Sermons

Jan 21 - The Rev. Christopher McLaren - Wishful Thinking for Today

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

Sunday January 21, 2007
Epiphany 3 C
Theme: Wishful thinking for Today

Fresh from thumping the devil in a battle of truth and wits, Jesus returns to Galilee from the desert. He comes home to familiar surroundings. In the synagogue Jesus is in the midst of relatives, friends and the elders of his community. But things are a bit different now. Jesus has a reputation, a reputation as someone special, a spirit-filled teacher and healer. Just days earlier, if we are to embrace Luke’s time-line, Jesus was dripping wet from the waters of the Jordan in the arms of the firebrand John the Baptist. Now he returns to his origins, his roots, how comfortable and strange it can be to go home. How tempting it is for one to fall into old patterns by just being around our relatives and parents or entering our old stomping grounds. But Jesus is anything but his old self.

For Luke this is a story intended to launch Jesus’ Galilean ministry. It is the story of a local boy made good, celebrated and respected. This is a coming-of-age story, Jesus being plucked out of obscurity and thrust into the public spotlight. Oh, to be sure this is only the beginning. Jesus will go from wilderness battles and backwater synagogues to the centers of power and influence. He will cross intellects and hearts with high priests, Samaritan women, and Roman prefects and finally be executed for his challenge to the social order, but first he finds himself in a familiar hometown venue, the synagogue.

The synagogue was a Jewish institution that arose during the Babylonian exile as a sort of surrogate for Temple worship. With no priest nor altar, the synagogue had no animal sacrifice...no blood and entrails. Synagogue services were rather informal and simple consisting primarily of prayers, readings from scripture, comments and alms for the poor. Services in the synagogues of Jesus’ day were led by the laity and focused on the scriptures. While there was only one Temple, synagogues arose everywhere, whenever ten adult males (a minion) wished to constitute themselves. Synagogues served not only as places of worship but as schools, community centers, welfare offices, and at times courts. They were at the center of daily life for Jews.

So, it was here that Jesus began his Galilean ministry. This of course speaks volumes about who Jesus was. By his faithfulness Jesus affirms the Sabbath, the Scriptures, and the synagogue. All that Jesus says and does here is within the bosom of Judaism. Jesus stood up to read and the scroll of Isaiah was handed to him.
He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: '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." (Isaiah 61: 1-2/ Luke 4: 18-19)

The content of the scroll is profound in its scope and hopefulness. So much that is wrong in the world, so much that is not the way it is supposed to be is to be corrected. This is indeed Good News. The scroll speaks of an anointed one, God’s favored one who will usher in amnesty, pardon, and liberation. It will be a time of restoration associated with the proclamation of the year of jubilee in which debts are to be forgiven, land returned, wealth redistributed, and many given a much needed fresh start. It sounds great. It sounds fantastic. It sounds like a fairy tale. It sounds like wishful thinking.

At the end of the reading Jesus sits down and adds this surprising-mind-bending-are-you–out-of-your mind-jaw-dropping zinger: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” vs. 21.

It is fascinating that in Luke’s Gospel the first public word that Jesus speaks is “today.” The age of God’s reign is here, now; the eschatological time when God’s promises are fulfilled and God’s purposes come to fruition has arrived. The hoped for changes to governments, systems and bureaucracies will occur today. The time of God is today. The jubilee of God has begun. Let the poor rejoice, the wronged take heart, the captive shout for joy. The Kingdom of God is arriving now.

That is all well and good you say, what a nice Pollyanna Sermon today. Jesus announced the end of poverty, an end to unjust incarceration, the cessation of politically based killings, liberty for those who are oppressed and more and voila it’s accomplished. There is just one little bitty problem, it’s that pesky little thing called reality (not to mention history.) That word fulfillment needs some clarification - it can’t mean over, complete, finished. Our very own 20th century wasn’t exactly a beacon of hope for humanity with the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, Stalinist Russia, war-torn Central America, Rwanda, need I say more. And frankly the 21st century isn’t off to a great start. Hello mission control, we have a problem.

