Epiphany 3 C: Declaration, Promise, and Invitation

Posted by DJL on Jan 23, 2019 in Dear Partner | 4 comments

Luke 4:14-21

Dear Partner in Preaching,

This week’s passage is only part-one in a two-part drama or, really, tragedy. The larger story presages the Passion, I think, as the crowds who are first so impressed by, and excited to hear, Jesus preach (this week), quickly turn on him and threaten to throw him off a cliff (next week). Chapters later, crowds will welcome him with equal measures of acclamation, admiration, and anticipation when Jesus enters Jerusalem, only to call for his execution days later. Which makes it a bit hard to preach this week’s story, as we know it’s only the first half of a larger narrative and that the story Luke shares will soon take a sharp and dark turn. But….

But perhaps the advantage of separating these two stories is to invite an opportunity to slow down and pay attention to the details of this particular passage, not simply in light of what will come, but in their own right, as a central and significant part of Jesus’ story – it is, after all, his first public appearance – and, in this way, be open to what might strike us today.

Today. It is, indeed, that word that grabbed my attention in reading the passage this week. Because when Jesus has finished reading, rolled up the scroll and given it back to the attendant, and sits down to preach, he doesn’t simply say, “The Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” or “The Scripture will be fulfilled in your hearing,” but rather, “Today, the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today. What in the world did Jesus mean by that? By all appearances, on that day it probably would not have seemed to anyone in attendance that the things Isaiah had proclaimed had come about. Perhaps it is simply that Jesus is announcing that in his very person, Isaiah’s message to share God’s word of liberty and grace and healing with all – and especially with those who are most vulnerable and in need – is made manifest. Maybe this speech is about himself, the living Word of God who had come to dwell with us (John), to be God-with-us (Matthew), a living and breathing fulfillment of God’s promise to rescue and redeem all, especially those standing in the shadows and on the margins (Isaiah and Luke).

Maybe. Or maybe “today” isn’t a static term, but rather is far more dynamic, active, and tensive, as in “today is just the beginning.” And as it turns out, the tense of Jesus’ declaration that “the Scripture has been fulfilled” isn’t the once and done present tense or the singular past tense but rather the ongoing, even repetitive, and definitely re-occurring perfect tense. So Jesus is kind of saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled and will keep being fulfilled and therefore will keep needing to be fulfilled in your presence.”

Which strikes me as an important word for us, yes, today. Because by all outward appearances, Isaiah’s promises are not particularly or obviously fulfilled in our world right now either. At least if we understand “fulfilled” merely as present tense or past tense. But the perfect pushes us to see Jesus’ words simultaneously as declaration – in Jesus, God acts on behalf of those in need – promise – God will continue to take the side of the vulnerable – and invitation – we are called to this same work of embodying, manifesting, and fulfilling God’s declaration and promise.

Truthfully, I think I do better with the declaration and promise than invitation. So perhaps understandably, the opportunity and challenge I hear in these texts today – there’s that word again! – is to be more explicitly invitational. As in “you are invited to be part of God’s fulfillment of God’s promises. Today. Tomorrow. And the next day.” Admittedly, that invitation can be daunting, leading to a variety of self-doubting questions: Me, us, really? Have you been paying attention? The problems just now seem so big! But the invitation can also be empowering: Me, us, really? We can make a difference? You mean the small things we do matter? That God is at work in our lives and relationships for the sake of the world? Cool!

As I’ve been working on this meditation, Dear Partner, Howard Thurman wonderfully challenging and equally empowering poem “The Work of Christmas” kept coming to mind. And, a month beyond our celebration of Jesus’ birth, as we continue in this season to understand the implications of God’s invasion of humanity through the Word made flesh, the 3^rd Sunday after the Epiphany seems like just the right time to hear it again. Thurman’s poem, as I said, is definitely challenging, as it calls us to something that, if taken seriously, is daunting. But it is simultaneously empowering, calling us to something worthwhile and simultaneously also giving us the confidence that we can do it. Which is the way, when you think about it, the Gospel pretty much always works. I’ll place his poem below and look forward to your words that invite your people to see God at work in Jesus and through us today. Each day. Every day. For good. Because it matters.

Thank you for your proclamation, Dear Partner, of God’s declaration, promise, and invitation, for through your words and empowered by the Spirit of Jesus the Word, God continues to fulfill all things.

Yours in Christ,

David

“The Work of Christmas” by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

“The Work of Christmas,” p 23, from The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations, Howard Thurman.