My grand niece Taylor who is 4 yo is one of my spiritual
directors. Some time ago, when she was
just three, she took up to her bedroom to show me her barbie dolls. However, my focus was on the statue of Mary that
was on her dresser. I asked Taylor: “Who
is that?” Without missing a beat, Taylor
told me she was a friend of my mom’s.
Wow! What a profound statement of
faith. Emily, her mom, was a fried of
Mary.
That story with my grand niece Taylor leads me to today’s
Gospel taken from the very beginning of Luke’s Gospel. Luke writes: I too have decided to write it down in an
orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize
the certainty of the teachings you have received.” Theophilus is Greek for God’s friend. May all of us have the nickname of Theophilus
which is to say we are God’s friend.
Just as Taylor’s mother Emily is Mary’s friend; please God may it be
said of us that we are Theophilus --
God’s friend.
We have all now heard his State of
the Union address. He outlined for us
what his priorities and emphases will be for the year. He told us where he intends to focus his
energies and efforts. He challenged us
to join him in achieving these goals.
The State of the Union address of which I speak is not that of the
President of the United States.
It is the inaugural message of Jesus Christ as presented in this day's
Scripture. The message proclaimed by
Jesus in the Gospel of Luke is, however,
every bit as much a State of the Union as were the words spoken by President Joe
Biden.
Luke presents us with Jesus' first
public speech at his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. Luke presents a summary - here at the very
beginning of his account - of what Jesus and his ministry will be about: his
vision, his priorities, his goals.
Like presidential State of the Union addresses that include quotations from the
Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, the inaugural address of Jesus
harkens back to founding principles. He
quotes two different places from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
The Lord has sent me to proclaim liberty to captive,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To let the oppressed go free,
And to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord."
The first half of this reference to Isaiah reflects the personal insight Jesus
had come to about himself and his own life.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me - not on someone else, not somebody with
different talents and abilities, not the other guy. The Lord has anointed me to bring glad
tidings to the poor. The Lord anointed
me to proclaim liberty to captives and sight to the blind. Jesus had come to realize that if God's work
was going to be done, he would have to get busy and start doing it. Jesus accepted the call of God as deeply
personal: he himself was the one.
Secondly, Jesus clearly spells out where this new ministry he was beginning
would be directed: He would proclaim
good news to the poor who - in his time or ours - only seem to hear bad news. He would be about the business of freeing
captives and giving sight to the blind and helping the oppressed break free of
all that held them bound. He would show
people what an acceptable time to the Lord looked like.
In his State of the Union, Jesus clearly announces that his Gospel
…will be social,
…it will be focused outward on others,
…it will seek to build the Lord's justice.
"Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." These words were spoken not just to those
gathered in the synagogue of Nazareth:
they are spoken to us, we who have also just heard Jesus' State of the
Union address. Now we must respond: will
we join him in the work he outlined?
Will we too accept the call of God as radically personally and
specific? Will we, like him, direct our
efforts outward to the poor who are still hearing bad news, to the blind who
still cannot see, to those still held captive in oppression?
If Good News is not proclaimed, it is not the Word of God that we are hearing. How is the Good News being preached to those who are poor: how are the blind able to see?
This inaugural address of Jesus was
given at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel.
Now I call your attention to the last words Jesus spoke in the Gospel
just before his Ascension into heaven.
“Go out, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
The last thing Jesus said to us 2000 years ago was "Go out!" It seems to me that we make a mistake if our
entire focus is telling people to come
in. I think we've missed the boat. We come in only so we can go out again. We come in to be refreshed and re-energized
by God's Word so we can go out and faithfully live it each day. We come in to be encouraged and supported by
the presence of other believers and their faith; we go out to bring God's peace
and justice to our little corner of the world.
We come in to be fed the Bread of Life and to drink the Cup of Blessing. We go out to feed a hungry world with that
Bread of Life. We go out to revive a
drooping humanity with that Cup of Blessing.
We go out as Disciples of Jesus, our Christ!
Our mission is the mission to rebuild hearts, to return them to God who is their real home. In his inaugural address given in the synagogue in Nazareth, will his hometown folks accept the mission Jesus is giving them?
Will we?
Have a Blessed Day.
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