This event in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ reading of the prophecy from Isaiah in a Galilean synagogue, announces who Jesus is and defines his messianic role to be sure. But it also initiates powerful and far reaching forces for us here today. It tells us what his church, the body of Christ of which each of us are constituent members, is to be and do in his name.

The mission of Jesus is carried forward by those called to be his people, who follow his ways, and claim a mystical union to him through water and the Spirit. The “today” of Jesus in the synagogue long ago has not stopped being our “today.” The church lives in this today for all of time, rushing forward and rushing back swirling in the messianic possibility of now. To be the church is to live in the time of God’s reign, here and now, to yearn for it, lean into it, grow into its likeness. The time of God is today; the ministries of the Church in Jesus’ name demonstrate that “today” continued in our midst. Today is never to become “yesterday” or to slip into a vague “someday.”

Of course the church does not bear unbroken testimony to Jesus’ announcement. There have been dark days of failure in the church’s past. The light has flickered, even been in danger of being snuffed out. But the “today” of Jesus remains. The resilience of the Spirit is without question. God’s “today” continues to emerge in the most unlikely of places. In the slums of Calcutta, medical clinics in Nicaragua, school’s for children in Afghanistan, feeding ministries in New Orleans, counseling centers, hospitals, legal clinics, agricultural assistance ministries, micro-loan programs, AIDS prevention efforts, compassion centers, Habitat for Humanity, vaccination programs, eye surgery units, adoption agencies, day-care centers, after school programs, and more. The list is endless in its affirmation of Jesus’ “today.”

There are always the critics, the skeptics, and worse yet the cynics who stubbornly say that Jesus’ “today” is too long in coming, that the Reign of God is simply wishful thinking, a comforting fiction. Pointing to the rise of violent conflict around the globe, of the daily bad new in the media, they assert that God’s “today” has never arrived and never will.

We as the church are not immune to their critique. At times the news of the day can be overwhelming, discouraging, and downright depressing. We know what it means to doubt, to despair, to wonder about the outlandishness of proclaiming God’s “today” in the face of facts and statistics. We know how easy it is to become complacent and dull, comfortable in our affluent, safe, tolerant, middle-class world. How easy it is to become isolated from those in need. Just last week a parishioner looked me in the eye and said something insightful and painful at the same time. It went something like this, “St. Michael’s has so much potential, so much talent, so many resources, such skill and in fact many of our members are doing wonderful things in this city and around the globe but as a parish it seems like we are coasting, under-functioning, too quiet. We have wonderful worship, a healthy sense of community, but what is our reputation in the city with regard to the poor, and those in need.” I found myself on the defensive. “We have the food pantry and hope to build a Habitat House this year.” But the words were convicting and stirring to me. Are we under-functioning as a parish? Are we living into the “today” of the Gospel? These questions have been tumbling around in my heart and head since. This Gospel text and its questions are not judgment; they are calling, invitation, fulfillment itself.

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” vs. 21. These words are Good News, ringing out from a synagogue long ago from the lips of Jesus. They are not dead words. The “Today” of Jesus is alive and well, wherever the people of God sense the leading of the Spirit and reach out in love and concern for others. The “Today” of the Gospel is alive in our midst, calling us to live into its hope for the poor, the oppressed, the captive, the widow and the orphan. It is alive on Tuesday mornings at our Food Pantry, at work in the ministry of All Angels Day School and its care and nurture of children, in the prayers and visitation of the sick and the suffering, in the vision to participate in the building of a home for a family through Habitat for Humanity. The question that remains is where is God’s “today” leading us now? How are we living into the “Today of Jesus” as St. Michael’s? What is the Good News that Jesus has for us to live out in the North Valley of Albuquerque? What is our new reputation to be?

As we ponder these questions as a people of God there will be the danger to begin to believe that all we are engaging in is wishful thinking. But I am reminded of the words of Fredrick Buechner:

"Christianity is mainly wishful thinking. Even the part about Judgment and Hell reflects the wish that somewhere the score is being kept. "

Dreams are wishful thinking. Children’s playing at being grown-ups is wishful thinking. Interplanetary travel is wishful thinking.

Sometimes wishing is the wings the truth comes true on.
Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it.

May we find the Today of Jesus alive in our wishful thinking and find in it hopeful action. Amen.