February 24, 2008
Luke 4:16-30

The Rev. David A. Davis

“More Than a Year?” 

            Jesus is standing there reading in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He has returned to Nazareth where he grew up. He’s reading from the scroll that had been handed to him. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Lord 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.” Right then he stops. It wasn’t a long reading. Jesus rolls up the scroll and gives it back to the attendant. And Jesus sits down.
            The gospel describes how everyone there in the synagogue, how they kept looking at Jesus. It must have been an awkward moment, a lingering silence; worshippers wondering what’s next. Their eyes fixed on Jesus, which implies more than a beat or two of silence. Way in the back of the room, in the back where the nameless and faceless folks sit, in the back where the hard working faithful just trying to survive tend to gather, way in the back far away from the fancy robes and the religious leaders, back there where the working poor slip in and slip out unnoticed, way back there during that “eyes fixed silence” an older man turns to the friend next to him and whispers “He’s talking about Jubilee. The year of the Lord’s favor…that’s Jubilee.” The fellow worshipper hushes him. Everybody knew what Jubilee meant; especially if you owed a lot of money, or if you were a slave or an indentured servant, if you didn’t own your property. Everyone who was poor or hungry or just getting by, everyone knew what Jubilee meant. But now certainly wasn’t the time to talk about it.
            That period of no one really knowing what to do or say seemed to go on for a long time. But it was probably only seconds, maybe a few minutes at most. Jesus begins to speak again, this time from his chair. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The buzz in the back the room was immediate. He had them at “today”. People who were there would say later that there was actually a chant that broke out. “Jubilee. Jubilee. Jubilee.” Such a reaction, however, was never noted in scripture. Luke, the gospel writer, records that “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
Well, not all, really. Or at least not all in way that lasted any length of time. That generous audience response didn’t last long. They couldn’t believe it was Joseph’s son, he was only a carpenter. And then Jesus points out prophets are rarely accepted by the hometown crowd and he implies that they are probably there just to observe a miracle or two. And then, according to Luke, Jesus launches into some puzzling teaching; offering a less than obvious reference to Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and lepers and Naaman the Syrian. Right then, everyone fills with rage. They get up and drive Jesus out of the synagogue and out of town. It’s a mob scene really, described there in the gospel. They actually take Jesus up to the brow of a hill, right to a cliff, and they are ready to throw him off, to toss him over, to hurl him over the cliff. And that’s when Luke writes, “But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” (Whew! That was a close one).       
Here’s the problem: Luke’s few verses of a narrative can’t really account for the extreme reaction of the worshipping body turned so quickly into a riotous crowd. The complexity of the gospel narrative doesn’t carry so well; trying to get from “The many who all spoke well” to “all were filled with rage”. Yes, it must have taken a while for the breadth of Jesus’ message to to sink in that day, and yes, those examples of being fed and being healed, they are examples of Gentiles being served not Jews. The religious leaders looking for a Messiah must have been realizing pretty quickly that this wasn’t what they bargained for. But it all must have started, the reaction must have started, the knots in the stomach must have come right when Jesus said “today”. Today. Good news to the poor. Release to the captives. Today. The blind seeing. The oppressed set free. Today. The year of the Lord’s favor. Jubilee. Jubilee. Jubilee. Right when Jesus said “today” there must have been those who knew this wasn’t going to work. Because when it comes to the kingdom of God in our midst, when it comes to the kingdom of God breaking in, those with power and position and privilege would rather it be tomorrow.
According to the law in the Book of Leviticus, every fifty years, after seven sabbatical cycles of seven years each, every fifty years it was to be the Year of Jubilee. During that year the land was to rest (fields to be left fallow), all debts were to be forgiven, servants were to be set free, and land that might have been sold by prior generations was to return to the ancestral family owners. Jubilee. It was a leveling of the economic system, a redistribution of wealth, an acknowledgement that God had led Israel out of bondage, that God had given the land, that everything that was owned (people, property, resources) it first came from the gracious hand of God. So once in a lifetime, there was to be a kind of do-over, a mulligan, a fresh start. For those in need a cause of chanting and celebration, for those who had much…any mention of the “year of the Lord’s favor” would be viewed as a threat.
