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Jesus defines His ministry                      Luke 4: 14-21           January 21, 2007

Come gather 'round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

My guess is that most of you recognize those famous words from Bob Dylan’s signature song, The Times are a Changin’.  Well, I must tell you that that song, along with probably a dozen other folk songs from the mid to late Sixties, are an important part of the history that made me the person I am today.  And perhaps more significantly, those songs and the movement they symbolize played a huge role in the decision I made, way back then, to enter the ministry.

Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Sixties recently.  I have this collection of 33 RPM albums from that era, featuring artists like Dylan, along with The Limelighters, Barry McGuire and the Christy Minstrels, The Brothers Four and the Chad Mitchell Trio.  I’ve been hanging onto these albums, even though I haven’t had a turntable to play them on, for decades.  Until recently, that is.  You see, Kris got me this wonderful contraption for Christmas.  Not only does it play my old records, at the push of a button I can burn the albums onto CDs so I can play them anywhere. 

The memories and emotions brought back by listening to that music for the first time in over 20 years have caused me to reflect on who I was at that point in my life, and who I am today.   It’s a useful exercise.  I recommend it highly.

I first learned to play the guitar in 1965, largely so I could play and sing folk music like the kind that’s recorded on those albums, and the music reminds me of the countless times my best friend Ron and I sang together at parties, church services and just for our own enjoyment.  Music was a part of the way we expressed our faith, and the folk music of the era provided a way to verbalize our desire to change the world.  We sang:

The eastern world, it is exploding 

Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’

You’re old enough to kill, but not for voting’

You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’

And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

But you tell me over and over and over again, my friend

Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

I believe that Barry McGuire song was the first one I learned to play.  I can still remember the simple three-chord pattern that I practiced, again and again, until I could sing and play it without looking at my fingers.

I don’t know that I really believed that we were “on the eve of destruction,” but I certainly did believe that there was plenty wrong with the world, and when I got to seminary and started reading books like Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society and Walter Rauschenbusch’s Christianity and the Social Crisis – books that articulated the notion that Christianity was, in fact, about changing the world, I was hooked.  I might not have been so bold as to think I could lead the revolution, but I sure saw myself as a part of it.  And I believed that the Church was the place where that revolution would happen.  My ministry had been defined.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that ministry was mostly not about changing the world or staging a revolution.  The Church, I discovered, is about hospital visitation and newsletters and annual reports to Church Council and funerals and wedding rehearsals and meetings – lots of meetings.  Moreover, I learned that working in the Church requires patience and kindness and tolerance, none of which I had in particular abundance at that point in my life.  And it requires an appreciation of traditional ways of doing things and time-tested patterns that are often resistant to change. 

Interestingly, it wasn’t until I spent many years as a layperson that I discovered that the Church, at its best, is about all of those things and it is also about changing the world.

Our Gospel lesson for this morning makes that point clearly and forcefully. It is Luke’s account of the first sermon that Jesus preached in his ministry. It was Jesus’ first sermon to his hometown crowd in Nazareth where he had been brought up.

All of the people in the Synagogue had seen Jesus grow up as a little boy, and now here he was, a grown man, preaching his first sermon. 

What would he say in his first sermon? It had to be important. As a guest preacher in the synagogue, Jesus was free to choose any passage from the Prophets that he wanted to preach his sermon on.  What passage did Jesus read for his first sermon? What passage did he choose to define his ministry?

As Luke tells it, Jesus asks for the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opens the book and finds the place where it was written,

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives.
And recovery of sight to the blind.
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

After he read that passage, he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; the eyes of all in the synagogue fixed on him. And he said to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Luke’s account of this reading actually pieces together portions of two verses from Isaiah – 61: 1 and 58: 6.  It speaks of an anointing by the Spirit and of a change in the social order.  Captives will be set free, those that are oppressed will be liberated, and the poor will hear good news.  The times, they are a changin’.

After reading the passage, Jesus makes the bold claim, in his first sermon, that he is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke. He then goes on to say what his distinctive anointing by God's Spirit means.   Jesus defines his ministry in terms of establishing God's justice in the world.  Jesus saw himself and his mission from Isaiah 61 and 58, and the passion of those verses from Isaiah was for the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame.

The lepers, blind, lame and poor were the rejects of Jewish society. They were the social outcasts. They were ostracized. They would not come to the temple, not come to the synagogue, and could not be part of Jewish society.  Yet Jesus defines his ministry as one that is focused on just these people.  He announces to all that will hear that the promise of Isaiah has been fulfilled, and that the reign of God has begun.

And when he does so, he also defines, for us, what our ministry together must be. 

