Epiphany + 3 C – Neh 8, Ps 19, 1 Cor 12, Lk 4
You may have read or heard the news about the church service in Washington National Cathedral that marked last week’s presidential inauguration. The preacher, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, set out a vision of a nation unified despite people’s deep disagreements on very many issues; a nation unified by a genuine commitment to the social teachings of Jesus, which she laid out very clearly.
She finished her sermon with a gentle appeal to the newly inaugurated President that he might heed the teaching of Jesus to be compassionate to people on the margins. She specifically named the people who are right now most fearful of the policies he’s been announcing: gender diverse people and undocumented workers. Sadly, the President was most seriously displeased.
I’m struck by the fact that today, the Gospel reading set in our lectionary happens to include one of the very teachings of Jesus that Bp Budde would have had in mind. Luke presents us with Jesus’s first sermon in his home Synagogue in Nazareth. (Lk 4.14-21) He’s handed the Isaiah scroll and chooses these texts (61.1-2 and 58.6), 18The 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, 19to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
Jesus rolls up the scroll, gives it back to the attendant, and sits down to preach. We didn’t read further, so I need to let you know that the Spirit of the Lord inspired Jesus to preach about God’s heart for sick and needy people in other countries. His listeners were also seriously displeased. In fact, they were so enraged that they drove Jesus out of the Synagogue and tried to hurl him off a cliff. I expect Bp Budde has put herself in serious danger of a similar response.
Through the past week, I’ve been thinking about what our scriptures and liturgy today call from us as Christian citizens of this land. What difference might obedient Christian inhabitants make to Australia? What are followers of Jesus called to do as citizens? Today’s Gospel makes me wonder if it would put us at risk if we do what Jesus wants. What do today’s scriptures and liturgy call from us as God’s children?
The prayer of preparation calls us to open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as we saw Jesus do. That’s central to everything we do as God’s children. Without the Holy Spirit’s awakening and prompting, anything we do is questionable at best.
The invitation to confession calls us to acknowledge our part in this nation’s toxic disunity; our part in the nation’s systemic oppression of people on the margins; our part in these people being starved of compassion. We confess our failure to love each other and our neighbours. We ask God to forgive us; we ask for the strength to turn and hear and obey God’s call for us to be actively loving and compassionate.
I conducted a memorial service on Friday for someone who was actively loving and compassionate. She made an incredibly positive difference to the lives of people around her. Multiply that by a whole parish full of people – a whole country – you can see where I’m going.
Our prayer of the day thanked God for all the blessings of this land – even the disasters that so mysteriously have the power to draw us into compassionate unity. There was the Holy Spirit again, calling us to forgiveness, reconciliation and an end to injustice. You can’t do without the Spirit: we have to open up to her!
And our scriptures? Nehemiah reminds us that a Land is God’s to give – not anyone’s to take. The Psalm warns against sins of such presumption. And the Epistle also spells out their dangers. We ignore the gifts of others at our peril, and we close off our compassion for others to our peril, and that of the whole society.
And into all of that, Jesus preaches on a text he took from Isaiah: 18The 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, 19to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
What could change in this country if we church-goers open ourselves to the Spirit’s leading? Our liturgy and scriptures today call us to pray for the Spirit to inspire us; to unite us. They call on the Spirit to fill us with love and compassion for the poor; to fill us with love and compassion for those our nation robs, imprisons or exiles; to fill us with love and compassion for those whose illnesses, whose degradation, whose debt traps cut them off from the simple human need of belonging. A country where everyone belongs? Is that the difference the Spirit is calling us to work for?
We must ourselves be actively loving and compassionate. And we must pray for our leaders to be inspired by the Spirit; that the Spirit might guide them in ways of integrity, compassion, co-operation, justice, wisdom, and into a unity guided by a clear commitment to those in need, to justice, to mercy and to faithfulness. Amen.