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This season of Epiphany is the time of our church year that takes us from the birth of Jesus all the up to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Epiphany starts with the Magi who follow the star and then into the very early days of Jesus ministry where he changes water to wine, calls his disciples on the shores of the beach, and shares his very first words with his followers.
Something about this season always seems to be in step with lengthening of the winter days: Every day is just a little longer and there’s just a little more light. Each gospel passage we hear dials up the light just a little brighter.
Today, we hear these very first recorded words of Jesus in his ministry. This is his inaugural speech. With these words, he sets a vision, clarifies his priorities, and explains the scope of what he has set out to do.
We had a presidential inauguration last week. Inaugural addresses are important. Words matter because they have the power to shape the world around us. In the case of a presidential inauguration, the words that are shared set a vision for our country clarify our priorities. they influence action.
160 years ago President Abraham Lincoln spoke in his second inauguration speech about the need to resolve both the civil war and it’s evil cause of slavery. He spoke about how both sides of the North and South were to blame for that sin of slavery. He spoke to two sides that had been enmeshed in brutal violence and called for peace, self-reflection and forgiveness. His speech was short--not more than seven minutes--but it set the tone for the direction the country would take. Inaugural speeches always set the tone and inspire action. But regardless of who the leader is, we as people of faith stay close to God’s word, God’s story and lock into the values born out of God’s goodness.
In the case of Jesus’ inaugural words, he roots down into scripture and into his tradition to explain his extraordinary mission. He reads from Isaiah which harkened back to the law from Leviticus 25 where God will look to bring about the well-being of the community, specifically economic well-being. These words that Jesus read from Isaiah click right into one of the overarching themes of the bible: That folks who aren’t highly esteemed that those folks who don’t have access to the levers of the economy, that the people who face social obstacles that prevent them from getting a leg up, that all of these folks (the poor, the oppressed, the brokenhearted) are given special status in the heart of God. (1)
Often, very often, scripture refers to these folks as a trinity: Look after the widows, the orphans, and the foreigners the bible reminds us.(2) In the ancient world, these were the folks—widows, orphans and foreigners (or immigrants) who happened to face tremendous challenges to survive and much less get ahead. These were the folks on the very bottom rung. And, for some reason, these are the people that God holds especially close to the divine heart.
In his inaugural address, Jesus starts here. But this is not an easy place to start.
300 years before Christ, Plato taught in Athens that people were inherently unequal. Some people were just more valuable than others, he explained. Some are good at leading, thinking, math, philosophizing, and, some are not. If you’re good at it, you should get your just due. If, Plato would have said, you’re taking care of children, or laboring in the field, or doing something else, then you should also get your just due.
His philosophy went deeper: Some people, he explained, are more important than others: Some people, are men, some are…not. Some are free, some are enslaved. What was important, he taught, was to make sure that everyone got their just due. In fact, that was justice.
This view held for millennia. Google it. It undergirded feudalism (peasants were, of course, less important than lords and ladies.) It justified the slave trade and expansion into the Americas. This way of categorizing and ranking people held for generations. It worked its’ way into our psyche as humanity. Around 1700, when western thinkers began to question this, they appealed to an unexpected source: the bible. (3) Turns out, some of the earliest critiques of Plato’s philosophy come from scripture. In our reading from 1 Corinthians, St. Paul writes of the care and honor all the parts of the body merit. In Galatians, he writes that writes that there is neither "Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, all are one in Christ Jesus."
Jesus challenges this view many places in scripture saying that all those that are broken, heavy laden, burdened and oppressed are particularly held close in the heart of God. These barriers that categorized people and assigned different rank and value to folks, are vanquished in Christ. But that doesn’t mean the categories are gone. Some ways of thinking are hard to root out. For some reason, we still hang onto this idea that some people are more valuable than others. It is our faith that pulls us back like a magnet to the truth that all people, and even and particularly the vulnerable and forgotten, are beloved to God.
This is our charge from Jesus inaugural words: We are to pour love into siblings in need. We are to build what Jesus called the Kingdom of God or as MLK put it, “the beloved community.” We are to witness to the light of Jesus. Sadly though, this call to radical love doesn’t always find room in our hearts. It can be crowded other things:
1. By selfishness—an unwillingness to share, or a hyper focus on ourselves and my success, my problems, my worries. This blocks us from loving. Jesus read verses about economic justice which cut deep enough for some folks, that in the next bible scene, we read that some of the listeners were deeply offended and even furious. Sometimes, we convince ourselves that sharing will set us back.
2. Sometimes the barrier to following this call to radical love is cynicism: we think that nothing we do is ever going to make a difference, so why bother?
3. Another thing that can keep us from radical love is if we don’t like the people we’re supposed to love. What if the people who suffer and are close to God’s heart voted for someone different that I did? What if it’s a family member who is vulnerable, down on their luck, impoverished, but is also just plain old mean and so hard to love? Loving people even when they infuriate us and disappoint us and offend us—that is so hard. And there is no other answer than to disciple ourselves just do it. Thankfully, Jesus also announces in this reading that he is the fulfillment of this scripture. And we are not.
As I close I want to tell you a story from civil rights leader, Vincent Harding. At some point Harding told a story about a conversation he had in a hard neighborhood in Boston with a young man named Darryl. Darryl told Vincent that he felt like he was operating in a situation that, as he put it, was just “very, very dark.” He mentioned to Vincent that what he and his friends needed were, as he put it, some “sign posts to show them the way.” Some “lights shining out from other people’s lives” that would help them. Vincent was struck by the conversation and called these “live human signposts.”
He said that these human signposts would actually, stand there in the darkness and not run away from those who were hurting. In these shadowy times, he said, “we have to open up lights in the darkness. We have to be candles and signposts in the shadows” for each other, for those around us.
Earlier this week, I was talking with some church leaders about this moment in our society. I have to admit that there have been moments in the last week when I have felt heartsick about the news.
These church leaders and I talked about how it feels like things are breaking and that there are real human beings sitting there on the sharp edges of things as they splinter. And those folks are the vulnerable people that Jesus called us to: there are migrants. There are queer youth.
God cares about the folks on the sharp edges.
As I was talking with these LMC leaders, one ventured: “Maybe we could make a statement as a church about where we stand.” Maybe. Maybe we will make a statement. But, in the meantime, the truth is that you all are the church’s greatest statement. You are this statement through the way you interact with people, through the grace you show in your daily lives, through your insistence in getting out of yourselves to serve. The spirit of God moves among us and by God’s mysterious grace and prodding. You are the living signposts that go out into the world. You are the ones, with humility and integrity, to dial up the light. You are the ones to take Jesus inaugural words to heart, to match his tone, to follow his lead, to act on his words that call us to bind up the brokenhearted, to free the captives, to bring Good news to the poor, to comfort the mourning. By the grace of God, as it has been for ages with the church: you are the ones who are called to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
Jesus ministry was that of radical, inclusive, restorative love for all people and that kind of love doesn’t mess around. it is hard. This same holy love is alive around us today calling us to be the body of Christ and extend our hands into the world. I know that these are unusual times that we are living in but take heart and heed the call to reflect God’s light into the world and dial up the light. For love—love will show us the way.
(1) "Isaiah Westminster Bible Companion 44-66" Walter Bruggeman
(2) (A couple examples: Duet 10:14-19: Zech 17:10; Ex 22:21:24: Deut 26:12; Deut 27:19)
(3) leaned on analysis by Scott Black
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