READING: Luke Ch 4 v 14 – 21

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

SERMON

Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

There have long been jokes regarding those dealing the length of sermons. There’s the one about the preacher who was ending his sermon and apologized to the congregation for speaking too long, “I don’t have a watch with me”, he said. Somebody from the back shouted out, “Do you have a calendar?”

In today’s story from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus goes to the opposite extreme and preaches what could be the shortest sermon in history. He goes to the synagogue in Nazareth where he had been brought up, he is given the Scroll of Isaiah by a member of the synagogue, and he reads from Isaiah 61.

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring the Good News to the poor. He has sent me to announce release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind; to set at liberty those who have been oppressed; and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Then he sits down. When a rabbi sat down, it didn’t mean they were finished. That’s the position from which they taught or preached. There are several incidents found within the Gospels where Jesus sat to teach the disciples.

And Jesus sat down and simply said: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”. That’s it my friends and that is a very short sermon.

There is in the Old Testament a description of a very different kind of situation on a very special day in the life of the people of Israel. The people, who have recently returned to the Promised Land after spending five decades in Exile in Babylon, are gathered together in a square in Jerusalem – men, women, and children – and there the Law of Moses is read to them and explained to them from early in the morning till mid-day for close to six hours!

I bet it makes some of you squirm just to think about it! Yet that is not the reaction of the people to this incredibly long declaration of God’s Word.

Far from it. In fact the people are completely wrapped up in it. They cry. They shout Amen. They raise their hands to heaven. They fall down on the ground and bow their heads low and pray. In short they are completely involved with the word that they hear for it touches them deeply.

When was the last time you were so moved by the Word of God that it caused you to cry, or to fall upon your knees, or to lift up your hands in thanksgiving, or to say with enthusiasm and with joy, Amen.

Perhaps we have become too familiar with the scriptures or perhaps we are not familiar enough with them or perhaps we have simply lost our hunger, our sense of our need for something more for something divine, for someone to help us make sense of it all. It really is easy to lose our sense of wonder our thirst for knowledge.

Do you ever ask yourself what happens to our children when they grow older? Do you remember the time when your son or your daughter’s favourite word was “Why:”

Often times attempts to answer these questions simply lead to more questions. “Daddy, why are green beans green?” “Because then they wouldn’t be green beans.” “Why would they not be green beans?” “Because they would be blue or something. “Why would they be blue?” And so on and so on…..

Of course sometimes this is just a game in seeing how long dad will keep answering questions until he loses patience. But it grows out of a very real interest and wonder. Why is the world the way it is? A growing mind starves for understanding. But a four year old’s understanding is so lacking that the only question that comes forth is an all-encompassing “why.”

Whatever happens to that thirst for knowledge? Is that as they get older they just accept that things are the way they are? Do impatient teachers and parents squash the fire of curiosity? Or do they, do we for we were all once like our children, just kind of get used to things and stop wondering?

Is that what happens to us too when it comes to understanding the things of God? When it comes to exploring what it means to be “chosen by God”? When it comes to knowing what the Word of God has to say for our lives? Is it that we just get used to it?

Or are we afraid that there is no point asking – that the answer is beyond us, and beyond the ability of anyone to explain it to us? Or worse are we afraid that we might well understand the answer and that the answer will call us to make changes in our lives that we do not want to make?

We can understand how easy it is to not have time to listen to the old stories, to pray hard each day, and to meditate on what God has said. After all it is enough to simply believe in God isn’t it???? You don’t really need to pay attention to what he says do you???

I don’t know how you answer those two questions for yourselves… but do we know what God has to say about how we are living right now, about how our country is living with itself?

Do we know what God has to say about working all the time and about the importance of worship? About how why we should pray for our politicians every day even the ones we do not like?

Do we know what God says about gossip about how it is as bad as murdering someone or what God has to say about our outbursts of anger, our impatience and our worry and about how we can overcome them?

Do we know that to forgive means to forget? Do we know that “We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that we may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light”

The Word of God is exciting my friends but it can be just a little bit frightening as well, frightening when you realise just how much it has to say about how we are living, and just how far away we are from what God wants of us.

The word of God tells us just how far away from God we are, that word which even now is in our ears and which we can hold in our hands if we chose for the word also tells us that God is acting and will act to deliver us should we allow him to do so. Praise God!

My friends, the sermon that Jesus gave in the temple in reaction to the word of God as it is found in the prophet Isaiah is the same word that all who understand the word of God aright through the ages have proclaimed…

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing!”

Today the scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. Listen with more than your ears, listen with hunger, listen with your needs, listen with your hope, listen with a friend who can help explain what you do not understand, listen with Spirit that God will give you for that purpose.

The Word that proclaims the saving love of God and the more that we understand that love and rejoice in that love will allow ourselves to be filled with joy and the stronger and more healthy we will become.

Rejoice in the Word of God for he is here to save you, not condemn you, he is here to make you whole, not to strike you down, he is here to open the door to eternal life.

For the word is that God so loves you – that he sent his only begotten Son to you and to the world so that if you come to believe in him, to rejoice in him, to trust in him, to follow him, you might not perish.

The joy of the Lord is our strength, the word of the Lord is our guide. Rejoice in the word, read the word and bless the name of the Lord. Amen

PRAYERS

Let us pray that all the Lord’s people may be anointed with his Spirit.

Keep the Church steadfast in observance of your law to be a witness to all nations. Guide and inspire all who are called to your service, enabling them to fulfil the different tasks entrusted to them. Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

Grant to all peoples of the earth the spirit of co-operation for the common good.

Teach us to use our resources for the relief of suffering and the spreading of peace and harmony. Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

Bless us in our families, to care for one another in the knowledge that we are one in Christ. Inspire us to respect those with whom we work and to honour what they do.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

Have mercy on all who suffer from poverty or sickness or any other distress. Relieve their trouble, and comfort them with the word of your salvation. Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

We pray that those who have died in their earthly bodies may be made whole in the heavenly body of all the faithful. Comfort those who mourn, with the good news that all are one in Christ. We offer our prayers though Christ in whom all Scripture has been fulfilled.

Merciful Father accept these prayers in the name of your son our saviour Jesus Christ. And so we bind our prayers together in the words that Jesus taught his disciples.

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen

Revd Kevin
Associate Priest
St.Wilfrids and St.Thomas