Sermon Sunday January 26, 2025
Rev. Norman A. Michaud
“Inaugurations: New Beginnings”
Luke 4:14-21
On Monday, January 20th, we celebrated the life and achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We also inaugurated the 47th President of the United States. The contrast may have brought anxiety to some and joy to others. In two states, Alabama and Mississippi, a declaration added January 20th as the day those states honored the life and legacy of Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederacy’s military in the South’s effort to preserve slavery. Political forces in the United States appear to urge a return to the Gilded Age when societal divisions were promoted by those “blessed by God.” That was a time when the fortunes of women were limited by their gender. Millions of others were held back because of the color of their skin.
On Monday, January 20th, 2025, billionaires who contributed millions shared front-row seats during the President’s inauguration. However, these billionaires are no longer giants of manufacturing and industry. These giants lead tech industries that share information for our convenience, pleasure, and entertainment.
This Sunday’s lectionary ends on verse 21. Next week, we will hear these words from Jesus in Luke’s Gospel.
Luke 4:22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'” 24 He said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.”
Contemporary Christians may find it hard to grasp how shocking Jesus’ pronouncements were in Nazareth’s first-century synagogue. Jesus knew that he would become a person no longer welcome in his hometown of Nazareth. Many contemporary Christians express shock that Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde spoke of mercy from her pulpit in the National Cathedral. Bishop Budde followed Christ’s example and Jesus’ reading of Isaiah in the temple at Nazareth. Many contemporary Christian denominations dismissed her words because she is a woman, for in many denominations, women are forbidden from roles of leadership in their churches and speaking from pulpits as pastors. Kristan Hawkins, a Catholic anti-abortion activist, said, “Female Bishop is all you need to know how it (Budde’s sermon) was going to work out.”
When a rabbi unfurled a scroll to read the sacred text aloud, Jews expected interpretation. They awaited fresh insight from their teachers—but not what Jesus would reveal. His assertion went beyond what the congregation expected. Some heard the words of Jesus and questioned his authority. Recall that Jesus was a rabbi and a teacher. Among the Pharisees, he held authority as an equal. However, his hometown parishioners apparently found that hard to acknowledge. Still, declarations by Jesus seemed over the top to his audience in Nazareth. In next week’s reading, we will witness what happens when a hometown preacher goes awry.
The passage that Jesus reads, Isaiah 61:1–2, describes the year of Jubilee when it is promised that debts will be forgiven and captives will be set free. Past injustices and debts will be relieved. All can afford a new start. Second, third, and more chances will be enacted. The playing field will be leveled.
Furthermore, Isaiah 61:1–2 was understood in some communities as referencing the Teacher of God’s Justice. Such a declaration could only be uttered by the Messiah. Jesus’s proclamation that “Today this scripture has been fulfilled” identifies him as the one they have anticipated for centuries.
It is tempting for Christians in the United States to think that the most shocking aspect here is the specific content of the Isaiah passage. We believe people anywhere would be upset by a claim that God’s favor rests on the poor, the captive, people with disabilities, and the oppressed. Many hold the belief that the poor and those who have broken the law deserve punishment and that God’s favor has been removed from them. The rich get richer because God favors societal and earthly success, not those who have been unsuccessful.
Just look at the demographics of our prison populations and listen to those who proclaim the Prosperity Gospel. Even our tax system rewards billionaires who pay fewer or no taxes. In contrast, those who make minimum wage or become teachers, nurses, and child-care workers must pay theirs. Why would Jesus announce that he has come to do the opposite and turn the world upside down? His words significantly upset the status quo and the favor the powerful already enjoyed.
In Luke’s story, the people of Nazareth are themselves poor, the subject of Roman tyranny, and hence, oppressed. They are under the rule of a foreign power; they are starved, controlled, enslaved, and murdered. They await the Messiah who will make all things possible again. The Messiah will bear good news and a military overthrow of the oppressors. But how can a local carpenter’s son be that leader? They exalt prophets who, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, and John the Baptist, who all came from the lower and lowly classes to lead them. Even Moses was a foundling who rose to power in Egypt and rejected the power of Egypt to lead the Jews to their promised homeland.
The Hebrew people wandered in the wilderness and longed to return to Egypt, where, even though they were enslaved, they had food to eat and shelter. The promised land was a long journey toward freedom. Yet, it frightened them to embrace their liberation. So Jesus’ declaration in the Nazarene synagog came as a shock to those who could now see their chains falling to the ground on that very day.
Interestingly, the passage from Luke is also a favorite of charismatic Christians, those who emphasize the Holy Spirit’s activity in individuals’ lives. They focus on the words about anointing, the sense of being grasped by the Spirit. For them, those words affirm their essential theological position.
A public reading of the passage will reveal which approach the reader takes. Charismatics emphasized the early verbs: “anointed” and” sent.” All can be special. That system promotes children to become preachers if they show speaking gifts, even with a limited understanding of preaching. Advocates of the social Gospel slide more quickly through the first phrases and focus on the words central to Jesus’ message of concern for the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed.
Luke makes this event a coming-out party, an inauguration, in a new way. The implication is clear: a Christian faith without social justice is an impostor. Today’s individualism often runs unrestrained through many churches and corrupts covenantal traditions. Paul knew and wrote in Corinthian that “When one member suffers, all suffer.” “When one member is honored, all rejoice.”
The opening scene of Jesus’ public ministry left no doubt: a commitment to Jesus involves building peace and justice in communities. But first comes clarity of the Holy Spirit that descends like a dove, not a weapon.
Jesus announced that liberation was, indeed, at hand when he declared, ‘ Today this prophecy is fulfilled.’
This view from the underside of society may provide a lens to see what others cannot. Maybe we might “clothe with greater honor” the weaker body members if we heard the Gospel through their perspectives. Jesus’ pronouncement takes on new, decisive significance when we understand that Jesus was challenging the powerful and provoking the least among us to claim liberation.