James Wallis, commenting on this passage, writes that “laying down our lives for justice, for reconciliation, for liberation, and for healing among the nations is not merely an implication of the gospel; it is the gospel. And that is inseparable from being personally related to Jesus Christ; it is the purpose of that relationship.” 

“It seems to me”, he continues, “that the connection between the anointing of the Spirit and radical participation in God's purposes is key to understanding our mission and identity as Christians. Anything less than that begins to do fundamental damage to the scriptures.  The function of the Christian community is never a withdrawal or a flight from the world. Rather, the question always before the anointed community is where and how to give its life in service to a broken world. “

If we, the members of the Church, claim to have a personal relationship to Christ, then that relationship must be consistent with the purpose that our Lord defined in this sermon in Nazareth.  It must be consistent with Isaiah’s promise.  It must be about changing the world.

Now, this does not mean that we should no longer be about hospital visitation and newsletters and ham suppers and annual reports to Church Council and funerals and wedding rehearsals and meetings. 

The Apostle Paul, in our Epistle lesson for this morning, uses the metaphor of the body to describe how the Church should work.  And if we are to be the Body of Christ, we need to feed and nourish each member of the Body in order for it to be healthy.

But when that Body is healthy and growing, it must never lose sight of its purpose.  And that purpose is to minister as Jesus did.  None of us, as members of Christ’s Body, are exempt from participation in that ministry. 

When I think about the church as the Body of Christ and relate the ministry of the church to Jesus’ definition of His ministry, I can’t help but think of the wonderful story of stone soup.  It’s a story that many of you may have heard before, but let me share it with you – whether it is new or familiar.

 Once upon a time there was a poor village in a land at war. There came into the small hamlet a company of weary soldiers. Tired and hungry, they encamped in the town near the town square. The villagers trembled, for they had no food to share with these men, and were afraid the men might cause trouble. Soon the small band of men uncovered a gigantic pot and began to lay a fire for it. Trudging back and forth to the town well, they filled the pot with water and set it carefully on the crackling fire. An old woman, peering from behind a shutter, noticed that they had dropped a round stone into the pot. Unable to contain her curiosity, she ventured into the open, approached the cluster of men around the pot, and after looking in the kettle, asked "What, pray tell, are you cooking there?"

The soldiers looked up and replied, "Stone soup, my good woman, a wondrous dish and so, so much better if we were to have a single onion or two to drop herein!" "I am but a poor peasant and have hardly enough to eat for myself," she answered, "but perhaps there is a sad onion or two on my kitchen shelf". I will bring them here for your soup if you will share a bowl of your fine repast with me." They consented, and she quickly disappeared, hungry with anticipation at the meal.

As she returned and added the onions, an old man approached and after looking into the kettle, called out, "What pray tell, are you cooking here?" "Stone soup, my good man, and a right good banquet it is," they answered, "but how much better it would be if only we had some simple carrot to add." The poor man shook his head and replied, "I am but a starving peasant, but perhaps my good wife has some carrots hidden away for our last bite of food. I would share them with you if you would share a bowl of your fine soup with me and that good woman." They nodded appreciatively and awaited the return of the old man, his old wife and the carrots. After a while, return they did, and added their meager bounty to the pot.

They all sat down and waited. A young girl with a small basket full of herbs from the meadow entered the square and joined the group around the large and bubbling pot. She too was persuaded to add her share and she too waited. One by one, the hungry peasants of the village came out to see what the excitement was about. And one by one, they added a few potatoes, a handful of beans, a small green cabbage and a bone.

There soon appeared in their midst the town butcher, who had long since closed his door. Huffing and puffing, and mopping his brow with a large red handkerchief, he called out, "What is all this commotion? What, pray tell, smells so wonderfully good here in this poor village, which has nothing to eat?" "Stone soup, Sir," said the soldiers, "a creation fit for a king. All that is lacking to give it true proportion is a chicken."

Oohs and aahs were heard throughout the crowd of hungry peasants. It is said that one old woman fainted from the heavenly nature of the thought. The butcher quietly disappeared. Within a matter of minutes he returned, clutching a scrawny chicken, his very last, and dropped it, with applause from the crowd, into the pot.

There was a great merriment in the town that night. It had been a long time since they had laughed and sung and danced - and a very long time since they had eaten so well. In the morning when the town awoke, the soldiers had packed up their pot and left the village, leaving behind only the stone.

The mission of the church – changing the world – need not intimidate us.  Each of us has something to contribute, and when we do so together a marvelous feast emerges – with plenty for all and plenty to share.

The times truly are a changing.  And we, the Church, the Body of Christ, are doing the changing.  Thanks be to God.

                                                                                                AMEN