our own helplessness, and empower us to be part of a church that wants to reach out to the poor, the prisoners and the blind. Amen.
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