Advent 2 1997 | Luke 4:14-21

It's tough being a prophet. No kidding. To the people who don't know you, it's hard enough to convince them you're serious; to the people who DO know you, it's almost impossible. These folks know your foibles, your failures, they remember when you soiled your diapers and when you wrecked your father's car. THEY know you're not perfect, and aren't likely to let you forget it.

Little wonder, then, that would-be prophets the world over attempt some appeal to an accepted authority, such as scripture. This is a common enough practice, although some prophets go further out on a limb to pull this off than others.

Shortly before he died, the founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called the Mormons, Joseph Smith was faced with a similar problem. Although he was gaining quite a sizable following, the "normal" Christians wouldn't give him the time of day, and in fact, were threatening to mob the self-proclaimed "prophet."

To shore up his authority, Joseph Smith "translated" an accepted version of the Bible. Although eschewed by the larger Mormon church, the smaller Re-Organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with their headquarters in Missouri, still take this special Bible as their own. It is an unremarkable translation, with few suprises, being mostly word-for-word copied from the King James Version of scripture. The only noticable variation comes in the fiftieth chapter of the book of Genesis, where the patriarch Joseph is on his deathbed. In most Bibles, Joseph promises that God will lead them back, out of Egypt to their own land. Now in Joseph Smith's authorized version, the dying Israelite prophesies further, promising that another deliverer is coming, who will also be called Joseph.

Imagine you are at a nineteenth-century tent-meeting; you've come to experience revival, and instead, this self-appointed prophet is pounding the pulpit and saying that scripture is prophesying the advent of himself, the latter day prophet; that all the teachings of the church which have gone before are full of errors, and that only he is the "true prophet revealed in the scriptures."

Now, I'd like you to notice the feelings you are having about this story; how silly it seems that this alleged "prophet" is appealing to this "authority" of his own divising. Are you amused, impatient, angry? Now I'd like you to imagine how the Jews in the synagogue in today's story must have felt, when Jesus appealed to a scriptural "authority" and proclaims that Isaiah was prophesying about HIM?!

It's hard for Christians to really understand how rediculous this must have seemed to pious Jews in Jesus' own time. Not just rediculous, but sacreligious, blasphemous! Today's reading stops short of telling us what the other folks' reaction was to Jesus' proclamation. Luke tells us that they were so angry, they tried to throw Jesus off of a cliff!

Now, it sounds to me that, if we were in their place, their actions might be reasonable. We would be pretty upset at such arrogance ourselves! We might feel pretty similarly to how the "little Christians on the prarie" felt about some convicted felon fortune-teller proclaiming himself to be the restorer of the Christian Gospel, and re-writing scripture to prove it!

But I would like to suggest that while our contempt at Joseph Smith's biblical scholarship might be warrented, the Jews were perhaps too hasty in their condemnation of Jesus. Perhaps they leapt to conclusions Jesus had not intended; perhaps they were reading more into the text that even Jesus was!

The verse which Jesus is reading from Isaiah is understood by Jews in a very different way from how Christians normally interpret it. Along with many alleged "prophesies" in Isaiah that supposedly refer to Jesus, Jews consider this and other verses as pertaining to the nation of Israel itself. It is Israel by whose "stripes we are healed"; and it is the nation of Israel personified speaking who says:

"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."

This was a simple statement of what God expected from the Jewish people. Their responsiblity was to be a missionary people who would spread the Good News of God's Covenant of Mercy with the whole earth, to "proclaim freedom" to those who are in prison, to give sight to those who cannot see, to comfort the poor, and to liberate the oppressed.

Isaiah probably meant this to refer to Israel. The Jews certainly understood it to refer to themselves. But did they DO it? DID they go forth into the nations preaching mercy and peace? No! The book of Jonah is an example of exactly the sort of nationalist propaganda that thwarted God's plans, and describes God's own judgement upon their failure to teach peace to the nations.

It is to Jesus' great chagrine, then, that he comes along, reared in a religion which so directly teaches us to take peace to our neighbors, and finds that even amongst the Jews there is little freedom, that many are oppressed, and that there is still only "bad news" for the poor.

There is a lyric I like from a song by the popular group U2 which says "I can't change the world, but I can change the world IN ME."

I believe this is the key to understanding what Jesus did in that synagogue so many years ago. He was born in to a tradition that demanded mercy and compassion for the poor and the oppressed, and yet even in his own country God's will was not being done. Jesus' answer? It will be done by ME. In Jesus' own small circle of influence, among his friends, and in the towns to which he traveled, Jesus took seriously Isaiah's edicts. He bound up the broken hearted, comforted the lonely, fed the hungry and set free the hearts of those held captive by legalistic and unfeeling religious observance.

When he said "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," he wasn't making grandious claims for himself; he was merely stating a fact. "At least with me and mine," Jesus seems to be saying, "God's will is being taken seriously."

But the Jews took what he was trying to say the wrong way; he would much more rathered that they would repent of their ways and follow his own example, but he had to know that that was unlikely. Christians have followed in the tradition of this misunderstanding, also attributing to Jesus meaning which he probably did not intend.

I would like to call us back this morning to Isaiah's, and Jesus', original intention. Isaiah pointed to a time when Israel would grow into maturity, to when they would fulfill God's promises to teach peace to the nations. We are still waiting for such a time. Theologians call this vision "eschatological hope," and both Jews and Christians await the time when God's Community is made manifest on the earth.

But Jesus' eschatology was not only future-oriented, but very much in the present. Theologians call this "realized eschatology," and it is very much part of Jesus' teachings. The Community of God may be coming, but it is also already here in seed, in potential, in anticipation. We anticipate the great feast at the end of time at this communion table. We participate in the present in what we hope for for our future.

But Jesus calls us to do more than simply wait. Jesus said, "TODAY these words are fulfilled in your hearing." We are not to be holy couch potatoes; it is our duty as Christians, as the inheritors of the responsiblity of Israel to bind up the brokenhearted, to heal the sick, to set free the captives and to teach compassion to a hurting world.

It is easy to say "I'm a prophet," to point to an alleged authority to prove our point; but it is the hardest thing in the world to BE a prophet, to stand up with courage and say the hard truth to people who have power over you; to put our own antipathy aside and feel real compassion for those hungry and homeless on our doorstep.

This Advent, let us not simply wait; let us practice Jesus' "realized eschatology." If the world is not perfect, if it is yet unjust, unfair and unfeeling, if the world itself has forsaken God's command, why then let us, this happy little band, be faithful to God ourselves, and in our small circle of influence, let the Spirit be upon us, let us bring good news to the poor, let us proclaim release to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, let us set the oppressed free, and proclaim a new year of God's smiling upon this humble community; for it is here amongst US that this scripture may be fulfilled in our hearing.

Let us pray.

God of all the ages,
We are lousy predictors of the future;
we are not much better at interpreting the past;
It seems we spend much of our energy
either disputing over the meaning of scripture
or fighting each other.
Help us to lay aside our pride and foolishness,
and to be about the very serious business of being
your presence here on earth, bringing the Covenant
to those who do not know how to live in relationship with you;
and making the coming Community of Grace
a reality in our own homes,
for we ask this in the name of the one who came to his own,
and his own knew him not,
even this Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, ever one God. Amen.