I’ve wondered from time to time what the good folks in my home congregation in Dallas would think if I showed up to offer the sermon one Sunday morning.  To be sure, a lot of people have come and gone at Bethany Lutheran, but there are still a few who would remember me, those whose ability to hear what I’d say would surely be clouded by memories of a kid named Brian from another time and place.  An impassioned call to repentance could well fall flat for those who remember how I’d get sent out into the hallway almost every Wednesday night during youth choir practice.  A finely honed stewardship homily might get a laugh from Sunday school teacher who quizzed me one day about the bottle of coke I was drinking and the incriminating empty offering envelop in the garbage can.  It more or less boils down to an issue of credibility.  How can a person speak with authority to folks who knew you “back when”? 

            And yet, leave it to Jesus to go where no one else dares, to preach to the hometown crowd.  “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the Sabbath.  And he stood up to read.”  We may proclaim him the spotless Lamb of God, but you have to wonder what the people in Nazareth were thinking that day.  After all this was the kid they’d seen years ago running around in diapers.  Then there was the time he’d gotten lost for three days and turned up in the synagogue back in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph’s boy who was on his way to running the family carpentry business.  Of course he’d been gone for a while and there were strange stories of healings and wonders, of a strange foray into the Jordan followed by an even stranger trip to the desert.  But now that he was back home just about everyone was curious, curious to see what he had made of himself.

            A new job, a new home in a new neighborhood, a new chapter in our lives are times and moments when introductions are in order.  Hi, “I’m so and so and your name is?”  After the story of his birth, his childhood, his baptism it’s time for Jesus to introduce or rather reintroduce himself which is exactly what he’s doing here in the synagogue—telling everyone who will listen who is what is going to be about   “And having been handed the scroll, he found the place where it was written, ‘God’s Spirit is on me.  He’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor.  Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act’!”  Wow! 

Now, any doubt about who he is or where he’s headed, is clear.  Listen, here is no mere sermon, but a genuine program, a plan of action, an agenda!  And even though you and I are a far cry from the hometown Nazareth crowd, we too want to hear what Jesus has to say, his program, his agenda and what it will all mean for us.

            Anointed by the Spirit to preach the Message of good news to the poor. According to Luke, they’re the first words that the grown up Jesus speaks in public.  Of course, there have been hints and signs all along—in the song his poor, young mother sang of the scattered proud and the lifted up lowly, his birth in a filthy cattle stall, destitute shepherd barely sober running to see the revelation of God and then telling everyone what had been shown them. 

            Anointed by the Spirit to announce pardon to prisoners, to all those held captive—a woman who suffered for twelve years from uncontrollable bleeding, a man named Legion had to be tied down with chains and shackles for the demon that tormented him, a man named Zacchaeus whose riches made him the poorest person in town. 

            Anointed by the Spirit to bring sight the blind—a man on the outskirts of Jericho who calls out for mercy and receives his sight, the captain of the crucifixion guard who after all he sees praises God and declares Jesus innocent, a couple of unsuspecting travelers whose eyes are opened to his presence in the breaking of the bread.

            Anointed by the Spirit to let the oppressed go free—“blessed are you when people hate you,” Jesus proclaims, “when they exclude you, revile you and cast you out on account of the Son of Man”, group of lepers, social outcasts healed as they went on their way.”

            Anointed by the Spirit to proclaim the year of the Lord’s Jubilee favor—a fresh new start for those who have lost all hope and can’t imagine that tomorrow could ever be different than today, for those who believe that true joy and real delight can never be had. 

            And what God has done through his own anointed Son, God continues to do in and through us as the community of the baptized, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Jesus Christ forever.  In our hearing today, as God’s people Jesus proclaims his life giving word, one that comes to us as a gift, a gift undeserved and free, for which there’s nothing we can to do earn it, to get it, to lay hold of it, like the snow that surprised us all on Tuesday afternoon, grace simply comes.  And all you could do is watch in wide eyed childlike wonderment, because the minute you try to capture it, to control it, to manage it, the gift disappears.  But if you watch, if you listen, the bleak, the beauty of God’s word breaks into our bleak and wintry world with “love so deep, so broad, so high, beyond all thought and fantasy”. 

God speaks, God proclaims, God anoints and everything changes.  God’s word lays bare every assumption, every claim, every boast, every excuse, and at last even our virtues are burned away so we’re left with all we ever had in the first place, God’s word, his promise to be our God and nothing in heaven or on earth will ever be able to keep us from him.  It’s the promise made to us first in our baptism and renewed as we gather together around the table that Christ prepares for us, through his body and blood, broken and shed for us.  And in making himself known to us today, in our hearing, the scripture is fulfilled.  There’s nothing more to be done, because in Jesus, God has done it all.

And what comes to us first as gift, becomes a vocation, a calling, one that we as the church share together with our Lord as God’s anointed ones, God’s chosen, chosen not because were better than everyone else, chosen not to a place of privilege and power, but chosen to bear God’s creative and redeeming love into all the world. 

This month, we focus on our call as God’s people at Ascension to serve one another and our neighbor.  Certainly the children helped to remind us of our call this morning as they served up a delicious pancake breakfast.  Last week, we heard a presentation from Roger Temme of the Care Communities of Austin and their ministry to the seriously ill and dying.  I’m pleased to report that a number of you are considering a call to serve in this very important way.  I’m working with Roger to plan a training event here at Ascension sometime in February.  We serve others through our medical lending closet, inn the durable medical equipment we make available to low income individuals in our Austin community.  More than once, I’ve heard someone who has received an item remark, “Pastor, hearing that I could pick this up today was just about the best news I’ve heard in a long, long time.”  Think of it, walkers, canes, bedside commodes, wheelchairs—signs of God’s kingdom breaking into our world as we share Jesus’ love with our neighbor.

Today, in our very hearing, the scripture has been fulfilled.  There’s nothing we have to do.  So what are we waiting for?  There’s absolutely nothing to be lost, only a world waiting to hear, to see, to know through you and through me.  Go in peace, serve the Lord.  Amen.                  

             

 

Pastor Brian Peterson