Epiphany 3
Nehemiah 8, Luke 4:14-21

Dear friends in Christ,
I must admit there are times when I get a bit irritated when certain conservative Christian groups imply that they alone properly use and understand the Word of God, the Bible. There are times I’ve heard it suggested that Lutherans really don’t believe the Bible and therefore our Christian faith is viewed suspiciously. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. We have always believed the Bible, the written Word of God, to be central and foundational to our lives of faith. It is so important that we seek to read it properly and with care, not in a simplistic and superficial way.
One of the unique things about Lutheran worship is that the Word of God is always read as part of the service. In my more than 25 years as a Lutheran pastor, indeed in my whole life as a Lutheran Christian, to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a service that at least one lesson of scripture has not been read. We continue to hold that this is a living and active Word, that by the power of the Spirit, impacts us. In 99% of those services there has also been some kind of sermon, some speaking of the Word to help us better understand it and apply it to our daily lives.
It is the understanding of our Lutheran churches that the Word is central. We gather to hear the Word, and allow that word to comfort, convict, and challenge us.
Words are important. They give us a way to understand what life is all about. I remember when our children were young and I would read to them at bedtime. The first time through the book they might learn something new. For example, I might point to a Zebra, and say “That’s a Zebra.” Well, the next time, when the page was turned to that picture, my child says, “Zebra.” Something has been added to his or her world through the power of the word. As an adult, I find learning words of another language to have the same effect. With our mission work in Tanzania I’ve learned a few Swahili words. For example the phrase, “Bwana Asifiwe” means, “May the Lord be praised.” When I hear it said, it immediately connects me to Christians of a very different country and culture thousands of miles away. I also have learned how careful we need to be with our words. Just last week I contacted be e-mail the headmaster at Mtera school about our visit in late February. Bwana Asifiwi, I wrote, spelling asifiwi a-s-i-f-i-w-i. He wrote me back correcting my Swahili. Asifiwi ends with an e, not an i. When it ends in “i” it means, “May the Lord be not praised.” That’s certainly not what I had intended. The “I” makes the saying negative. So, I’ll be careful about that in the future.
In a similar way, as we hear and learn the Word of God, we add to our lives, especially the spiritual dimension we so need. Without that Word, we have no real, concrete way of knowing God. There’s no way to talk about God. There’s no common language, common understanding. But with that Word, we can begin to understand God and our relationship with God.
In reading the Word as part of worship, we are following what is presented to us in scripture itself. Did you notice that in the first lesson from Nehemiah? What was going on in that lesson was that during the time of Nehemiah, about 500BC, the walls around the city of Jerusalem were rebuilt. As the walls were rebuilt, a scroll was found. It was a Torah scroll, a scroll that contained the words of Israel’s law, likely the first five books of our Bible today. Ezra the priest read the words to the people. The whole thing. It took five hours. Can you imagine anything like that happening today, with our short attention spans? I can’t. And the people wept. They wept perhaps because it had been so long since anyone in Israel had heard the law, or because they realized, when the word was read, how far they had strayed from faithfulness to God’s law.
Or perhaps, they wept for joy. They wept because they joyfully realize that God has not left them, forsaken to their own devices. God has come to them in the word. God speaks to them through these words of scripture. Without these words, they wouldn’t survive, couldn’t make it. These words are at the heart of the people of Israel and preserve them through good and bad.
In the gospel lesson, what does Jesus do? He stands up and reads the Word, from the prophet Isaiah. God’s Word is shared in that way with those present. But then he takes things one step further. He says that he is the fulfillment of what has been read. “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” are his words. These are not words yet to be fulfilled, they are fulfilled in the person of Jesus. He is the one who has been sent by God to fulfill the words promised by Isaiah.
So, what are these words that Jesus fulfills? What is he teaching us? Well, first, that our God is a God of hope. Listen to the message of Jesus again. “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.”
