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Homecoming                        Luke 4: 14-21                   January 24, 2010

Jayber Crow, an award-winning novel written by the poet/philosopher/ farmer Wendell Berry, is set in the small, rural community of Port William, Kentucky. The book's title character and narrator, Jonah "Jayber" Crow, was born to a farming family there. He is orphaned at a young age when his parents die in the influenza outbreak of 1918. His aunt and uncle adopt him, but they too die when he is just ten years old.

So Jayber's story unfolds like this: He is sent to an orphanage, decides to become a minister, studies Theology at a school called Pigeonville College, where he has something of an identity crisis; drops out and drifts from town to town.

Then, in his early twenties, Jayber goes home. He returns to Port William, the town of his birth, and sets up shop as the Town Barber - a position he holds for most of his adult life. Interestingly, he also supplements his income with work as a gravedigger and a church custodian.

The book is the story of Jayber Crow's life. About his journey, his relationships and his idea of what a community should be like.

It is also very much a book about faith. A faith that was challenged at Pigeonville, but formed and refined back home in Port William.

One paragraph stands out, for me, as the clearest statement of that faith:

"I knew that the Spirit that had gone forth to shape the world and make it live was still alive in it," Jayber says. "I just had no doubt. I could see that I lived in the created world, and it was still being created. I would be part of it forever. There was no escape. The Spirit that made it was in it, shaping it and reshaping it, sometimes lying at rest, sometimes standing up and shaking itself, like a muddy horse, and letting the pieces fly."

I couldn't help thinking about Jayber Crow when I read and re-read our Gospel lesson for this morning.

Because our Gospel lesson, like Berry's novel, is also about a young man who returned home. It's about the core message of that young man's life. And it is about a Spirit that is active in the world.

Our text is Luke's account of the first sermon that Jesus preached in his ministry - his first sermon to his hometown crowd in Nazareth, the place where he had been brought up.

The Gospel writers don't give us any information about Jesus' preparation for his work as a teacher and prophet. I like to think that he studied at the feet of one or more of the great Rabbis. He was certainly familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures.

Luke does tell us that young Jesus was obedient to his parents and that he "increased in wisdom . . . and in divine and human favor," but writes little else about his development.

We also know that Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist, believed that he was the Messiah. And that, after his baptism, he spent time in the wilderness, being tempted by the Devil.

"When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up," Luke writes at the beginning of our text, "he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom."

Any of us would have been intimidated in this setting. And my guess is that Jesus, our fully human brother, was intimidated as well. After all, the people in this Nazareth Synagogue had seen him grow up as a little boy, and now here he was, a grown man, preaching his first sermon.

We can only imagine what must have been going through Jesus' mind. "What should I say in my first sermon?" he probably asked himself. "It has to be important."

Now, as a guest preacher in the synagogue, Jesus was free to choose any passage he wished from the Law and the Prophets.

Again, we can only guess what he must have been thinking: "What passage should I read for his my sermon? What passage should I choose to define my ministry?"

As Luke tells it, inspired by the Spirit, Jesus asks for the scroll with the writings of the prophet Isaiah.

When he receives the scroll, he opens it, finds the place he is looking for and reads, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has 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."

Then, after he reads that passage - actually portions of two passages - Jesus rolls up the scroll, gives it back to the attendant, and sits down; the eyes of all in the synagogue fixed on him.

And he says to them, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

As one scholar puts it, the people in the Nazareth Synagogue that Sabbath morning were expecting a sermon. They were expecting to go home commenting on what a fine job Mary and Joseph's boy had done.

What they weren't expecting was a word from the Lord.

A sermon, if it isn't too long, can be a nice thing. It may provide a good story or two, keep you entertained, maybe even make you feel good. You can take it or leave it, agree with it or not.

But a word from the Lord is something different. It can't be ignored. A word from the Lord disrupts everyone's carefully ordered routine. A word from the Lord can really change things.

The choice of Scripture reading, that day, was not accidental for Jesus, or for Luke, the one who recorded the story. Though Jesus had been teaching in Galilee before, Luke doesn't report anything that Jesus said publicly before this day in his hometown. Luke is a careful writer. Everything has a place and a time and a reason.

This word changes things. Dramatically. Nothing will ever be the same. Jesus sets forth his agenda, borrowing words from the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit has anointed him from the beginning for his mission, even as the Spirit descended on him in baptism and then led him in the wilderness.

Two important questions arise from this text: What has Jesus been anointed to do, and what does all this mean for us?

What has Jesus been anointed to do? In Isaiah's words, it becomes clear: Bring good news to the poor. Proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. Let the oppressed go free and proclaim God's jubilee year - when debts are cancelled and land is returned.

And what does all this mean for us, on this day when not only meet for worship but also meet to discuss and vote on the future of our congregation?

The answer, as usual, lies in still another question.

When Jesus says, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Does he also mean that it is still being fulfilled today?

Hopefully, the answer is yes.

Let me tell you what I believe.

I believe, along with Jayber Crow, that "the Spirit that shaped the world and made it live is still alive in it."

I believe that the Spirit that anointed Jesus "to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" also anoints us to do the same.

And, thank God, I believe that the Spirit - that same Holy Spirit that anointed Jesus - is in the world today, shaping it and reshaping it, "sometimes lying at rest, sometimes standing up and shaking itself, like a muddy horse, and letting the pieces fly."

Our task, this day, is to see where the pieces fly, and see where we, together, can be a part of it.

                                                                             AMEN

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