3 Epiphany
C January 24, 2016
Neh. 8:2-10 Ps. 19
1 Cor. 12:12-27 Luke 4:14-21
Lectionary Link
Just so you don't think this sermon is pointless, here are four points. 1-Moments in the history of preaching. 2-What Jesus meant by the word Gospel. 3-Releasing our good news. 4-The church has an environment.
First, moments in the history of preaching. I have been a liturgical preacher now for 35 years. What does this mean? It means that I use the appointed readings from the Bible for a given Sunday and I attempt to interpret what those Bible readings could have meant when they were written. And then I attempt to find a corresponding way to give the sense of what the spiritual and moral principles are for us to apply to our lives today. I inherited this long tradition of reading from the Bible and then giving interpretations and applications.
In our first reading from Nehemiah we find that the scribe and priest, Ezra also practiced this method of reading scripture and preaching. Ezra had returned from the exile in the Persian lands. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. The people of Israel were carried away into captivity to live in the lands of the Babylonian and Persian Empires. Without having the Temple as a focal point, the gathering of the people of Israel in their new location became crucial for them to retain their identity as a people. In fact, the entire history of Israel was presented in an idealized form to inspire the people of Israel to keep their identity and not get assimilated into the societies of their captors. It happened that the people of Israel gained enough favor with their captors and so the Emperors allowed a group of the people to return to Israel to help them reconstitute their identity in their homeland and ultimately to rebuild their Temple. Ezra came back as a scribe, priest and teacher and he brought with him the practice of the public reading of the Torah. And after the Torah was read, Ezra the preacher interpreted the Torah and gave the sense of the meaning of the Torah for the people of his time. We know now that the in the time of Ezra the Torah and the Hebrews Scriptures were not yet complete. They were still being written and edited. What we see in this preaching event of Ezra, this established practice of reading the Scriptures and providing an interpretation and application of the meaning of the Scriptures for a new audience.
Now fast forward to the Gospel lesson. We find that Jesus is exercising this ancient custom of preaching. First, he read from the scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures. And for Jesus the Hebrew Scriptures were more than the Torah; the Scriptures of Jesus included the Psalms and the writings of the Prophets. Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah and after the reading he began to preach on the reading from Isaiah. And when Jesus preached, he revealed what he meant by the Gospel.
So, point 2, what did Jesus mean by Gospel and why does it have other meanings today? What Jesus read from Isaiah is this this: "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." To bring good news to the poor. Good news in Hebrew is "basar." When "basar" was translate into Greek, the Greek word was "euangellio." When Jesus read what the Prophet Isaiah said about the Good News, essentially, Jesus said, "I resemble these words, because this is what my life is all about. I am here to bring good news to the poor." What would good news to the poor be? It would mean that they would have ample supply of resources for living. Good news for a prisoner would be freedom. Good news for the blind would be sight. Good news for the oppressed would be justice. Good news for all would be to know God's favor, the sense of being recognized by God. So for Jesus, the word Gospel could not be separated from the effects of the Gospel, namely resources for the poor, justice for the oppressed, healing and health for those who are sick, and letting everyone know that God is for everyone. But what has Gospel come to mean in the history of the church? It is the name of the kind of literature about the life of Jesus. Gospels are the written books with the attributed titles of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. One who preaches the Gospel has come to be called an evangelist, an English word derived from the Greek word euangellion. Often in practice preaching the Gospel has been reduced to simply converting people to our particular view of Jesus Christ. It is unavoidable that Gospel has come to have additional meanings, but as we have read the Gospel today, we cannot forget the meaning of the Gospel which Jesus borrowed from the prophet Isaiah because it was the Gospel meaning of Isaiah that Jesus adopted as the meaning of his life and ministry.
Now in the absence of Jesus of Nazareth in the world today, St. Paul said that the church is the body of Christ in the world now. And so we as the church need to be committed to embodying the good news as it was understood by Jesus of Nazareth. How do we embody and release the good news of the life of Jesus? We do it together collaborating as the body of Christ. Just as every part is equally a part of the body, each part has a different function in the total function of the body. In the body of Christ we celebrate the fact that we are equal but different. Each of us has a different way to express our contribution to the good news of Jesus Christ in the world. We should not presume to over-estimate our own ministry nor should be underestimate the ministries of others in the body of Christ. And none of us should presume to be the brain or the head of the body of Christ. St. Paul clarified this for us when he declared that Christ is the head of the body of Christ. And so we all look to take direction for our ministry from Christ while we remember what Jesus meant by the Gospel. The Gospel is not just words; it has to be followed up with deeds of love or justice or we are left but being sad and deluded hypocrites.
And finally the 4th point; the body of Christ has an environment. The body of Christ is not to be a group of narcissistic inward looking Christians fighting with each other and excommunicating and excluding and sanctioning each other. We live in a very needy world and so we need to be outward looking: We need to bring good news to the poor. We need to release people from the prisons of addiction. We need to bring justice to the oppressed. We need to bring enlightened insights to the blindly ignorant. We need to bring health to all. We need to let people know that God's favor is toward them.
So we will continue our tradition of reading Scripture and interpreting the meaning of it for our own time. We will remind ourselves about what Jesus believed the Gospel to mean. We will practice the equal but differing ministry of the body of Christ, always honoring Jesus as our head. And finally, we are called outside of ourselves to the people in our world who really need to know good news for their lives. Amen.
