An Impossible Possibility

Epiphany 3C-25

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Today. It’s an extraordinary claim, isn’t it? But surely, Jesus doesn’t mean right now? Is today an occasion to feast, to celebrate and rejoice? Is this, the year of Project 2025, the year of the Lord’s favor? Right now?

I know some say—yes! They say the current political moment of unchecked grift and unsanctioned political violence is God ordained. Some have declared their scorched earth policies to undo our rights and freedoms and to drown the government in a bathtub are holy days, favored of God. How can we know the truth?

Indeed, our lectionary has laid out for us two stories of worship, two stories about people gathering to read, hear, and inwardly digest the word of God, and in both stories, we hear a call to attend to now. The presence of God which infuses all things is always only in the now. Both stories end with an invitation to recognize the sacredness of the present moment.  Both stories insist that when we seek the divine — in worship, in the reading of scripture, in the intentional gathering of the beloved community—then today begins to shimmer with the presence, the blessing, and the favor of God. (Debi Thomas, “Today,” Journey with Jesus, 1/16/2022.)  Right now. Today.

How do we find and follow Jesus now when the prophets of cruelty and brutality seem to have won the day?  Our gospel affirms that—yes—God is present in all things and in all people, but not in all missions, or messages, or proclamations. Our baptism into Christ includes renunciations and affirmations—things we say yes to, and things we say no to. In today’s gospel Jesus is fresh from saying no to the devil in the desert when he chooses to head home to Nazareth to deliver the inaugural address and to launch his mission.

Already the rumors about Jesus had spread throughout “the whole countryside” (Luke 4:14). The people of Nazareth were eager to see him. To them, he was simply “Joseph’s son.” In a village of less than 500 people, or about 20-30 families, everyone knew everyone. Many were related. The synagogue was packed. ‘All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.’ (v. 22a).  Just as the shepherds, had been “amazed” at the things being said about the baby in the manger, and as Mary and Joseph had been “astonished” at the boy Jesus in the temple.

On the sabbath day, he went to the synagogue “as was his custom.” He took the scroll of Isaiah 61, read it out loud, and said “…that he himself — this ordinary hometown carpenter, was the embodiment of Isaiah’s messianic promise to bring God’s good news to the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed.” He came to “proclaim God’s favor” to everyone. (Thomas).

Perhaps you remember what happened next. We’ll hear the rest of the story next Sunday.  Suffice it to say their admiration quickly turned to rejection and rage. His mission, Jesus declared, was not for them but for the pagan outsider Gentiles. “I have come to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of jubilee” (Luke 4:18-19).  Jubilee came once every 50 years.  It was a tradition when debts were forgiven, and land reverted to its original owner.  Jesus reminded the gathered congregation that God loves the outcast — those in fear for their lives — the poor, the prisoners, the disabled, and the oppressed. In response of his friends and kinsfolk rose up to throw Jesus over a cliff.

The Jewish Jesus embraced unclean Gentiles. He was dismissive about religious orthodoxies and litmus tests. Ritual purity? Jesus “declared all foods clean.” Keeping the sabbath?  “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” And the sanctity of the synagogue? Jesus called it a “house of prayer for all nations.” The religious gatekeepers complained that his disciples ate with “unwashed hands,” and derided him as a glutton and drunkard who befriended “dirty” people.

This Jesus can be found among the weak, the lost, and the suffering, the immigrant and the outsider. Is it any wonder then that this gospel is opposed in us as we begin to find ourselves among the insiders and the powerful? Two thousand years since Jesus delivered his first sermon in Nazareth, many things remain the same.

On Tuesday Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde gave a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral prayer service in which she addressed the new president directly. She reminded him that mercy is a quality of leadership — and asked him to be merciful on the fearful, the poor, and the marginalized. On Friday, twenty-one members of Congress filed a bill to condemn the bishop publicly and denounce her “distorted message.” It’s not the first or the last time an outraged mob has tried to kill the preacher. (Diana Butler Bass, Sunday Musings, 1/25/25)

This disillusionment is the beginning of faith. An epiphany is an ‘aha moment’ of realization. It is a sacred flash of imagination. It is recognition of a better way in stark tension with the way we live now. Something powerful happens among us when we open our whole hearts to the Spirit of Christ with vulnerability, humility, and longing.  Like the ancient Israelites sitting among the ruins of their homeland in worship reading the Torah, we are transformed. What happens is not magic. Neither is it manipulation. Yet everything changes.

The struggle for a new world is a long and bitter but beautiful road. As Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, when we do the work of justice, we work with a “cosmic companion.” We are not alone. We are joined together in the kingdom of God. We dance on the safe side of the sea. This is because Jesus’ mission is not a to-do list; rather it is an invitation to a transformed life. Starting now. Today. Don’t ask what the world needs—ask instead what makes you come alive. The world needs your passion, your creativity, your defiant joy.

“Regardless of our circumstances. Regardless of the trials we face, the sorrows we carry, and the pain we bear. Not because God’s exultant “today” is dismissive of our hardships, but because God’s presence infuses all things. God’s joy — the joy which is our strength — has within it the capacity to hold and honor our tears.” (Thomas) God’s joy makes wisdom of our sorrow and a song of our pain.

Here, now, we encounter Jesus in Word and Sacrament, in worship, song, and prayer, and anywhere two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, they are a living sanctuary of hope and grace. We will not be misled by false prophets and self-serving leaders. But see, we have become good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of jubilee.  We… “Praise the One who breaks the darkness with a liberating light; praise the One who frees the prisoners, turning blindness into sight.”