When Jesus comes home, he isn’t treated like a hero. But really, why would they? He challenges them. We just take a different path to reject the plan.
With Jesus it is not about when it happened but when it happens
Epiphany 3C | Luke 4:14-21
I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here. Jesus comes back to his home region, like it’s his home state and he is killing it. People are coming to him, wanting more. He’s a sensation. Show us those magic healing hands, Jesus!
Now, there are no disciples yet. He’s just spent 40 days in the wilderness and probably needs a shower. But his name is suddenly everywhere.
So this is the Jesus who comes home and walks into his hometown, walks into the synagogue, reads some spicy scripture from Isaiah, and then sits down in the preacher’s seat with this bold truth claim. Like he’s saying to all of these people This is happening. These aren’t just words. God is doing this right here, right now, with us.
And the people are bowled over. Apparently, Jesus is still killing it.
This is where people often stop in the story or else they move on to the next thing. We don’t deal with what is probably the weirdest thing for 21st Century Christians to wrap our puny little heads around.
Different Expectations
Jesus didn’t read from his preaching Bible or his family Bible or the big monstrous Bible we used to have up on the lectern, but he’s handed a scroll. And unlike an evangelical preacher, he didn’t read from Titus to get the people organized or explain why the women need to keep quiet.
Instead, they hand him one of the scrolls, these big, cumbersome things and here is this bit of Isaiah. Apparently exactly what he wanted, or at least something he could riff on. And he reads it, hands the scroll back to the person who brought it out from its place, and sat down.
This is the part the blows our ever-loving minds! Because he didn’t step up into a brass, adorned pulpit or walk around the room like a charismatic pastor, he sat down in the teacher’s chair and proclaimed the Good News of God’s transforming our unjust human systems. He sat down to teach them. About how God is transforming the world and what part they get to play in that.
He sat in a chair. And there’s a way in which it doesn’t matter whether or not people in the back could see (maybe next time they’ll get closer).
We have a myriad of reasons why we don’t follow Jesus, but this seems like an easy one to fix today.
Expectations Fulfilled
Now that we realize how thoroughly distracted we get when our expectations aren’t met, let’s talk about what he said.
He said “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” which feels like Jesus is opening up a whole other can of worms. But we wouldn’t understand the half of it.
He’s reading from Isaiah, a book from Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah was one of the prophets, which never meant fortune-teller. Prophets heard God in everything and could tell when we were off course. The great prophetic tradition, as seen in Elijah or Isaiah is a wisdom tradition. They are wise in knowing God and relating what God wants to what we’re all doing. Which is why they’re often yelling at us to shape up.
So when Jesus reads from Isaiah:
“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.”
He’s not just quoting and he’s not saying “Here I come to save the day, you lucky, lucky humans.” He’s naming the power of the Holy Spirit is in their midst, proclaiming this is what we do! We proclaim! We set free!
So in a way, when Jesus says to them “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” he’s really saying this just got real.
Today
Our usual response to prophecy is:
If this were true, we’d definitely see it! Where’s all this liberation and sight?
We demand proof of that objective certainty. Which means we need evidential proof of its physical occurrence in history.
In this narrow frame, the fundamental truth is that Jesus came 2000 years ago. Done. It happened in a precise moment we can record.
And Jesus promises to show up at the end. To get this stuff done. End of story. We’re left in that in-between, evaluating the truth claims, I guess.
So with this view, history, salvation, life: it all happens just once. It is all so permanent and timely.
I brushed my teeth at 5:52 am this morning.
I started the car at 6:13 am this morning and stopped at Kroger at 6:24. Concrete events with measurable truth.
Life, and the moments of life are static to our logical minds. Our history is full of events happening at specific moments in time.
And yet…
When we watch Subaru commercials, something else happens. We feel countless moments at once and glimpse an eternal present. Especially that one with the Dad talking to his little girl through the window in the front seat who suddenly is a young adult heading off to college. That’s true, isn’t it?
It hits like a thousand moments and like every single one of them is in that! And that isn’t an actress. My daughter is in that front seat! She’s going off to college tomorrow! Yes, it’s over 7 years away, but it’s also tomorrow, isn’t it?
Just like she was born yesterday. No, not literally, but also yes, literally! Stop stealing the greater truth of time, of today! Today, we have these truths at once. It is all here, it is all present right now.
When Jesus sits down and says today, these things are fulfilled, he really does mean that day. To those people. In that moment. Today.
And when the next day dawns: again. To these people. In that moment. Today.
To us: ever again. In this moment. Today.
But this today isn’t a million individual, definable moments, it is also all of them together. Today! It is always today!
David Lose writes
the tense of Jesus’ declaration that “the Scripture has been fulfilled” isn’t the once and done present tense or the singular past tense but rather the ongoing, even repetitive, and definitely re-occurring perfect tense.
So “today” isn’t just that one day. This isn’t the only today Jesus is speaking about. This event didn’t happen on that one day. We are not recalling a singular moment. Our today is also their today and not just every today in-between but every today yet to come!
Home
Jesus’s return home comes immediately after the temptation in the desert. That time when the Satan tries to convince Jesus to accept absolute power over the world.
Jesus’s rejection isn’t just a rejection of the evil one, but a rejection of what he offers. Power over, kingdoms to rule, proof to the world of his true divinity.
He rejects all of it and is filled with the power of the Spirit.
He comes home to find a people amazed at his message, and as we’ll hear next week, kinda wishing he’d taken the Satan up on his offer. I mean, that power, man, that could be useful. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Today, we’re talking about today.
We’re talking about Jesus speaking to us and to everyone.
Bringing good news to the poor.
Proclaiming release to the captives.
Proclaiming recovery of sight to the blind,
Letting the oppressed go free.
Proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor.
Today, this is what the Holy Spirit fills Jesus with.
Today, this is what the Holy Spirit fills us with.
Our invitation
This is our invitation to participate in this. Today!
And when we wake in the morning, guess what? A new today, a new invitation!
Even after we draw our last breaths, the Spirit will be inviting even more people to participate in that future Today!
This is our invitation and our challenge. To help Christ turn this whole thing upside down. Because it is happening. God’s dream is happening. It has been fulfilled in our hearing. Our hearing. Always is and always has been. God is here, the work is always being done. So let it be with us!
Each new today an opportunity. To learn or change or become ever closer to God. Each new today is a chance to proclaim the day of the Lord’s favor for all of creation. Most especially to those who need to hear it.
Today we let go of yesterday. Today we embrace what God has already begun, what God is already up to. And like Mary, every day is a new today to say this plan of yours? I’m in. ‘Cause this world isn’t gonna change itself.