What We Risk

Luke 4:21-10; Luke 5:1-11

February 10, 2019

It’s at least slightly ironic that the sermon I’m going to offer this morning was intended initially for a week ago. It’s ironic because, as it happens, the whole thing – intended for a week ago -- turns on the word “today.”

I reckon the irony is also a reminder that whenever you find yourself, it’s always today. Which is great, it turns out, because God is present now.

Too often, we are not. We’re caught up in old hurts and yesterday’s anger, or in fear about what tomorrow will bring, and we miss what’s right in front of us in this moment.

It’s helpful, no doubt, to pause for just a moment and point out what Jesus was talking about when he said “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In the verses just prior to this morning’s text Jesus has returned from a time of trial in the wilderness to his hometown of Nazareth and, like a nice Jewish boy, gone to synagogue on the sabbath. He stood up to read, was handed the scroll of Isaiah, and proclaimed:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

That’s when he says, “y’all heard it hear, first.” Or words to that effect.

And the next thing you know, the good church folks rush in to try and throw him off a cliff.

Wait. What?

What the heck is going on here? All the guy did was read a little Isaiah to the people. This is supposed to be good news. After all, it literally says “good news” right in the text!

Why, when they hear good news, do the people react with mob violence?

What is going on in this story?

As with so many stories in the gospels, the quick answer is, “a lot.” That is to say, we can read this brief story – and read it well – in several ways, but this morning, right now, today, I want to focus on Jesus’ first word in preaching to his hometown neighbors.

He stands, as was the custom, to read the sacred scroll and the word rings out, “bring good news to the poor … proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, jubilee to all who are indebted!”

Then – again as was the custom – he sits down to teach. So the first thing we notice is that Jesus honors these basic liturgical customs. Nothing radical or disturbing in his manner, thus far.

But when he sits down and begins to teach the first word out of his mouth, the inaugural utterance of Jesus’ first public preaching, is the most threatening of all possible words: he says, simply and clearly, “today.”

Today. Right now. This moment.

This is not a comforting promise of good things to come by and by, after a decent time of planning and preparation, when whatever changes may be necessary to accomplish this vision have unfolded in an orderly and non-disturbing way. No. This day. This moment.

You know those folks in prison on nonviolent offenses? Liberate them today. You know those young adults staggering under college loan debt? Jubilee now!

This is not an invitation to gradual, patient, orderly reform. This is the fierce urgency of now.

Reading this passage in the midst of Black History Month, I can’t help but think that the local religious leaders of Nazareth might have been responding to Jesus’ preaching the same way that the local religious leaders of Birmingham responded to Martin Luther King’s preaching in their town in 1963. To be fair, they did not take mob action and threaten to throw King off a cliff. Instead, they took the far more decent and orderly measure of writing a public letter in the local paper calling King and his followers radicals, outside agitators, impatient, “unwise and untimely.”[1]

King responded with a letter of his own, written from his cell in the Birmingham city jail, answering the criticism of his fellow clergy. The heart of King’s response reflects that first, singular word of Jesus’ preaching.

Today is the right time to proclaim news that will be good for the poor. Today is the right time to deliver new sight to the blind. Today is the right time let the oppressed go free. Today is the right time to declare jubilee – the forgiveness of crushing debt.

Today is the right time to proclaim that black lives matter. Today is the right time to end police violence. Today is the right time confront the fact that inherited wealth in this country is both the result of white supremacy and its sustaining foundation. Today. Right here and right now.

As King put it, “We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”[2]

Doctor, the crowd responds, heal yourself! Do for us what you’ve done for others! Our lives matter! All lives matter!

Yes, but you know what? There were these particular folks who were being particularly oppressed while you were living reasonably comfortable lives disturbed only by the raised cries of those oppressed folks. You seem pretty upset by the noise, but you don’t seem overly concerned by the oppression that’s prompting the noise.

And, with that, they locked the doctor up in jail. With that, they tried to throw Jesus off the cliff.

Dr. King also uttered a prophetic word about the church in that 1963 letter. He warned his clergy colleagues, and, by extension, the whole of the American church about what he feared would become of us in the remains of the 20^th century:

“The contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

“But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recover the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.”[3]

Judging by the numbers alone – the loss of literally millions of members – King was absolutely correct in his understanding of the future confronting a church that forgot Jesus’ first word.

Moreover, we fail to understand the word of the Lord that comes in the second gospel reading – the old, comfortingly familiar story of Peter’s call to become a fisher of people. Two things stand out, for me, in that story this morning:

First, Jesus begins with his oft-repeated, trademark phrase, “do not be afraid.” I’m pretty sure he began there because he understood that moving from a traditional and well-understood, socially acceptable if economically marginal way of making a living – that is to say, fishing – to the radically different way of life as discipleship was going to be fearful.

He began there because he knew that, even though they had literally just witnessed a complete reversal of their own expectations, his followers would always be filled with deep doubts. The tried and true methods of fishing all night had resulted in nothing; and then Jesus comes along and says, “hey, try this new thing.”

They didn’t appoint a committee. They didn’t enter a season of discernment. They were nothing like decent and in order. They were tired and ready for rest, but they gave it a shot. And what do you know? This new thing works.

Standing here, more than a half century after King’s striking condemnation of the decent and orderly church, I’m led to conclude that what we risk in delaying faithful action for justice is far worse than what we risk in trying something new, in boldly proclaiming that now is the time, this is the day for jubilee! For when we delay, when we sit fearfully on the sidelines of history, we risk the slow rot of irrelevance. When we proclaim boldly the fierce urgency of now we risk a life worth living.

For though the powers and principalities may rise up in angry defense of their own standing, and the mob itself may rise up in fearful response to change, a life worth living begins with the determination to stride toward freedom, to walk in the paths of justice, to go forth as repairers of the breach and restorers of the city’s streets to walk in – risking all for the sake of the gospel.

May we have the courage of risky faith: today, tomorrow, and all days. Amen.

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[1] King quoted the clergy letter in his opening paragraph. All citations from King’s letter come from the early draft version held in the King papers collection at Stanford, http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/undecided/630416-019.pdf

[2] Ibid. 10-11.

[3] Ibid. 16-17.