What would Jesus Say?

The story we just heard from Mark is of Jesus’ first sermon.  Luke tells us more - Jesus had just come back from the Wilderness where he had been fasting for 40 days and tested by Satan. Returning to his home town he entered the temple and chose to read the words of Isaiah “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  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 favour.”  Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.  The eyes of everyone fixed on him and he tells them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

One heck of a first sermon.  And he was greeted with total cynicism and, as Luke tells us, an intention to kill him.  I’ve been wondering what it would be like if Jesus walked in here after 40 days of battling his demons and being tested by Satan: Satan’s smooth talking, “I’ll give you everything and it will be so easy . . . You could have authority and power, masses of Twitter followers and Face Book friends, and huge stock options and influence – I’ll give you everything if you just worship me and not God.”  But Jesus knows false promises and hypocrisy when he hears them.  After all that, Jesus is ready to preach.  Thin from fasting, but bright faced and uniquely powerful, he opens his mouth and it’s as if his voice is as familiar as the sound of our own heartbeats; a forgotten but well known song. 

And he tells us that the Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to bring good news to the poor.

to bring gifts of good food and drink to those who exist only on McDonalds and KFC because that’s the food within walking distance from their damp and falling down homes.

The Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to forgive all your student debts;

to bring living water to those suffering drought or poisoned rivers.

to look the Stock Exchange and Banks in the eye and laugh.to dismantle our systems that make profit more important than people.

to endow people with a sense of worth that has nothing to do with the size of their bank accounts, their career or social status.

. . . because the Spirit of the Lord has sent him to bring good news to the poor.

And Jesus goes on to say that The Spirit of the Lord has sent him to release to the captives.

to free addicts from their needles and bottles and I-Phones.

to relieve the depressed from the feeling of worthlessness.

to bring rest to sleep-deprived parents of babies and sick children.

to free those wrongly imprisoned by justice systems that have nothing to do with authentic justice.

to take away the profit making systems of exploitative corporations.

to remove people’s passion and desire for the kind of cheap goods that only can come from child labour.

to give a sense of belonging to the alienated and disenfranchised.

to forgive the sinner.

to save us from having to prove ourselves all the time.

to remove resentments from those who just cannot let go of the past.

. . . because the Spirit of the Lord has sent him to bring release to the captives.

And I imagine him looking straight at me and giving me a firm but absolutely loving “get over yourself” look and I imagine us being drawn to the beauty of his love and thewisdom of his words.

And then he says he has also come to bring recovery of sight to the blind.

to change forever the way we see those who are different from us.

to illuminate us to how human sin tears at the fabric of all humanity.

to allow us to see who we really are, to see the image of God in ourselves and others, and to again see what has always been there but has become obscured by years ofwishy-washy discipleship.

to give us a glimpse of heaven in the here and now  -  to show us that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

to show us what it really looks like to love what God loves.

to allow us to see ourselves as God see us and recognise that there really is no “them” there is only “us”.

. . . because the Spirit of the Lord has sent him to bring recovery of sight to the blind.

The Spirit of the Lord has sent him to bring freedom to the oppressed, the over worked, the under-appreciated, the last chosen, the unlovely, the despised and unseen, the overly-proud, and those who think they are so very small.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. 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 favour.”

And the eyes of our whole congregation are fixed on him.  No one moves. Not even the kids.  And then he says, “Come on everyone, stop looking at me – you have what you need.  It’s all here and my grace and my love and my power will carry you.  Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

That’s the thing . . . Jesus fought with the devil, saw all the easy answers, the false promises and rubbish for what they were, and he stayed the course keeping his divine and perfect and wholly good birth right.  We see with Jacob and Esau just how easy it is to give in and gain a birth right by deception.  

Jesus speaks from Isaiah, but the first of his own words was the word “today”.  Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing. Today, right now, this moment.  So could our minds and hearts and eyes open?  Could our brows becoming less furrowed, our doubts a little less important?  Could our critical minds that judge and assesses every single thing in our lives be silenced for a while, the resentments let go of and the good news, and vision and freedom of God truly fulfilled in out hearing?  Not fulfilled in our believing, or with fingers crossed, not fulfilled in our longing or our striving for something better . . . Simply fulfilled in our hearing.  Today, right now, this moment . . . and enable us to act.  
AMEN