There’s nothing like the feeling of home. Recently, I was actually able to share my new house with my family from Raleigh, and really, it’s the people who make it feel like home. That is, unless you get into an argument.
Now, my family loves to argue, not fight, argue. Which can be a bit of an adjustment for anyone trying to spend time with us. Most of the time we keep things civil, and even when things get out of hand we always forgive each other. We’ve also learned to stay away from some topics, at least during holidays.
In Luke 4, Jesus returns home for his first big sermon in his hometown synagogue, and things turn into a fight pretty quickly. One has to assume, Jesus knew what he was getting into.
News has spread across the country about his preaching and healing, and when we pick up the story in verse 16 he his leading worship in his hometown. He is handed a scrolls and the passage says:
“The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.””
Luke 4:17-21 ESV
I love the power behind this text, and I love the familiarity of a weekly worship service in which Jesus seems to be situated. At first, I tend to read my own Sunday morning church experience into the ancient Jewish synagogue setting. The people are gathered together in their customary fashion in the local place of worship, and this is a bit of a special service because Jesus has come home to preach.
However, Jesus is reading from a scroll, not a book as we do today. A book makes it quite easy to flip through pages and find a certain passage. It takes seconds to find chapter and verse compared to an ancient scroll. It is much easier to read a scroll in order, which is typically how scrolls are read in Ancient worship.
In fact, in modern Jewish worship the Torah is only read in order throughout the Jewish calendar year. The cantor or rabbi opens the Torah a little bit at a time sliding the parchment from one post to the other. These posts are called the eitz chaim or “trees of life.”
Now, The Scroll of Isaiah is not the Torah, but for him to have found a particular passage he would have to unravel yards and yards of parchment, and it would be quite cumbersome and unceremonious to do during worship.
Yet, it seems this is what Jesus does. He shows up like a big shot in his hometown and disrupts worship to read a well known messianic passage in front of people who have known him all his life. In no uncertain terms he tells them he is the messiah, the anointed one, for that is what messiah means.
Moreover, he shatters their idea of what the messiah should be because he doesn’t finish reading the passage in Isaiah! He stops mid-sentence deliberately subverting their expectations. Isaiah 61:2-3a reads:
…to proclaim the year of the Lord ‘s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
Isaiah 61:2 ESV
According to the hometown audience, Jesus forgot the best part of the passage. Isaiah 61 goes on to talk about comforting Israel and rebuilding after the exile. But Jesus stops short of this and does not mention “the day of vengeance.” The “Year of the Lord’s Favor” is not just favoring the Jews.
Rather, Jesus is sent by God to minister to the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed. God’s favor extends to the marginalized not necessarily those who customarily go to worship each week.
Jesus’s ‘sermon’ in Luke reinforces this point, and his hometown is so enraged that they try to kill him.
This passage is easily one of my favorites and one of the most difficult for us regular worshipers to cope with. Most days, I believe I’m entitled to the Lord’s favor, and, to be honest, these days I really do feel favored.
The issues arise when we forget that God’s favor should be good news to those on the fringes of society. It should be good news to those who are poor and oppressed. And, it should be good news to those who may not be sitting in church on Sunday. Who might not be in our group.
I pray that my selfishness would not hinder the proclamation of the Messiah’s gospel to reach the captive, oppressed, and broken in order to bring them into the light.
Kena Hawkins Newkirk 