Epiphany 3
January 24, 2010
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
Many of us can probably remember a popular TV drama some years ago called Mission Impossible. At the beginning of the story, you could hear a disembodied voice tell an agent about a difficult mission. The details and the dangers of that mission were laid out for the agent only after this warning: “Your mission, if you choose to take it, will be…”
Nearly two weeks ago, real voices asked the world to take on a kind of mission impossible when a devastating earthquake hit Haiti. And even as we worship this morning, thousands of people have chosen to take up a seemingly impossible mission in the mangled ruins of that quake which continues to wreak havoc on the lives of survivors. And the details of the mission sound a lot like the details of Jesus’ mission to a broken world in today’s gospel lesson. Jesus reads the words of Isaiah as a kind of mission statement. He tells us that he has been anointed (which means he has been equipped) to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor.
Volunteers and professional workers in Haiti are doing just that. They are also bringing the good news of food, and water, and medical supplies and other needed resources to a desperate people. Relief workers are releasing those held captive by fear and chaos with the care and comfort they provide; they are healing the wounded and restoring the life and limbs of those who suffer; and they are providing hope to a people oppressed by circumstances beyond their control And by all their efforts they, too, are proclaiming the Lord’s favor on the people of Haiti.
I am always amazed at the generous and compassionate response people make when victims suffer a natural disaster or human tragedy. The shock of devastation and human suffering brings out the best in us. I experienced that for myself in the aftermath of 9/11 in my own work as a volunteer. I was among a handful of first year seminarians who coordinated relief efforts from an emergency phone line set up at an office on campus. In my many encounters with people in downtown Manhattan over the next several months I continued to experience the compassion and generosity, the quiet calm and the passionate hope of a people whose reputation for being fast paced and hard hearted was clearly undeserved. I saw first hand their extraordinary human response to extraordinary human tragedy. I saw massive evidence that despite all of our human strife and division, our hypocrisy and greed, our apathy and recklessness toward others—in short—in spite of our propensity to sin, human tragedies and natural disasters reveal our innate goodness as God’s children, created in God’s image to serve God’s good purpose in this world he created for our good.
My only regret is that it often takes a human tragedy or a natural disaster for us to find that place of goodness in us, and to act on it. Images and stories of relief efforts bring us to tears and inspire our generosity. It’s in times like these that people who claim to have no religious belief or affiliations remember God, and the faithful renew our belief in the God who created us and called us “good.” It is not unusual to see people praying and singing, and to see them show up at churches to worship. People find every way they can to reach out to others to be part of a family and a community much larger than their own. They begin to trust and share, give and receive until they are no longer strangers, but friends who share a common bond of kindness and affection. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t last.
When the initial work of rescue and relief is done and the mission loses its urgency most people return to the ordinary living of their lives, to their less charitable, more sinful selves—and that’s just because we are human. And so my only other regret is that we are human. And that means we have a short memory. The same people we cared about, and cared for, so generously and compassionately become strangers, and we go back to living our little lives caring only for our little selves.
But God has done something about that. God has given us a way to remember. And a way to continue being the good persons he made us to be, doing the good work he gives us to do, meeting each other’s needs in the ordinary circumstances of our life. God sent Jesus into our world. And when Jesus left this world, his apostles formed communities of faith called the church. He gave us the Holy Spirit and he gave us the Church so that we might remember the good purpose for which we were created; so that we might continue to be the good persons God created us to be and do the good God gives us to do, not just in times of large scale human tragedy and natural disaster, but in the daily living of our life.
This is why we come together regularly to worship in this building, so we can stay connected to God, to each other and to God’s mission for us in the world. To remember that Jesus is our model for how we are to be the church. After all, Jesus himself was a devout Jew. He attended synagogue regularly and he continued to be instructed in scripture. He knew how important it was for him to stay connected to his God and to his community through the liturgical practices of his faith.