Neh. 8:2-10 Ps. 19
1 Cor. 12:12-27 Luke 4:14-21
Lectionary Link
Just so you don't think this sermon is pointless, here are four points. 1-Moments in the history of preaching. 2-What Jesus meant by the word Gospel. 3-Releasing our good news. 4-The church has an environment.
First, moments in the history of preaching. I have been a liturgical preacher now for 35 years. What does this mean? It means that I use the appointed readings from the Bible for a given Sunday and I attempt to interpret what those Bible readings could have meant when they were written. And then I attempt to find a corresponding way to give the sense of what the spiritual and moral principles are for us to apply to our lives today. I inherited this long tradition of reading from the Bible and then giving interpretations and applications.
In our first reading from Nehemiah we find that the scribe and priest, Ezra also practiced this method of reading scripture and preaching. Ezra had returned from the exile in the Persian lands. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. The people of Israel were carried away into captivity to live in the lands of the Babylonian and Persian Empires. Without having the Temple as a focal point, the gathering of the people of Israel in their new location became crucial for them to retain their identity as a people. In fact, the entire history of Israel was presented in an idealized form to inspire the people of Israel to keep their identity and not get assimilated into the societies of their captors. It happened that the people of Israel gained enough favor with their captors and so the Emperors allowed a group of the people to return to Israel to help them reconstitute their identity in their homeland and ultimately to rebuild their Temple. Ezra came back as a scribe, priest and teacher and he brought with him the practice of the public reading of the Torah. And after the Torah was read, Ezra the preacher interpreted the Torah and gave the sense of the meaning of the Torah for the people of his time. We know now that the in the time of Ezra the Torah and the Hebrews Scriptures were not yet complete. They were still being written and edited. What we see in this preaching event of Ezra, this established practice of reading the Scriptures and providing an interpretation and application of the meaning of the Scriptures for a new audience.
Now fast forward to the Gospel lesson. We find that Jesus is exercising this ancient custom of preaching. First, he read from the scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures. And for Jesus the Hebrew Scriptures were more than the Torah; the Scriptures of Jesus included the Psalms and the writings of the Prophets. Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah and after the reading he began to preach on the reading from Isaiah. And when Jesus preached, he revealed what he meant by the Gospel.
So, point 2, what did Jesus mean by Gospel and why does it have other meanings today? What Jesus read from Isaiah is this this: "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." To bring good news to the poor. Good news in Hebrew is "basar." When "basar" was translate into Greek, the Greek word was "euangellio." When Jesus read what the Prophet Isaiah said about the Good News, essentially, Jesus said, "I resemble these words, because this is what my life is all about. I am here to bring good news to the poor." What would good news to the poor be? It would mean that they would have ample supply of resources for living. Good news for a prisoner would be freedom. Good news for the blind would be sight. Good news for the oppressed would be justice. Good news for all would be to know God's favor, the sense of being recognized by God. So for Jesus, the word Gospel could not be separated from the effects of the Gospel, namely resources for the poor, justice for the oppressed, healing and health for those who are sick, and letting everyone know that God is for everyone. But what has Gospel come to mean in the history of the church? It is the name of the kind of literature about the life of Jesus. Gospels are the written books with the attributed titles of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. One who preaches the Gospel has come to be called an evangelist, an English word derived from the Greek word euangellion. Often in practice preaching the Gospel has been reduced to simply converting people to our particular view of Jesus Christ. It is unavoidable that Gospel has come to have additional meanings, but as we have read the Gospel today, we cannot forget the meaning of the Gospel which Jesus borrowed from the prophet Isaiah because it was the Gospel meaning of Isaiah that Jesus adopted as the meaning of his life and ministry.
Now in the absence of Jesus of Nazareth in the world today, St. Paul said that the church is the body of Christ in the world now. And so we as the church need to be committed to embodying the good news as it was understood by Jesus of Nazareth. How do we embody and release the good news of the life of Jesus? We do it together collaborating as the body of Christ. Just as every part is equally a part of the body, each part has a different function in the total function of the body. In the body of Christ we celebrate the fact that we are equal but different. Each of us has a different way to express our contribution to the good news of Jesus Christ in the world. We should not presume to over-estimate our own ministry nor should be underestimate the ministries of others in the body of Christ. And none of us should presume to be the brain or the head of the body of Christ. St. Paul clarified this for us when he declared that Christ is the head of the body of Christ. And so we all look to take direction for our ministry from Christ while we remember what Jesus meant by the Gospel. The Gospel is not just words; it has to be followed up with deeds of love or justice or we are left but being sad and deluded hypocrites.
And finally the 4th point; the body of Christ has an environment. The body of Christ is not to be a group of narcissistic inward looking Christians fighting with each other and excommunicating and excluding and sanctioning each other. We live in a very needy world and so we need to be outward looking: We need to bring good news to the poor. We need to release people from the prisons of addiction. We need to bring justice to the oppressed. We need to bring enlightened insights to the blindly ignorant. We need to bring health to all. We need to let people know that God's favor is toward them.
So we will continue our tradition of reading Scripture and interpreting the meaning of it for our own time. We will remind ourselves about what Jesus believed the Gospel to mean. We will practice the equal but differing ministry of the body of Christ, always honoring Jesus as our head. And finally, we are called outside of ourselves to the people in our world who really need to know good news for their lives. Amen.
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