LUKE 4: 21-30

Laterally Luke…Epiphany 4…Revised 2019

Jesus’ exposition of IS that enrages those in the synagogue centres on pointing out  one of Israel’s failures. Exclusiveness. The Sidonian woman & Syrian man He draws attention to each represent different ends of the human scale. The woman - give her a name & let’s call her, say, ‘Sida’, is poor, foreign, & a widow. The man, Naaman - note how he’s given a name - is powerful, foreign, a General, a ‘leper’, & therefore outcast & untouchable! Add to all this that one is a woman, the other a man! Why does Jesus hold up these two, different as chalk from cheese as they are, to His hearers attention?

Because these two from Elijah’s, & Elisha’s times are lessons for us all - not just for that audience in that synagogue at Nazareth! (1) Both then &, now, all genders are equal in YHWH’s eyes; (2) The poor & down at heel count as much as the rich & powerful in YHWH’s eyes; (3) That there is no such person as an outcast, anyone untouchable in YHWH’s eyes; (4) Being other than home-grown Jewish is also OK with YHWH. What are the implications of His teaching here & now for us in our churches?

Jesus is preaching a lesson in God’s inclusiveness. His hearers, I’m sure, get these points only too well! And don’t like them! Or Jesus, anymore! They don’t want these kinds of attitudes taking hold, coming true today - or any other day. It's all right as long as Jesus sticks to the text, but once He starts applying it, & wanting them to do the same, out he goes! Is it still the case in congregations today? In ours?

Are we preaching - & practising - as inclusive a God as Jesus is preaching YHWH?  Is inclusiveness as much on our agenda as it is on God’s? It’s inevitable there will be differences of opinion in Faith & politics & other spheres of life, but how are we to handle those ‘intersections’? Are we seeking to discern our way through the issues involved, under the guidance of Holy Spirit, Jesus’ Spirit? One way we may be helped discern God’s ‘mind’ on such relationships may be to invite the congregation to reflect on how their families & friends are responding to people who are ‘different’ in our midst.

Brian 

Afterthought: One thing that appeals to me about Jesus’ approach to people is that He doesn’t see, or teach, that God's loving purpose is a closed shop! No-one can put a stopper on God’s love. YHWH’s loving purpose is still unfolding, & always will be. Our calling is to find out where we - & others, even those as different from us as Sida & Naaman & what they represent - fit into God’s purpose. Isn’t that a top priority in any preacher's task? 

LUKE 4: 14-21

Laterally Luke…Epiphany 3… Revised 2019

(Preachers in OZ may connect with Australia Day - or, Invasion Day as our indigenous folk see it.)

If my train of thought seems even stranger than usual, please ponder before dismissing! Two Sundays ago we celebrated Our Lord’s Baptism by JB. Last Sunday, a wedding at Cana. Today we’re celebrating Jesus returning to Nazareth ‘in the power of the Spirit’. (Next week concluding today’s passage, we’ll be celebrating His surviving an attempt on His life!)

When people in the synagogue hear Jesus telling them IS’s great prophecy from long ago is being fulfilled today in His own person, everyone’s attention is ‘riveted on Him’². Later, as we’ll hear next week, people are at His throat, but let’s explore that then. Today, though, expectations are raised! 

Like Moses before him, IS can only speak his prophecies because he’s a person who speaks with YHWH God - continuously! Prophets who tell us about God before speaking with God - not talking with themselves - are likely to be false! Come back to Jesus’ baptism by JB; John, too, can only speak about God because he converses with YHWH God continuously. Jesus’ baptism happens because JB yields to God’s judgment over his own. And God then confirms this with the proclamation of His Son.

Baptism should always raise expectations. For ourselves & each other. The first words of IS that Jesus reads to the congregation: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me’… is indication Jesus recognises His baptism by JB in Jordan as His own anointing to be God’s promised Messiah. Are we living out our own baptism as the anoint-ing by Holy Spirit of God to be ‘Good news for the poor, pardon for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed, YHWH’s amnesty^1. 

There’s a ‘joining of all the dots’ here too good not to explore. The power of Jesus’ Baptism makes its presence felt in Nazareth where we meet up with Jesus today, & in earlier visits He pays to synagogues in Galilee. He is ‘acclaimed by everyone’^2. Isn’t His first Sign, at Cana, also an outworking of being baptised & ‘in the power of the Spirit’ as Jesus is?

A good way to go, is to make ourselves a significant sized Baptismal Candle if we don’t have one already. Check the date of our Baptism, & start to celebrate our being born of water & Spirit all year round with that candle as a down-to-earth reminder in a prominent place in our home to remind us constantly to converse with God. Light it each anniversary, & by all means on other significant days in our life. As I’ve grown into my own baptism over the years, I discern a closing of the gap between theologising, &, practising the Faith! A seed for this train of thought was sown for me years ago in ‘Together at Baptism’, by Fr. Joseph Payne, CSC.¹ Time to start growing today? 

Brian

Afterthought: There’s no escaping that ‘fulfilled today’ bit. ‘Today’ is always today, whenever it happens. As that old wisdom has it, ‘tomorrow never comes!’

¹   Ave Maria,  Ind. , 1971    ² Complete Gospels, Polebridge, ad loc. 

 LUKE 3:15-22

Laterally Luke…The Baptism of Our Lord…2019

Expectation’s in the air! You can breathe it. You can feel it. Taste it, even! Back then, that is! Can we preach to help people recover that sense of expectation today? In an age when expectations are universally low. Except, that is, of one disaster after another! An all-too-obvious example is the way so many of our politicians constantly fail our expectations to the point where we have stopped having any expectations except poor ones! Is it much the same with religious leaders & what they espouse? Including preachers? Preaching about expectations back then to people who have few or none, now, isn’t going to be much help, is it? Also, a word of warning: don’t let’s try to avoid the real today issues by preaching expectations in the next world? That’s pure escapism! Often to cover up our inadequacies in this one! 

The key not only to preaching all this, but actually living it, is to grow into our Baptism as Jesus grows into His. Let our Baptism really happen to us & in us as Jesus lets His happen to Him & in Him. An interesting thought for Someone who doesn’t need to be baptised in the first place, but chooses to align Himself with us, as one pf us? What we make of our Baptism & what we let our baptism make of us determines our usefulness to God & each other in this world, quite apart from any other! 

So, how & where might we start raising the kind of expectations rising in JB’s time by preaching them for our own day? A starting point: explore how JB’s preaching raised expectations of Faithfulness towards God, that lead to Justice for ordinary folk, which means a Fair go for everyone. FJF! Notice how both JB & Jesus Himself emulate YHWH by starting, not with those at the top, but with God’s ‘little ones’ at the bottom of the ladder. Starting with what we’ve got may be hard to accept, but fits in with God’s way of doing things ‘on earth as it is in Heaven’!

  

Both Jesus & JB build on faithful revelations of God before their own day. You & I are called to do so now! So, let’s preach Jesus & how His life & work make God’s expectations come to reality in His own Person by His Spirit. As they need to do in us!

Brian

Afterthought: The lesson of Jesus’ Baptism by JB & His growing into it, letting it happen to Him, is a well-rounded spiritual, Biblical, & ground-level approach. We can expect the same today.