Göttinger Predigten
Göttinger Predigten im Internet hg. von U. Nembach
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, 01/27/2019
Sermon on Luke 2:14-21, by David Zersen
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
SITTING, HE SAID
Some years ago I showed a friend who happened to be a professional photographer a framed photo I had taken at a historic place. Our son was perhaps ten years old and, amateur though I am, I thought I had captured a very special moment with him in the foreground. I asked the friend what he thought of the picture. He said, “What interests me about that picture is the man sitting on the chair with his back to the camera.”
Of course, I was stunned, but I learned that one’s person’s view of something doesn’t have to be another’s. When you consider our text today, as many preachers around the world will do, what captures your interest? I confess that in different years when the three-year lectionary invites me to preach on this text, something totally different may strike me. Today, I’m touched by the words, “sitting, he said.”
Speaking with Authority
We could assume that after standing to read the lesson from Isaiah he simply sat down for a moment of silence—as is sometimes customary after the reading in churches today. However, that would involve placing a contemporary context into an ancient Jewish one, an inappropriate anachronism. The chair next to the podium where the Isaiah scroll had been placed was the rabbi’s chair, the place from which the passage just read would be interpreted. It was the preacher’s pulpit, the place of authority in which the word of God would be expounded. And on this day, Jesus assumed the authority of a rabbi. And more than that.
Isn’t it interesting that when Jesus came to his home town of Nazareth he sat before his family and those whom he had grown up with and assumed a position of authority? I well remember the first time I returned to my home town from the seminary to preach from the pulpit in my home congregation. I was terrified and I have no recollection of what the text was that day. I do remember that a man from the congregation came up and said something positive about my having stuck to the point in the sermon! But preaching with authority? I don’t remember that I had that in mind.
What would you say are your own places of authority—from which you are privileged to speak? Do you have a role in the workplace that involves others paying attention when you speak? In your circle of friends, do people listen when you talk? As a parent, do your children hear what you have to say without your becoming overly vocal? What about in your religious life—do you think that people respect your point of view?
I have come to be impressed with the times when a member of the family in the Blue Bloods TV series opts to say the table prayer—to sit and to say words that come from the heart. I can remember Danny accepting the opportunity to lead the prayer for the first time after his wife died. Although he may not have thought of it that way, the family members certainly understood that there was spiritual significance in his leading the prayer under those conditions.
When Jesus read the Scripture before family and friends on that day in Nazareth, surely people were wondering whether the kid who had grown up there was overstepping his bounds—until they heard what he said. He had come to preach “good news” to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed—a year of the Lord’s favor. Those words were well known to the hearers, but they had always expected that such things would happen when the messiah came. And now?
Speaking Good News
Sitting, he said, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” We should imagine that the hearers must have been puzzled, troubled, offended, outraged… What is going on here? Who is this Jesus?
I know an artist in India, P. Solomon Raj, who plays with this very setting in his art. He, himself, is a Dalit, one of those in the lowest caste often called “untouchable.” Although no longer legally an appropriate distinction in a largely Hindu society, socially many are still considered of lesser value than others. When Raj the artist, and, by the way, a Lutheran pastor, portrays refugees, laborers, outcasts, disreputable women, he typically portrays them in the presence of a man with a crown of thorns on his head. The viewer has to ask, “Who is this man? What is he doing there? What is his attitude toward these people?” Raj, the artist and pastor, hopes that those questions will lead to some answers. It is his way of preaching “bad news” to those who condescend to others and “good news” to the poor.
How does this work for us? Make no mistake about it: it is a terribly complicated problem. I’ll give two extreme examples. I remember the time when the parish wanted to make sure the homeless had a home with us so they encouraged those who came for handouts on Tuesday to return for church on Sunday. One Sunday, however, an incontinent homeless person urinated while sitting in the pew and the urine ran down the pew to those sitting next to him. The parish decided that its open-door policy had gone too far. Recently in a parish I attend that encourages anyone from the community to attend I chatted with a visitor at the coffee hour. He and I both had the same given name, David, and he asked me if I was a son of Mary and Joseph. That led to a string of nonsense, numbers and Bible passages that I didn’t seem to be able to interrupt, so I finally left—feeling very uncomfortable about abandoning this stranger. While we want to preach good news to the poor by any definition, it can be complicated in our society-- and in our churches—as we determine how best to do it.
We who have been claimed by the Good News want to reach out to the poor, the captives, the oppressed, the refugees, the strangers at our borders? At the current time, Christians in the United States are being challenged to identify such people and to love them. Many of us feel strongly that we need to have some organized approach to following our Messiah’s call to share the Good News We want to embrace those who have less than many of us—but not in a chaotic way that destroys the meaning of community or citizenship.
Unfortunately the benefits for which many have worked hard and the blessings that have fallen to others who were fortunate enough to receive them have become an assurance that often curtails our generosity. Politically and culturally we tout our freedoms and our affluence singing “America, American, God shed his grace on thee.” But the “brotherhood” that should arise from such grace does not always extend “from sea to shining sea.” And the advertising that plays on such blessings, suggesting that we can really “have it all”, is not the good news that Jesus is proclaiming from the Messiah’s chair. God’s grace frees us from self-centeredness—wanting to “have it all”-- to discover ways to share generosity and kindness simply because that’s who we now are.
Can we have a conversation about this? Can we ask how Jesus might direct this discussion?
Are there not some among us wanting to talk about it?
How and when can we do this?