Readings for Epiphany IIIC:
Luke 4:14-21; 1Cor. 12:12-27
January 21, 2007
The Rev. Karen Faye Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino, CA
The other day, I received a newsletter from the organization, Doctors without Borders. In it was a witness to an outrage. As you might know, there has been a complicated war, which has raged in the Congo since 1996. Rebel factions, invading armies, and rival ethnic groups have been fighting for access to diamonds and other precious resources. As a result of years of wars, there has been tremendous abuse of human rights and a neglect of the country’s health system. One 12-year-old girl, made her way to a health clinic in the Congo, staffed by Doctors without Borders. This is her story. “The fighters had come to her small village demanding food. When the rebels were dissatisfied with what the village gave, they attacked. Her four older brothers, mother, and father were all killed in her presence. She was raped and told to stay in the house as the group began to torch the village. Naked, she grabbed her baby brother and set out on foot to find an aunt in a distant town. It took her five month to get there and eventually made her way to the health clinic where she was treated.”
It is into this context of human cruelty, greed, misuse of power, and the disrespect for the dignity of every human being that we hear the good news in Christ. While in the synagogue, Jesus stood up to read, 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&#É;Then he began to say to them, &#Ô;Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” [Lk. 4]
What a bold claim for Jesus to make at the beginning of his ministry! And yet, having been anointed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus freely gave his whole self (mind, body, and soul) to teach and heal, thus offering hope, freedom, and release to those oppressed by bondage. In his three years of ministry, he became a servant so that others could come to know the healing grace of the Holy Spirit. He modeled what can happen when the Holy Spirit is freely allowed to work through human agency.
Today, on this third Sunday after Epiphany, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” What a bold claim for me to make in January of 2007; a year in which our world is still at war, where half of the world’s population is barely making it, while the other half struggles with fear and uncertainty. Yet I can say with certain hope that “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” because God is on the loose in the world and the Holy Spirit has anointed each and every one of you to reach out your arms within your sphere of influence to touch your neighbor with compassion, healing, and justice. The only thing that is stopping us Christians from realizing our true vocation as servants of healing, is that we have not fully opened up our ears to hear God’s voice which is saying: You are my beloved, the chosen ones, with whom I am well pleased. [See Luke 3:22]
Let’s take a closer look at today’s text.* Luke provides an important glimpse into Jesus’ religious life and synagogue worship at the time of Jesus. It was Jesus’ custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, a reminder that Jesus was an observant Jew. Any male belonging to the synagogue community could be invited by the synagogue president to read the lesson for the day and give words of interpretation. The synagogue service consisted of a recitation of a psalm, readings from the Law and the Prophets, a sermon based on the day’s Scripture and a blessing. Christians adopted this order of service for their worship and Episcopalians have added the celebration of the Eucharist to it.
After reading the passage from Isaiah, Jesus rolls up the scroll, gives it back to the attendant, and sits down. The eyes of all in the congregation were fixed on him, waiting for his interpretation of the text. The words about being anointed by the Holy Spirit have particular significance. At Jesus’ baptism, he was anointed by the Holy Spirit. And now in the presence of the gathered community in the Nazareth synagogue, Jesus makes a public announcement of that anointing and states it purpose. He is the anointed messenger of the good news to the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed, the preacher of liberation, the way to a new social reality which some call the kingdom of God. In him, this piece of scripture is being fulfilled. But this fulfillment is not limited to the Jesus event. It continues with you and me. It is the fulfillment of God’s promise that when God’s power, grace, and truth operate through us, transformation of the human race and even the cosmos becomes possible.
So what has happened to this promise and why do things look so chaotic? I think in our intellectual rationalism and functional approach to life, we have marginalized the Holy Spirit in our quest towards wholeness. Without this power of the Spirit, transformation remains only a distant hope. The early followers of Jesus were different. Many prayed and waited upon the Holy Spirit. This power filled their souls and gave them the passion and power to give their lives completely to God. From that moment on, they manifested God’s power in their lives. They preached with a power and a voice that was far greater than their own ego strength. They were able to live in the unity of the Spirit, healing the sick, aiding the poor, striving for justice. They had visions and amazing things happened as the church grew and spread.
“The breath of the Spirit transformed the [early] church from its dogmatic, legalistic roots into a vital faith that connected people with God, allowing God’s power to flow through their lives. Unfortunately, over the past 2000 years, many Christian denominations have slowly pushed the Holy Spirit to the margins, limiting the Spirit’s power by emphasizing functionality, hierarchy, organization, and adherence to tradition.”[See Becoming a Blessed Church]
To what extent do you expect or invite the Holy Spirit to act in your life? To what extent are we, the people of St. Jude’s, open to God’s power in this community of faith? Are we willing to have God’s power flow through what we do, bringing blessings, miracles, and transformations? Our churches (and all of us who are in them) are meant to be channels of God’s power. The Holy Spirit is God at loose in the world; God’s presence and power among us, leading us into all truth, bringing us into harmony with all creation, and enabling us to grow into the full likeness of Christ.
This week we celebrate the week of Christian Unity. It is a time when Christians of all denominations join together to celebrate our commonality in Christ and to let go of the differences that separate us. The truth is, we need each other and God needs all of us to make a difference in the world. We need the steady voice of the Catholics who speak about the dignity of life. We need the persistent voice of the Evangelicals who call us to a life of holiness and faith. We need the prophetic voice of the mainline denominations who call us to put our faith into action by striving for justice and peace and the dignity of every human being. We all have been anointed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.
May God give us the grace, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation.” [Collect of the Day, BCP 215]
[*For more information, see Interpreting the Lesson of the Year by Gail O’Day, 1994.]
| Updated 01/31/07 |
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