Sermon at Nazareth
January 17, 2021

Sermon at Nazareth

Passage: Luke 4:14-30
Service Type:

Inauguration Day
Luke 4:14-30

Sermon Text

This Wednesday, January 20, 2021, is Inauguration Day. We have prayed for many months for a peaceful transition of power. Let us continue to pray until the day arrives and goes.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations has issued a warning that there could be armed protests at the capitals of all fifty states. As a result of the events of Wednesday, January 6, our nation’s capital has been turned into an armed fortress with unscalable walls, barricades, and twenty-five thousand national guard troops encamped in and on the capital grounds.

Inauguration Day is an important event in our constitutional republic. Former Vice-President Joe Biden will be sworn in as the forty-sixth President of the United States of America. After taking the oath of office, swearing to uphold the constitution, he will deliver his inaugural address outlining his vision for the nation and his priorities for the first one hundred days of his administration. It is an important address that sets the tone for the next four years. We should all watch it and listen carefully.

I marvel at the providence of God in choosing the texts for the Narrative Lectionary we are following. They are perfectly suited to address the times we are living through. This morning’s reading from Luke 4 recounts Jesus’ inaugural sermon!

The Lord Jesus had begun his public ministry filled with the power of the Spirit. He began to teach in the synagogues in Galilee. Eventually, his journey brought him to his hometown of Nazareth. Jesus had grown up there and attended synagogue faithfully with his parents. His family was known in the community. “When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom” (Lk. 4:16).

The institution of the synagogue began during the Babylonian exile. The temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. The system of sacrifices had ended. Faithful Jews began to gather in small groups. Eventually, it was decided that a synagogue could be organized in any community with ten families. The focus of worship shifted from the temple with its sacrifices to the book, the Hebrew Scriptures. Synagogue worship was fairly informal. It began with the recitation of the Shema. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4-5). Then a psalm was sung followed by a reading from the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses. After a brief commentary by one of the members of the community, a portion from the prophets would be read and commented upon. The service continued with prayers, blessings, and a benediction.

Even though the temple had been rebuilt and the sacrifices reinstituted, the institution of the synagogue persisted. It was the center of community life. In addition to weekly worship, the synagogue also functioned as a school and a courtroom administering justice.

Jesus, as an esteemed member of the community, was invited to select the reading from the prophets and comment on it. The scroll of Isaiah was given to Jesus by the synagogue attendant. Jesus unrolled the scroll and carefully chose the passage to read. “He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given 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’” (Luke 4:16c-19). After reading, Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down, having delivered a one- sentence sermon!

Despite the brevity of the scripture reading and the sermon, this was a defining moment for the next three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” The LORD God of hosts had anointed his beloved son, Jesus, as the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord’s chosen king. Jesus’ mission was to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed.

These categories of people are both literal and metaphorical. The poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed would be liberated. Remember that Israel was suffering under the tyrannical rule of the Roman Empire and the Herodian dynasty. People longed to be set free literally.

But the categories of people are also symbolic. Those who were spiritually impoverished, enslaved to sin, blind to spiritual truth, and oppressed by the devil would be liberated too through Jesus’ sinless life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection.

Jesus came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. It is significant that Jesus left off reading Isaiah 61:2 in mid-sentence. He omitted the phrase, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus' mission was decidedly weighted in favor of mercy. The year of the Lord’s favor was the year of Jubilee described in Leviticus 25. Debtors were forgiven. The enslaved were released. Those who had lost everything were allowed to return to their ancestral lands. The tone and tenor of Jesus’ ministry was good news, jubilee, freedom from all that binds us.

Jesus boldly announced, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The kingdom of God had arrived on earth in the person of God’s Spirit-anointed king. Now the work of liberation could begin.

At first the assembly of the synagogue was thrilled. All their eyes had been fixed upon Jesus as he read from Isaiah. They loved his brief message. (I don’t know whether I could get away with a one sentence sermon, but maybe it would be well received with a sigh of relief!)

But gradually the mood began to change. Some people began to say, “Wait just a minute. Isn’t this the carpenter Joseph’s son?” Others may have whispered about Mary becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Joy gave way to doubt and suspicion. No doubt people began to clamor as Jesus predicted, “Do here also in your hometown the things that we heard you did at Capernaum” (vs. 23b).

Jesus fearlessly took them head on. He quoted two proverbs to them. First, “Doctor, cure yourself” (vs. 23a). I wonder if this proverb is not a foreshadowing of the mockery of the crowd at Jesus’ crucifixion. They shouted, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one” (Luke 23:35).

The second proverb was “Truly I tell you; no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” Israel had a long history of rejecting, persecuting, and even killing their prophets. As John will later say of Jesus, “He came to his own, but his own received him not” (Jn. 1:11).

Jesus made matters worse when he pointed out that God passed over Hebrew widows and lepers to save a Sidonian widow and a Syrian general, both hated Gentiles. The Jews referred to the Gentiles as dogs in Jesus’ day. This enraged the members of the synagogue. Acting together as a violent mob, they drove him from Nazareth to the brow of a hill from which they intended to hurl him headlong and stone him to death. But miraculously Jesus passed through the midst of them and went on his way. His time had not yet come.

I was struck by the stark contrast between the crowds that came out to John the Baptist asking, “What should we do?” and the response of the members of the synagogue who were filled with murderous rage. John’s message was far harsher than Jesus’ words. I think the difference is that John’s crowds saw themselves as sinners and the synagogue members fell into the trap John warned them against. They must have said to themselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor; how dare this illegitimate child tell us that God will favor our hated enemies, the Gentiles, over us?”

But this is the scandalous good news of the year of the Lord’s favor. Jubilee is proclaimed for everyone! Wherever there is poverty of pocketbook or spirit, wherever people are imprisoned in buildings or in sin, wherever people are physically or spiritually blind, wherever people are oppressed by their government or by the devil, there is a new ruler of the world. He is King Jesus, anointed with the Spirit of God to set us free.

There are two realms: the kingdom of the world ruled by the evil one and the kingdom of God ruled by the Lord Jesus Christ. These two kingdoms are in constant conflict, which accounts for the painfully turbulent period we are living through. Thankfully, the scriptures promise that the kingdom of God will triumph ultimately.

The whole world is still living under the year of the Lord’s favor. The day of vengeance of our God has not come yet. The urgent call is to align ourselves with God’s good and peaceable kingdom while time remains. Jesus’ message created conflict then, and it still does today.
The Spirit of the Lord Jesus is upon us, his disciples, and we must do all in our power to proclaim good news to those who are in bondage to sin, evil, and death. We must do all we can to help the poor, the incarcerated, the blind, and the oppressed.

Jesus’ inaugural sermon at the synagogue in Nazareth shows us the broad contours of his kingdom’s administration. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. God’s kingdom is designed to set us free.

Let us fearlessly follow our new king. God can use us in our own small spheres of influence to proclaim the good news of his kingdom. So, to borrow the words of an old hymn, “Hail to the Lord’s anointed, great David’s greater son! Hail in the time appointed, his reign on earth begun! He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free, to take away transgression, and rule in equity.”

Glory be to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the kingdom of Jubilee is among us! Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Amen.