RELUCTANT PROPHETS
(Preached on Sunday, January 25, 2004)
And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town.” -Luke 4:24
On a Saturday morning, in Nazareth, the town gathered in the synagogue to listen to Jesus read and teach.
It was no big surprise. He was well known in the area; Joseph and Mary’s boy; they had watched him grow up there in their midst.
They were eager to listen to him.
He was given the scroll of Isaiah and he read these words:
“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 favor.”
What a wonderful passage, very familiar, one of the old favorites.
Everyone understood these words to be the words of Isaiah.
It is how that prophet of long ago defined his ministry.
When Jesus finished that reading he handed the scroll to the attendant and sat down.
In that day you sat in the Moses Seat to teach the people.
Today preachers stand in a pulpit.
So all eyes were on Jesus, waiting for him to begin his teaching.
What would he say about this great prophet Isaiah?
Would he emphasize the bad news?
Israel had sinned and would be taken into captivity by the Babylonians.
Or would he emphasize the good news?
One day God would restore the people and bring them back from captivity.
It was Israel’s ancient history but it still spoke volumes.
But Jesus does neither.
He catches everyone in the synagogue that Saturday morning off guard.
He doesn’t emphasize the past at all.
He focuses on the present.
He doesn’t lift up Isaiah as the great role model; Jesus lifts up himself.
He dares to apply the great words of the prophet to himself.
“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke presents these words as Jesus’ mission statement.
These words define what Jesus was about.
This was “his thing” because it was “God’s thing.”
Every successful business and organization knows the importance of a mission statement. A mission statement lets people know who you are, what you are about, and what you stand for. A mission statement ensures that your members are in sync: each member of the organization knows the statement and operates according to it.
There are four main points to a mission statement:
1. It provides the reason for the existence;
2. It provides clarity and focus to the organization;
3. It is clear and concise;
4. It is agreed on by the wider organization.
These words from Isaiah which Jesus read easily fulfill points 1-3.
“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 favor.”
These words are certainly clear and concise; they provide the reason for what Jesus was about and they provide clarity and focus to his work.
Are they agreed on by the wider organization?
They were not always agreed on by the disciples, the 12.
They are not always agreed on by the church today.
For some of us they sound awfully political.
And they are. They are prophetic words.
Not the type that predict the future, but the type that call us to account for how we are living our lives and for the work we are doing on behalf of God.
Prophetic words often cut so deep, not because they predict the future or tell us what we don’t know, but prophets like Isaiah, Elisha, and Jesus, dig about in what we already know all too well and turn that on us.
That always makes us uncomfortable.
Martin Luther King, Jr. did not come preaching something new; he came shouting something we already knew: “You have said in your own Declaration of Independence, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, are endowed with certain inalienable rights.’ And I insist, that you either live by what you already know — or else be unfaithful to your own Constitution.”
And we killed him, because King told us what we already knew. He preached our sermon. Others had preached to us, but when King preached for us... You may be surprised to hear a preacher say this, but here it is: You already know all you need to know about religion.
It’s not a matter of knowing about God and God’s thing for life, it is a matter of relating it to our lives, to our world.
But when we do that, which is what a prophet always does, it means that things get shook up and become dangerous.
It is said that most people, when they leaf through the morning paper or when they watch the evening news on television, are not so much interested in the news as they are in confirming that the world is pretty much the same as it was before.
Politician A criticizes politician B?
A masked gunman sticks up a convenience store?
More strife in the Middle East?
“Yep, that’s the way the world is, always has been, always will be.”
News, real news, is unexpected, surprising, disturbing.
News means that the world is not the way it was yesterday, and, therefore, I cannot live my life the way I lived it yesterday.
A prophetic word is always a word about the news of God’s activity in our world.
But we prefer the no-news that nothing is changed and all is as it has been for a thousand yesterdays.
Jesus’ words are definitely prophetic words.
He is not interested in preserving the past for the sake of the past.
He looks to the present and the future.
What the prophets had hoped for, Jesus believed was available today.
The new age of God’s influence and activity in the world was already breaking in upon them. The opportunity was now.
The challenge of Jesus was (and is) for today.
Now is the hour of grace.
Now is the moment of opportunity.
Now we choose between darkness and light.
And that moment of opportunity is inextricably tied to how we treat one another. Our attitudes, relationships, deeds.
Especially how we treat the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed; those whom this proud world regards as unimportant or even disposable.
Caring for people today is Jesus’ “thing.”
Jesus demonstrated that the way to live out our calling as God’s people is to apply the story of God’s activity to our world and our lives in such a manner that we discover life, joy, freedom, peace, salvation.
That is God’s desire for the creation, well-being at all levels.
Jesus did that with these ancient words from Isaiah and they became the touchstone for his life and work in the world on behalf of God.
What about us today? In my column in The Christ Herald this month I suggested that we needed to understand and agree upon what God’s mission for Christ Congregational Church is if we are going to join God in that mission.
We have a mission statement that we wrote together as a congregation in 1996. Does that statement still express our understanding of what God is calling us to do together in 2004?
Or, perhaps it is the statement from Isaiah that Jesus read?
Or, perhaps it is better expressed by our Open and Affirming statement?
Marcus Borg, modern day biblical scholar and prophet, suggests that modern Christian life is relational and transformational.
He suggests that we need to reclaim the biblical term of being born again.
He sees this rich and comprehensive notion as a spiritual one that involves becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God.
He believes that part of being born again is to take seriously the call to be just and to care for the poor and the downtrodden.
The story is told of a Franciscan monk in Australia assigned to be the guide and “gofer” for Mother Teresa when she visited. Thrilled and excited at the prospect of being so close to this great woman, he dreamed of how much he would learn from her and what they would talk about. But during her visit, he became frustrated. Although he was constantly near her, the friar never had the opportunity to say one word to Mother Teresa. There were always other people for her to meet. Finally, her tour was over, and she was due to fly to New Guinea. In desperation, the Franciscan friar spoke to Mother Teresa: “If I pay my own fare to New Guinea, can I sit next to you on the plane so I can talk to you and learn from you?’ Mother Teresa looked at him. You have enough money to pay airfare to New Guinea? she asked. “Yes,” he replied eagerly. “Then give that money to the poor,” she said. “You’ll learn more from that than anything I can tell you.”
Mother Teresa understood what Jesus’ ministry was and she understood her own ministry in light of that.
Let us seek that clarity for our own lives and the life of Christ Congregational Church as well.