The Homecoming – Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Luke 4: 14-21)
Today we read the story of Jesus’ return to his home synagogue in Nazareth. This is at the start of Jesus’ ministry. He has already been preaching and teaching throughout Galilee, and for this, he was becoming very well-known and well-liked in that region. Then he returns home to Nazareth. These early public statements will be spoken, presumably, to people who knew him growing up. People who watched him grow from Mary and Joseph’s little boy to the man before them that day. I’ve had a similar experience in my life. I’ve preached at the congregation I grew up in. I was ordained there, as well. It is a special thing to have a community like that, people who have watched you grow and take an interest in your well-being. But it can also be a little strange. Perhaps some of you have the experience as well. Not of preaching in your old church but coming home after you have been away for a while. Catching up with people who haven’t seen you in a long time. Maybe you went away for college, and you did some growing up away from where you first grew up. It can be difficult to grow and to change and then come back and see people and places that once meant so much to you, that once were your whole world. Some of those people probably expect you to be the way they remember you, but you’ve changed. You are not that exact same person anymore. It can be awkward. And if it can be awkward after taking a few college courses that really made you think, just imagine how awkward it could have been for Jesus after all he had experienced.
Jesus had been through quite a lot in the year or so leading up to this visit. He had left home and found John the Baptist at the Jordan River. He had been baptized and been visited by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and heard the voice of God say to him, “You are my son whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Then, full of the Holy Spirit, he ventured into the wilderness for forty days, where he was tempted by the Devil. Then he came to Galilee and began his ministry of preaching and teaching. So, after all that, in today’s reading, he finds himself back in his hometown of Nazareth, surrounded by people that knew him as a child. Talking to his old Sunday School teachers “Oh, I remember you were this big! When did you grow up?” “You and your brothers used to run all around this place. You had so much energy.” “I remember when you a kid, you made those birds out of clay. They were so lifelike!” When we come home, people tend to remember, first of all, what we did and who we were when they knew us back then, but the past is not the whole of our identity.
Still, surely, Jesus coming home to preach in Nazareth was an occasion not to be missed. This boy that everyone remembered, who had been a member of their community was coming home. At this point, Jesus was gaining a reputation all around Galilee. A good reputation. Surely the excitement and the pride of that could be felt throughout the congregation. You can almost hear the kinds of conversations taking place:
“Did you hear? Jesus, Joseph and Mary’s boy, is going to preach today.”
“That’s wonderful! I always liked him. And it’s so nice he still goes to the synagogue on the sabbath.” “Yes. If only more young people would keep the sabbath like that, we’d probably be in better shape as a society.”
“I’m so excited to hear him preach. I think he’s working from Isaiah today.” “Good, I’ve always liked this scripture.” “Well, it’s hard to go wrong with Isaiah. Let’s see what he does with it.”
So, Jesus preached from Isaiah 61. “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.” Surely, hearing Jesus proclaim this good word about the year of the Lord’s favor was an event the people of Nazareth were glad they did not miss.
“Well, he preached that alright.” “Yes, not how I’d do it, but good all the same.” “Right. We need to do what we can for the poor and the captives, but at some point, they need to take some responsibility for their own lives.” “My brother just did a Dead Sea plunge fundraiser for the blind.” “I think the year of Jubilee is a great idea in theory, but how are we going to pay for it?”
After Jesus finished the text, he rolled up the scroll and declared to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Surely then to hear Jesus declare himself the fulfillment of God’s words in Isaiah, to learn that this was happening in their midst, must have been an event not to be missed, a never to be forgotten moment for the people of Nazareth.
Christ’s identity is found in the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words, but also, in the people’s relationship to that fulfillment. Luke tells us it was Jesus’ custom to attend synagogue when he went to a town. This indicates for us that part of Christ’s understanding of his own identity was that of a faithful Jew. As such, he would understand Isaiah’s words as having meaning for the people of Israel, not just to him. He would know that the people understood these words he was reading as coming from a prophet and speaking to God’s intention to mend and restore a broken world. Jesus would know that he is reading and teaching that is very important to that community. A reading that contributes to that community’s understanding of itself, and their God, and the world they live in. It is also a reading that speaks to that community’s hope for the world that is to come. These are the verses that Jesus seeks out as he unrolls that scroll, and these are the verses that Jesus places himself into. It is a bold thing to place oneself into a community’s story in this way, and to say, “This is who I am, the fulfillment of these important words.” Is it any wonder the people resist at first (but we will talk more about that next week).
The people who heard Jesus speak these words, even though they may have known him well and cared for him, did not automatically accept, or understand what Jesu was saying about who he was. Then, that’s the thing about changing and growing and coming to understand our identity in a new way, perhaps for the first time. Not everyone is going to understand, even if they really want to. Not everyone is going to be able to accept that identity, not at first, and maybe not ever. And that was certainly the case in Nazareth that day, but that didn’t change the way Jesus understood himself. Other people’s opinions or expectations did not change the way Jesus would choose to live his life or keep him from answering God’s call. Other people’s ability to understand or willingness to accept Jesus’ identity as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of hope could not change the fact that Jesus’ ministry is good news to the poor, the prisoner, and the blind. And this holds true today. The inability or unwillingness of some to recognize Jesus as the good news of God’s love and mercy for all people, but especially the poor and oppressed and persecuted does not make it less true.
Keeping that in mind, lets take a look specifically at where Jesus says he has come to bring release to the oppressed. Now there are many ways to be oppressed, and many of them can lead to feelings of being unfulfilled. Oppression can also look like repression, specifically of one’s identity. Jesus could have held back and repressed himself, trying to mold his identity and his message so that it would not be so jarring for the people at his home synagogue. He could have downplayed how much he had changed to keep this comfortable, but that’s not what he did. He clearly declared who he was and what he was called in the world. The fulfillment of the word, hope for the downtrodden. Unfortunately, in our lives and in our times this part of the identity of Christ is not always made so clear. Messages of hope are repressed, deferring to messages of comfort, privilege, and control. Those with political and economic power try to tell us who Christ is, and it is a very different message from how Jesus identified himself that day in the synagogue.
So, I wonder. Perhaps if we could recognize and accept that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise of hope and deliverance for a broken world, we might actually bring some fulfillment to a world in which so many feel unfulfilled. Unfulfilled emotionally. Unfulfilled financially. Unfulfilled relationally. Unfulfilled vocationally. Unfulfilled spiritually.
In this world, where the needs of so many are left unfilled so that the pockets of a very few might be filled to overflowing, perhaps it is the job of us Christians to let people know that Christ is fulfillment for those seeking freedom, sight, release, and jubilee, which marks the forgiveness of debt and sharing in abundance. Christ is not the gatekeeper to fulfillment. Christ is not the judge of who is worthy of fulfillment. Christ is fulfillment. In Jesus Isaiah’s words of hope are fulfilled this day. Not tomorrow, or next week, or four years from now. This day. Hope is fulfilled in the identity of Jesus Christ. We must let the world know that. For those of us whose identities are wrapped up in feelings of insecurity and unfulfillment, we can remember that our identity also lies in Jesus’ identity, and we can share in that call to spread the good news to all people.
Jesus’ identity is the present fulfillment of hope for the people. We can find our identity in being part of that fulfillment by realizing we are connected to that good news wherever we are, whatever doubts or fears or troubles we may have. Let those who seek a home find it in the knowledge that their identity is of one who is created by God, just as they are, and affirmed by Jesus who has come to embody a message of hope for us all. Let us declare ourselves as the one’s who are fulfilled with the love of God and the hope of Christ.