Wherever Jesus went, he brought hope. More than anything else, this defined the basic character of Jesus. He brought hope to the leper, exiled from his home and community. He brought hope to the paralyzed man who was unable to care for his family. To people who felt worthless, or lost, or broken, or rejected, or beyond saving, Jesus brought the message that God loved them -- that they had a purpose in life. Even in Jesus’ last moments, when he was dying in agony on the cross, he offered the hope of eternal salvation to the thief dying beside him. This was Jesus’ first act in life and last act in death -- the giving of hope.
In the ancient classic writing Inferno, by Dante, the author imagines that the entrance to Hell is marked by a sign, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” That’s probably a good description of Hell, a place without God and therefore a place without hope. How awful would that be? Where God is, there is hope, and Jesus was the Word of hope for the world.
In quoting Isaiah Jesus also tells us that God is a God of justice. Now I don’t know about you, but justice is a word that has always made me a little uncomfortable. Sometimes it is associated with punishment, like “He got the justice he deserved.” Often it is wrapped up in politics, with differing points of view on how to achieve justice for the poor and oppressed. Awhile back I heard a definition of justice that has stuck with me. When loving your neighbor involves more than one person, that’s justice. In other words, it is taking the ethic of love and applying it to many others. It’s loving in the communities in which we live.
Most religions at the time of Christ operated on the simple assumption that you get what you deserve from God. If you’re poor, God must want you to be poor. If you are sick or disabled, God must be punishing you for what you have done wrong. Health and wealth are blessings from God. If you don’t have health and wealth, then God must not love you. It’s a simple but flawed equation.
Jesus came to turn this world view upside down. He came to declare that God loves the poor, the blind, the sick, the oppressed, precisely because of their desperate condition. There are no rejects in God’s world. A healthy body is worthless if one’s soul is dead. You can have 20/20 vision and be spiritually blind. It’s the spirit within that defines a person’s life.
I was reading about the caste system in India. A person’s caste at birth determines their standing in that culture. It determines what job they can have, whom they can marry, what rights they have in society. On the very lowest rungs of society are the Dalits, whose name actually means broken or crushed. The Dalits are the targets of violence and discrimination in Indian society. And now, the Dalits face persecution for another reason, their faith. 80% of Christians in India are Dalits. They choose to follow Christ, even when they know the consequences they might face.
Why would the Dalits, already targets of persecution and abuse, invite more such treatment by becoming Christians? Because in Christ, they meet a God who loves and lifts up those whom others would tear down. His heart is with those who suffer. He cares about those who are hurting, who are helpless, who are brokenhearted, who are in bondage. God is a God of hope. God is a God of justice.
And it’s important to understand that those whom Jesus lifted up—the poor, the defenseless, sightless, voiceless and powerless—are not a group of “other people” that we can ignore or pretend don’t exist. They are all around us, if only we’d open our eyes. Not only that, but Jesus isn’t talking about some other group that we’ll refer to as “them.” He’s really talking about all of us. We are—every one of us— in some way, poor, defenseless, sightless, voiceless, and powerless. Jesus came for us.
Finally, Jesus tells us that God is a God of freedom. When Jesus walked this earth, he rebuked the power structures that oppressed people. He set people free. He freed sick people of their diseases. He freed disabled people from their handicaps. He freed sinners from the burdens of their sins.
Some of us today are living in bondage. We are bound by addictions, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, fear, guilt, misconceptions about God. When we hear about the promise of joy and life abundant, we can’t believe it is possible for us. But we weren’t made to live in bondage. Christian author Oswald Chambers writes, “The Spirit of God is always the spirit of liberty; the spirit that is not of God is the spirit of bondage, the spirit of oppression and depression...God who made the birds did not make birdcages; it is humans who make birdcages, and after awhile we become cramped and can do nothing but chirp and stand on one leg. When we get out into God’s great free life, we discover that is the way God meant us to live, the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Jesus announces that God is about freeing us from whatever binds our life.
One of the reasons, in fact the primary reason why you have come here on a cold Sunday in January, is to hear the Word of God. You need to hear a word of hope, a word of justice, a word of freedom. Your faith needs encouragement that comes from the reading, preaching, and hearing of the word. May that Word do its work in us today, so that we might faithfully follow our Lord all of our days. Amen