9:30am Camillo
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 : 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 : Luke 4:14-21
At the risk of sounding like a very poor parody of a German or eastern European film, we have a saying in English: there is no point in re-inventing the wheel. And if we want an excellent example of someone not re-inventing a particular spiritual, faith-based wheel we need look no further than Luke’s Jesus in today’s gospel.
What Jesus is doing, as Luke plainly tells us, is quoting from scripture, namely the Hebrew scriptures. What Luke doesn’t plainly say is that the passage Jesus reads is from the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61 and verses 1 and 2, which go like this:
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
ISA 61:2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
What is this? About a third of verse 2 has dropped off, the most embarrassing bit being that stuff about “our” God’s vengeance.
Or maybe Luke has Jesus omit that part of the verse to remind aficionados of the Hebrew scriptures – who would have been everyone in Jesus’ and Luke’s time – that what the Living God is about is peace and not violence. In other words, let me suggest, the omission is deliberate and considered.
In effect, Jesus is saying that he comes to bring healing and hope – and that it is here now, in the presence of the people, who initially are quite smitten with his charming words. As Jesus will later demonstrate, he’s not easily flattered. He may well have agreed with John Lennon’s incisive lyric that pounds through the beginning of Gimme some truth: “I'm sick and tired of hearing things from uptight-short-sighted-narrow minded hypocritics…” But that’s another sermon; maybe next week’s…
So, what is Jesus in Luke saying today? Let’s be good theologians and begin by saying what he isn’t doing. Jesus is not saying he’s come to shut down Judaism because God has appointed him Receiver over an errant, impoverished religion. Fulfillment language never indicates an end to one thing, followed by a John Cleese voice-over saying, “And now for something completely different…!”
Jesus comes to reform the existing faith system, not to abandon it and create a new one. He was not a Christian and his mission was not to “usher in” Christianity. He came, he sez, to speak for the Living God and re-create a system of respect, honouring and genuine care for human beings for no other reason than that we are human beings, created in the image and likeness of the Living God and one of the vital elements in creation.
In theological and semi-theological terms, God sez, “I love you cos I made you; I love you cos you are.”
And here’s Jesus actually saying this is it, folks; over the top! And then we get power chords and Doc Neeson belting out Take a long line… with the Angels…
Okay, we don’t get Doc Neeson. But we do have Jesus making an extraordinary statement and sounding a tad more like Karl Marx than Jimmy Swaggart or Billy Graham; more like Martin Luther King, if you prefer, than Ian Paisley or Pat Robertson. More – like it or not – like Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi than Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benny Sixteen) or John Knox or John Calvin.
And what about this good news he’s come to proclaim? We’ve had it shrink-wrapped, galvinised, Photoshopped, merchandised, snap-frozen, deep-fried, fog-horned, feather-dusted, cream-puffed, basted, roasted, poached – especially poached – blind-baked, nose-ringed, tattooed, branded, professionally developed, networked, super-sized, miniaturised, tee-shirted, hog-tied, politicised, iodised, capitalised, franchised and of course theologized –
But we seem to spend more energy avoiding putting it into practice and making it real than we can thinking up excuses for explaining it away. It is not rocket science. Good news means good news. You’ve got the job. Your cancer has gone. You can afford that house. Interest rates have dropped. Or risen, as the case may be. You’re cured. You’re loved. You’re on the right track. You’re free!
Now, we should be aware that “good news” is a translation of the Greek word euaggelion, from which we get words like evangelist and evangelical. We are all called to be evangelists in the sense that good news is supposed to be our stock skill.
What Paul sez in his first letter to the mob in Corinth about evangelists is a reference to a particular, specialised calling. It’s not a handy excuse for avoiding being the bearer of good news at all times.
And yet… how often has the Church passed off as good news material – words, prayers, actions – that to any person of reason and common sense is anything but good news. Jesus engaged the legalists and hectic fundamentalists of his day precisely in an effort to wrestle plain reason and common sense back into his faith.
He understood the multivariate shades of grey and the brilliant hues of life lived fully and intimately with the Living God, not one of which required a more exacting belief in anything but a God who reached out, understood and loved unconditionally and generously.
This is essentially what he is saying to people whose captivity, blindness, poverty and oppression take many forms, not only the literal. And his most astounding statement is that this good news, this world of what one theory of counseling calls “unconditional positive regard”, is available freely here and now.
It comes into life whenever and wherever people show in word and deed that good news means good news in a way that even the most uneducated person can understand. …In a way that holds the eye and the heart together in tenderness and respect.
…In a way that refuses judgement and upholds the value and power of kindness, love and compassion in the face of every attempt of a damaged world to shred the fabric of respect and wholeness.
None of this is easy to do. Our damaged souls constantly infect and rust those around us. It is as if the damage is a cancer that tries to multiply its cells at every opportunity.
But the good news is that it is not at all impossible to be kind and loving and compassionate, to see these values and qualities as vibrant, energised signs of the Living God’s presence, and to seek what is best in every person and situation.
And whenever any of us manages to reproduce even a little of God’s generous presence in Camillo or anywhere else, then good news is being fulfilled in those places. This is our calling as people of God. May all our thoughts, words and deeds speak always and only the good news of Jesus, the good news of the Living God.
No comments:
Post a Comment