- The angel announces the coming of Jesus to Mary.
- A choir of angels announces the birth of Jesus to the shepherds.
- A star proclaims the divine birth and guides a group of Magi from the east.
- The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus while a voice from heaven claims Jesus as the Beloved Son.
- Jesus turns the water into wine at a wedding feast.
Each of these events reveals Jesus as the Son of God to different groups of people through some sort of mysterious act of power. Messengers from heaven are not nearly as common as we would like to believe; the accounts of angels in the bible are relatively few and are often separated by many years from one another. We can no more follow a star to a specific location than we can follow a rainbow to a pot of gold. And someone who could turn water into wine would be a huge hit at parties.
But today’s revelation takes a far simpler form. There is no choir of angels, no voice from heaven, and no miracle. Today we hear that Jesus has started to teach in the synagogues. Where John had preached in the wilderness, Jesus meets people where they are. He brings his powerful teaching into the synagogues, and the people praise him for the teaching that he offers to them. As he continues throughout Galilee, reports of his ministry are spreading throughout the area.
And then he comes to Nazareth, his hometown, the place where he was raised. He comes into the synagogue he would have attended as a boy. He takes up the scroll for the reading and reads a short snippet from Isaiah:
“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.”After all the stories that have circulated about his teaching in the area, this group of people that knew him as a boy and young man are anxious to hear what he has to say. What great teaching will he share based on this text? This is why all the eyes are fixed upon him. They can’t wait to hear his renowned teaching. Finally he says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
I can only imagine this is not quite the teaching they were expecting on that day. After all, Joseph’s son, who they had known as a boy has just claimed to be sent from God to fulfill the words of Isaiah.
No choir of angels, no voice from heaven, no mother at his side to encourage him. Jesus reads the words of the prophet and then claims his role as the one to fulfill God’s promises.
Any doubts we may have about how Jesus understood himself as the Beloved Son, any doubts we may have about his mission and ministry to the world should be dispelled right here. This is Jesus’ mission statement. He is telling everyone who knows him that this is what he is meant to do - to bring good news to the poor, 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.
Whatever else he may do, this is his source and guide for ministry. He states very clearly, this is who I am.
* * *
As I thought about all that has happened in the Gospel of Luke so far - the angels, the revelations, the baptism, and Jesus’ time in the wilderness (which we will actually read in a few weeks at the start of Lent) - and the claims that Jesus is making here today, I was reminded of the movie The Matrix. I am sure at least some of you have seen it. In this movie, there is a character named Neo who is convinced that there is more to the world than the existence he currently lives. Through his attempts to learn more, he is contacted by others who claim the entire word he knows is an illusion.
It turns out that the world he knows really is an illusion, a computer simulation created by sentient programs to keep people enslaved. Once he has learned the truth there is a scene of Neo awakening in a pod that looks something like a womb. Covered in a sticky goo, Neo bursts forth into a world he has never seen before, a world that looks like nothing he has known before.
In a sense, he is born again.
After that, we learn that there is a prophecy regarding one that will come who will be able to break people free from their imprisonment, one who is able to bend the very rules of the simulated world at will so that people can live free. This sounds an awful lot like the words of the prophet that Jesus is claiming in today’s passage. But unlike Jesus, who makes this claim early in the story, it takes Neo most of the movie to finally accept that about himself.
Neo was called to something greater, he heard that call and he has a second birth into a new world, but it still takes him some time to step into that role he is being called into.
* * *
Call stories are important things to those who see themselves in ministry. We often talk about that moment when we recognize and commit to God’s call on our lives. In seminary, students joke about how often they have to write about their call stories not just in classes but also when completing ordination paperwork and interviews. Those entrusted with teaching and preparing those who will go into ministry take this idea of call seriously. Does this person have a clear sense of call? Can they articulate what that call means? Do they understand what it will mean to live out that call? Are they capable of doing so?
Part of the reason for this constant reflection on call stories is because like Neo in The Matrix, we often have a difficult time recognizing and accepting that call in our lives. When I finally went to seminary and began more fully exploring God’s call on my life, I was surprised to discover that God’s call had been a part of my life since at least high school. I found traces of that call peppered through my personal journals from those years though I had obviously not recognized it at the time. And then in college, I awoke from a dream with a poem in my head that I simply had to write down. It didn’t make much sense to me at the time, but when I went back to it in seminary I was able to recognize the prompting of the spirit. And now, I have a painting on the wall of my office that reminds me of that poem so that I can be reminded of my call every time I see it.
The preaching professor that I did some of my advanced coursework with uses the text we have here today to open her basic preaching course every term. In this text she sees not only Jesus’ call, but the call of all who preach the Good News. It is this text that Jesus claims at the beginning of his ministry that still serves as a model for us yet today.
And it is important to note that this idea of call is not limited to those going into ordained ministry. Each of us at our baptism accepts God’s claim on our life. But it often still takes time for us to take the next step on the path and to truly accept the call that Jesus is placing on our lives.
In some traditions there is the language of being born again as a key step in the journey of faith. In the Methodist tradition, we talk about our hearts being warmed. Either way, the language used to describe this is very similar to the sense of call - the reassurance that God has called and claimed you and the acceptance of that call on your life.
* * *
In The Matrix movie, Neo grows into his new life outside of the Matrix, he constantly denies that he is the one foretold by prophecy. He refuses to believe who he is called to be. He simply cannot comprehend that for himself. Until the moment he suddenly believes.
The movie ends with a miraculous reanimation, and Neo is in fact revealed as the one. He distorts the very fabric of that simulated reality. And the final scene reveals Neo making a literal call to the machines in which he lays out what is to come:
"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there, is a choice I leave to you."This is prophecy like that of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is not so much predicting the future as it is identifying where things stand and the likely outcome of that situation. This is the promise that Isaiah is making - that God hears the cries of those in need and moves to help.
When Jesus takes up the scroll, he reads those words of Isaiah, words written at least 200 years before his birth. And then this powerful teacher who has been praised in synagogues around the region says simply, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In doing so, he is not only fulfilling a prophecy but he is making a prophetic claim himself.
Like Neo in The Matrix, Jesus is letting us all know where things are beginning.
The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is God’s love for the poor.
The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is God’s healing presence.
The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is God’s stand with the captive and the oppressed.
In making this claim, Jesus is saying not that this is the ending, but this is the beginning of a whole new way of living. This new world is one built on relationship - love of God and love of neighbor.
In this world, the poor will know good news.
In this world, the captive and the oppressed will know freedom.
In this word, the sick will be healed.
* * *
It doesn’t take us much time to look around at our world and recognize that these things have not ended. Like the machines in The Matrix we sometimes look around at our world and we are afraid. We’re afraid of change. We’re afraid of a future we do not understand.
But Jesus gives us a model for a way out. He offers us a new way of living with each other. Instead of an ending, Jesus offers us a new beginning.
We are all here today because we felt called in some way. God reaches out to us even when we are not aware, offering us grace. This grace is offered whether we seek it or not. This is what the story of Jesus is all about.
Jesus didn’t come to a perfect world to tell us God is pleased.
Jesus came into a sinful world to prove God’s love for us.
And so we look to this model of Jesus’ ministry, these words that Jesus claims in order to proclaim who he is, and we know what God wants of all of us that follow Jesus - to bring good news to the poor, to release the captives and to side with the oppressed, to heal and serve those in need.
Jesus as prophet comes not as judge but as love embodied. And then he calls us to take our place within that relationship, to live in a world modeled on love. And our calling is part of that fulfillment of prophecy that Jesus announced 2,000 years ago.
May we therefore hear that call to love one another and go and do likewise.