Scholars report that there is no historical evidence that a Year of Jubilee was ever celebrated in ancient Israel. There is no reference in scripture or in texts beyond scripture that it was ever carried out; that promise of the fiftieth year. So when Jesus sat in his chair there at the front of the synagogue and said, “today,” no wonder it caused quite a stir! But this wasn’t like the Fed Chair announcing another rate cut. This wasn’t the roll out of an economic stimulus package. This wasn’t just Jesus on debt relief. Jesus was referring to more than Jubilee. So often what Jesus referred to was more than the words he said. 
Once when Jesus was told that his mother and brothers were looking for him, he announced that his mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. Family was so much more. When Martha was distracted by her many tasks and asked Jesus about Mary who just sat there at his feet, Jesus told Martha that Mary had chosen the better portion. It was more than just the better portion. You know that had do with a whole lot more than who did the chores. And when the poor widow put in two copper coins into the offering basket, Jesus proclaimed that she had put in all of the living that she had; with that widow’s mite she gave her life. It was so much more.
The year of the Lord’s favor, it was more than Jubilee. It was more than a year. When Jesus said, “today” he meant so much more. More than year. More than leveling the world’s playing field. “Today” is a reference to the very reign of God, to the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, to a kingdom that belongs to those who are poor, where those who are hungry now are blessed, and blessed are those who weep now, for they shall laugh. Jesus and his “Today” is about the kingdom of God. Where the proud are scattered in the thoughts of their hearts, and the powerful are brought down from their thrones, and the lowly are lifted up. Where the sick are healed, and the storms of creation are calmed, and the power of death is conquered once and for all. The reign of God. Sins are forgiven. His sacrifice is once and for all. The Lord makes all things new. Death has no sting. God wipes away every tear. Jesus and “today”. It was a sign of the kingdom. Where the stranger is always welcomed. The nations learn war no more. The prodigal always comes home.
 Today was so much more than a year. Promise and Expectation. Fulfillment and waiting. Rejoicing and lamenting. Singing and crying. All of it here and now. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus said. He had them at “today” As one poet describes it, “He is the incarnation of the Year of Jubilee. Jubilee. Jubilee. Jesus is our Jubilee.”
Last week I was standing in the back of large ballroom. It was the gathering of the Association of Presbyterian Christian Educators. Roger Nishioka, a professor at Columbia Seminary, was the keynote speaker. On Friday morning word had spread through the gathering of the campus shootings at Northern Illinois. Before he began his presentation, Roger led everyone in prayer. As he prayed he was moved to tears. His prayer was a lament, and over and over again he kept saying to God: “Can’t they just go to school.”
At point I look up in the prayer, I was so far back I really couldn’t see Roger, but there were large screens all around the room. As he was praying he was standing next to the lectern or the pulpit set up there on the convention stage. It was arranged up there to look rather church-like with other symbols and artwork and furniture. Roger just happened to be praying there next to the pulpit. Actually he was kind of leaning on it.
I wonder if when the church prays like that, “Can’t your kingdom come now Lord?”, I wonder if we ought really to be standing next to the font, leaning right on it, with one hand right in the water. Because baptism is a sign of the kingdom of God. Yes, it is a washing and a sign of Christ’s forgiveness. And it is a welcoming into the household of God. And it is a sign of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives and it is a way that we symbolize our participation in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. But the water of baptism, it is a sign of the very reign of God. A sign that we dare to believe that the very kingdom of God breaks in here and now. A sign that we yearn for the kingdom to fully come, and to come quickly. A sign that we know this world of ours is so far from what God intends for us and for God’s creation, and that we will work, and pray, and serve, and so live as to be midwives of God’s grace here and now. Baptism is a sign of the kingdom. Promise and Expectation. Fulfillment and waiting. Rejoicing and lamenting. Singing and crying. All of it here and now. 
            For whenever we stand here, whenever the church stands here, when we stand next to the font, when we lean on it, when we reach in to splash and pour, whenever we celebrate the sacrament of baptism, we say to one another, to the world, and to God…we say “today”. Today, Lord. Today.

 

 

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