Sermon, by Pastor Joel
January 26, 2025
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
The context of this sermon is
100% written by a human
When I read the gospel this week, I felt a sense of joy in the words, the quiet peace of reassurance – as if something great was about to happen.
Jesus is still just getting warmed up, when he returns to Nazareth and goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. These were words certainly most of the scribes would have known very well, but held in Jesus’s hand on that Sabbath Day, they took on a new meaning, a new life.
It was no longer about someone who was coming to do these great things. It wasn’t about a promise that something great might happen someday. It was the realization that someday was today, and that someone was Jesus.
Part of that comes from the gift we have of hindsight – we know who Jesus was, and what he did – in a fuller sense than anyone in the synagogue on that day. But these are powerful words. “The spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus said, holding the ancient scroll. “God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God 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 favour.”
That is a powerful speech. It suggests the expectation of miracles, the hope of humanity. It reassures us that however rough it is – in times of political and economic uncertainty, or natural disasters, or when family problems trouble us – things will get better.
Now, Jesus said those words a long time ago, and sometimes we wonder if they came true. Well, certainly we have made a lot of progress – in better protection for people who fall outside of society’s mainstream, in more social safety nets for the poor, in our belief that wealthier nations should share their offerings with less fortunate ones. Our lives today are infinitely safer and healthier than the ones of generations past – and certainly better than those who lived in the time of Jesus. And yet, while humanity’s overall trajectory may be progressing, we also have this sense of society’s sliding backwards, that we may be living in a dip in progress. Many of us will have felt it this week, especially. A cracking of democracy. A move away from values such as mercy and equality – the very values that Jesus espoused, the ones that shaped our society.
As always, in the words and actions of Jesus, we hear a call. Jesus was a fire starter, but the oxygen that kept that fire going was his followers, then and now. Jesus, in our gospel today, is clearly making a proclamation of what was to come, or what was expected. God has sent me, he says, to free those who are oppressed, to make the blind see. We might then imagine him looking out into the group, into the eyes of each one standing there saying: Where will God send you?
To the mother in the crowd, standing with her children, who would decide what they were taught about how to treat their fellow humans: Where will God send you? To the teacher whose words reach into the hearts of their students and carry them into adulthood? Where will God send you? To the tax collector, who would choose every day whether to resist the temptation of power or set an example of integrity: Where will God send you? Each one in that crowd who heard the words of Jesus, knew it to be true: this was a beginning. A new mission statement to guide the world.
As our second lesson reminds us – all these people – mother, teacher, tax collector – are part of the body that forms the work of the gospel. All are essential. Every part matters.
The second lesson reminds me of a theory a dog trainer suggested recently: in a traditional wolf pack, he suggested there are three kinds of members. There is the leader, who takes charge and goes out in front. There is the middle dog – the social, happy go lucky one, who holds the pack together socially and smooths out conflict. And in the last third there is the watchful dog, a little anxious. This dog warns the others when danger approaches. Now if you are a dog owner, you might want your dog to be the leader, maybe you’d be happier with the sociable, goofy jester. You may be less keen on the back of the pack dog – which is what I have at home. Our dog, Gus, seems to go through life in a constant state of worry. He is always on the lookout for threats. Unfortunately these threats include airplanes in the sky, and plastic bags that appear suddenly on the sidewalk. It’s as if, he thinks, better err on the side of reporting danger, than missing it.
But it seems to me that what’s key is that the pack needs all three. Without a leader, it would be in disarray. Without the chill presence in the middle, conflict might boil over. Without the warning from the back, harm might befall them.
And that’s the same with us: every part matters. And not just as an individual part, but as a collection of parts. In every community, including this one, we need thinkers and builders and teachers. We need people who like to take the stage, and people who quietly share their wisdom in the background. We need sparkle and substance. This is what creates a healthy, productive, resilient pack of followers for Jesus. It’s what creates a balanced body of believers who can fulfill the gospel, even in times that feel more than a little hopeless.
Jesus sets a very high bar. It may be that we work to meet it all our lives but see only small progress. (Although, in my opinion, progress is assessed differently depending on where we look.) But Jesus is right: We need to set a high bar for what we want out of life, and for what we want to see in the world. When we despair, we must lean hard on those among us who are cheerful and resilient. When we are distracted, we should look to those who would remind us of the dangers we are fighting against. And always, we must be guided by the words and actions of Jesus, who was sent by God to walk among us, and who poses this question, to each and every one of us, each and every day: “Where will God send you?”
Amen.
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