The same can be said for Ezra in our reading from Hebrew scripture. Ezra also shows us how important it is for a people of faith to stay connected to God and to each other through God’s word. After the Jews return to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon, Ezra gathers them together in a public space where he reads the Law God has given them in scripture. Ezra knows that when a people do not engage in liturgies of worship over a period of time they forget the principles and practices of their faith. And it is clear that the people are hungry to return to God and to religious community. As Ezra reads to them they raise their arms and shout for joy in gratitude; they bow their heads in worship, and it brings them to tears. And I know what they were feeling. At one time in my own life I took a self-imposed exile from the church, and when I returned two years later, I could hardly sing the hymns or pray the prayers for the tears I was trying to choke back. That first worship experience made me remember. It brought me back to God, to myself, to my community of faith and to the world as God would have me see it and live in it.
Today Jesus and Ezra and Paul show us why it is so important for us to come together regularly as a community of faith to worship, to study our scriptures, to pray and to work. So that we will remember how to live the life God is calling us to live, not just in time of human tragedy and natural disaster, but in every waking moment of our life. This is what makes the church, and other institutions who act on God’s behalf in this world so different from people and organizations who only respond human tragedy and natural disaster on a grand scale. Every day of our life we are mindful that we serve a higher purpose than ourselves, and we serve a greater good than our own whenever and wherever we find people in need. And in our various ways we keep that message always in front of us.
As a people of God and followers of Christ, it is the church which keeps the message in front of us. Our liturgies for worship keep us mindful of our sinfulness and our goodness; we hear God’s promises to us in scripture; we pray them, we sing them, we commune at this table in the hope of being nourished and nurtured by them and we are challenged to go into the world to live them. For faithful people of God, being and doing good is a daily practice. And the one thing people can expect from Christians is that when a human tragedy or natural disaster occurs in any part of the world the church is often the first to respond, usually because we already have a presence in so many countries of the world, and the last to leave, indeed if we leave at all. And there is a good reason for that. It’s because we take seriously the gospel lesson we heard today.
When Jesus is given the opportunity to select and interpret the scripture lesson during the liturgy at his home synagogue it becomes his mission statement. And it is shocking to those who hear him proclaim it. I can imagine that if a journalist were covering the event, the headline might read “Hometown boy makes outrageous claims.” Because Jesus not only selects the passage from Isaiah and reads it to the people, he does more than interpret the words, Jesus claims to be the one who will fulfill it. He will be the one to release those who are captive to sin, free those who are oppressed by sinners, heal those who are sick and infirm, and affirm the absolute worth of all people as children of God. And for Jesus his mission is not a choice. God chose his mission for him and God sent the Holy Spirit to him at his baptism to help him accomplish it.
What is so startling about this event is that Jesus does not simply read the Word, Jesus IS the Word. And because we know that Luke places more emphasis on Jesus’ life and ministry in this world than in his death and resurrection from it, we might call this reading his inaugural address. Isaiah’s words set Jesus’ agenda for his life and ministry in the world. And for Luke that purpose is to bring God’s kingdom closer to this world so that we might enjoy its benefits right here, right now, in this life, even before the life to come.
There is no “other-worldly” message in the scripture Jesus reads from Isaiah. He is not here to teach us only spiritual things which keep our minds focused on our inner life and our souls focused on heaven; Jesus is here to teach us how to live our life in this broken world in ways which honor God’s good purpose for us and for his creation. And so this passage from Luke’s gospel, and all the rest of Luke’s gospel, has serious consequences for people of faith. We become Jesus’ agents in a world where God’s mission seems impossible. Luke fully expects that the followers of Jesus in every age will take up Jesus’ mission and ministry for the sake of this world. He expects that we will take seriously the covenant made by us, or for us, at our own baptism and live by the power and the purpose and the promises of God’s Spirit within us.
Today we have been given our own mission to accomplish in the world, by the agenda Jesus sets for himself. And it sounds pretty scary, if not pretty impossible. But just like the agent in the TV drama, we are given the choice to accept that mission or refuse it. But true agents of God will not be able to ignore it. The mission might seem impossible; the risks are likely to be many and the dangers very real, but for Christians, every year is the acceptable year of the Lord. And just as God accomplished his purpose in his Son, Jesus, God is always ready to accomplish his purpose in us.
But first we must be willing to move out of this comfortable sanctuary and into that not so comfortable world. We need to take to heart the words of Dismissal we hear at the end of every Eucharist. Words like, “Let us go forth in the name of Christ,” and “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” This is God’s way of calling us into the world to be his church. Mission impossible? I don’t think so. Not for our God, and not for any agent of God. Mission impossible is entirely possible.