From the Wilderness to the Good News
A Sermon by Andrew Colman based on Luke 4:14-211
Tonight’s Gospel finds Jesus returning from the Wilderness to Galilee, teaching the Good News. In Nazareth, he enters the synagogue, receives the scroll, and reads from Isaiah.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
This was it; this was his mission.
The Good News of Jesus, the Good News of God is to the poor and to those people he said, those of you who are in chains, those chains will be broken, those of you who cannot see, you will see, those of you who are being kept from living a full life you will be given your chance.
That this comes right on the heels of Jesus coming out of the desert is no small thing. It is actually a choice that Luke made that is different from the other Gospels. There is a connection for Luke between the temptations and the Wilderness to the proclamation of the Good News.
Remember the temptations: turn these stones into bread, worship me, the devil, and have all of the power, leap off the roof of the temple and be saved by the angels of God so that all may see that you are untouchable.
Among the many things they speak to, they all speak of capabilities that is devoid of relationship. Both to one another and to God.
Now the thing about temptation is is that we are not tempted by things that we do not see as beneficial.
That is, if an unattended $100 bill was left out on the counter at a shop, a temptation might be to take the $100 because we could imagine the stuff that we could buy with that $100 bill.
We are tempted by things we perceive as valuable, like a $100 bill—not something worthless, like a dried-up pen
But one could resist temptation by looking just one step past the benefits themselves to its consequences. If a person stole that $100 bill, there might be a consequence of guilt that one would feel. But who knows the unknown consequences? Maybe that bill was meant to buy that week's groceries, pay off a pressing debt, or be a gift for a wedding.
All of a sudden, this act of taking what could be us some power while depriving another takes on a whole new light.
All that is to say that if Jesus was indeed tempted in the desert, the benefits of turning stones into bread would not have been lost on him.
He had been fasting for 40 days. After all, having an all but unlimited source of food must have been one of the most desirable things in the whole world at that moment.
But then the consequences of being totally filled with something that was not from God's making but of one's own making... all of a sudden you have become your own god... and the perspective of being one who relies on another... of being poor would slowly disappear.
Jesus came out of the Wilderness having felt temptation at his weakest point. The devil tried his best to make Jesus a captive, a slave to Sin through the temptations of self-sufficiency, unchecked power, and invincibility.
But, none of those things are the prerogative of humankind not even to the one who is fully human and fully God . We were made to be in a relationship with God. We were made to depend on the gifts of God that he provided for us in the Garden. We were made to be in good relationship with each other.
It is when the serpent tempted and seduced Adam and Eve in the Garden, and we sought more than we needed, did it all go wrong.
And so Jesus came out of the Wilderness, it says, "in the power of the Spirit," and got to work!
He had seen and felt the temptations, and by the fact that he was tempted, he would have seen and felt the depth of the damage and horror that succumbing to them would cause in a way that probably no one else had or would ever see or feel.
So, in the Power of the Spirit, Jesus began to preach the Good News to all of those who were victims of temptation - the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed.
In this, Jesus is speaking far more broadly than just those who are without enough money to support themselves; one commentator says it like this, "lack of subsistence might account for one's designation as "poor," but so might other disadvantaged conditions, and "poor" would serve as a cipher for those of low status, for those excluded according to normal canons of status honour in Mediterranean world. Hence, although "poor" is hardly devoid of economic significance, for Luke this wider meaning of diminished status honour is paramount."
A diminished status of honour.
This is so much more than people not having enough money, or being locked up, or not able to fully participate in life because for whatever reason, or being enslaved - of course, it is at least all of those things
But more than those things, it is about people not being seen, treated as the beloved, made in the image of God, that they are. We all deserve it, and we do deserve it, not because of anything that we have done but simply because we exist in this world. Full stop.
So In the Spirit, having overcome and set on defeating the temptations of the world, Jesus came and began his teaching with a very clear agenda of the tasks that he was coming to accomplish.
First, tell the poor, in all their ways of being poor in funds, in Spirit, in honour, that they have not been forgotten and that they are the ones for whom God has come.
Then, break the chains of the captives - restore honour to those who have been locked down or enslaved by those with unchecked power. Restore their place and sense of honour in this world.
Restore sight to the blind, bring healing to those who are sick and cannot function in a way that the world deems worthy of honour. Jesus will spit and make mud and restore sight; he will wash dirty feet; he will touch sick and even dead bodies and bestow honour on them because they exist.
And he will turn over the systems of greed and oppression in all their manifestations that keep people from living a whole and fulfilling life. Giving the oppressed the opportunity to have a sense of autonomy and fulfilment of their own. A chance to live a good life. A chance to honour God through with their whole being and offerings. A chance to stand up straight with the honour that being alive grants us.
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If we take one glance at the world around us, it is fairly easy to see that bringing honour to one another, by any means necessary, are not at the top of societal priorities right now.
In fact, it can often feel like the very opposite is true. We can find headlines that people are succumbing to the temptations of the desert, of self-sufficiency, unchecked power, and untouchability at the expense of the honour of another human being, everywhere from global view right down to local and even within small communities and families.
And it can feel disheartening, to say the very least.
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But we have a saviour named Jesus. Who, after going through the Wilderness, feeling temptation, indeed, at his weakest point, returned from the Wilderness to bring release to the captives, bring sight to the blind, and set the oppressed free - not all by himself - but through his life, through his teaching, through his example, through his love, through his sacrifice.
Because if it wasn't going to be at the flip of the switch that the devil offered him, it would have to be through love and work of the creation that he brought into being.
And so we find our call as disciples in the Gospel reading tonight. We find our way forward in the life of Jesus and the capacity to do the work girded by the scriptures and like Jesus in the filled with of the Holy Spirit.
The work of honouring those who are being not honoured as they ought to be. This work's kinds, shapes and sizes are as infinite as the kinds, shapes and sizes of every person and work of God's creation on this planet.
It will take courage and imagination. It will take sacrifice and love. It will mean leaning on God in ways that we could never have imagined because the work will be hard.
There is no better work than following in the footsteps of Jesus.
Looking for it in every nook and cranny, no matter how small or large.
Because each jewel of honour we bring to one of God's beloved and his creation is the Good News of Christ breaking through into a world that needs it.
Amen