“Eyes Fixed on Jesus”

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS

Jan. 17, 2016

Sermon Text: Luke 4:14-21

When I was first preparing to go to seminary, I had a friend say to me, “Seminary. What’s that like? Do you sing a lot of songs and wear robes all the time?”

Well, there was a little singing. No robe-wearing. As the president of our seminary told us at orientation, “Folks, this is graduate school. I hope you didn’t come here looking for some kind of advanced, grown-up Sunday School, because this ain’t it. I hope you came prepared to get a graduate education, ‘cause that’s what this is.”

Seminary wasn’t Sunday School, but I was asked to memorize scripture during my first semester of seminary. Dr. Theodore Walker taught my Introduction to Theology course. He had a compact presence that was intense. His voice was sonorous, as he taught us that theology is simply a fancy word that comes from the Greek: “theology is logos about theos,” he would say. Thinking and reasoning about God. Dr. Walker taught me that there’s lots of good theology to be found in novels, including The Color Purple, which was required reading for our class. And he introduced me to Black Liberation Theology and the works of Dr. James Cone, which articulated things I had long felt to be true but didn’t have the words to say.  

I don’t remember everything I learned from Dr. Walker, of course, but on a good day I can still recite the Bible verse he had us memorize: “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.”

Luke 4:18-19. The only passage of scripture I was ever asked to memorize in seminary.

Why did Dr. Walker ask us to memorize it? He believed it to be the one verse that summarized Jesus’s entire ministry. His mission statement. His walk-out song.

Last week, we read John’s take on the beginning of Jesus’s ministry – the transformation of water into wine at the wedding in Cana. This week, we see Jesus through the Gospel of Luke’s lens. Up to this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’s story has been fairly private: a birth that was only noticed by a few, a blessing from an old man who wished to see the Messiah before he died, a baptism by a relative at the Jordan, and a lonely trek into the wilderness. Today’s passage signifies the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry as an adult. He has begun to travel about, teaching in synagogues. And he heads home, to the small house of worship in Nazareth where he was raised. All grown up, he stands in front of the same people who likely watched him play in the dirt as a toddler and prepares to read from their holy text.

He carefully scrolls to the place he’s looking for and then begins to read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me….” He continues reading the words from Isaiah 61. And then he rolls up the scroll and sits down. I like to think of that as his mic drop moment.

The people there were scratching their heads a bit, “Who does this guy think he is? I thought he was just the carpenter’s son.”

Which makes me wonder, of course about that all-important question: who do we say Jesus is? And, beyond that, what does it mean to call ourselves Christian?

Back in December, I found myself in a conversation with a stranger who wandered into our building on a Saturday morning. She wanted to know why we were having an anti-racism training. We talked about that for a few minutes and then she wanted to know more about our denomination. I told her a bit and she asked if we were Christian. I said yes. She said, “So you believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins?” And I said, “Well, I’m guessing that some people in our church may believe that. Many others probably do not.”

She couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of Christians who don’t believe in sacrificial atonement, even though I told her there have always been Christians who have understood Jesus’s death in other ways. She left shaking her head.

Over the years, I’ve come to believe that being a Christian is less about what we believe and more about how we choose to live. Christianity is a religion of transformation – it’s about an experience of the holy that transforms us and enables us to live in new and fresh ways. It seems to be that all of us – no matter what we believe about the specifics of how Jesus’s life and death and resurrection played out – can find common ground because we are all trying to follow Jesus in some way or another. That’s why you’ll often hear to me refer to Christians as followers of The Way.

Now, I know that for many of you, this idea about following Jesus seems just fine. He’s a brilliant teacher and worthy to be followed. I’m about to use a word that may make some of you squirm in your seats a bit. I think we are called to do more than just follow Jesus. I think we are also called to be his disciples. What’s the difference? Well, I think of following as being a little more passive. Like, I can follow someone on Twitter, right? I’m just watching what they’re doing and saying. It’s interesting. They’re interesting. I’m following them.

But to be a disciple means to take an additional step and attempt to fashion my life after this person’s teachings. To allow my very self to be transformed into something new.

And since I’ve likely already made you uncomfortable (hey – it’s my job, you know) I’m going to take it just one step further. It seems to me that we are called to be Christ’s disciples AND it seems to me that Christ came to offer salvation. I don’t understand salvation to be a magical paying-with-his-blood kind of thing. And I’m not even saying salvation in a strictly what-happens-after-we-die kind of way, though I know that’s what most people think of when they think of salvation.

Marcus Borg writes about the different needs that we have as humans and how there is no one-size-fits-all answer for what ails us. We Christians have historically tried to offer “salvation” as some kind of blanket potion, but we’ve had a nasty habit of narrowing salvation to a specific vision of the afterlife. But throughout the Church’s history, there have always been those who see salvation as a multifaceted gift. Salvation is about what saves us, sure, but it doesn’t always look the same from person to person. I know that, in my own life, salvation has been different at different points, depending on what ailed me.

As Borg says, if you are held captive, salvation looks like freedom. If you are sick, salvation comes through healing. If you cannot see, salvation is the restoration of sight. And if you have nothing to eat and no place to rest your head, salvation looks like a warm meal and a safe place to sleep. If the drinking water in your town is poisoned and toxic, salvation looks like clean water and public officials being held accountable.

Jesus stood in the synagogue of his youth and said, “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.”

In other words: God has sent me to bring salvation. God has sent me to provide new life, new hope, new opportunities….even in the midst of great pain. Even when it seems there is no way out – God has sent me to make a way. I have come to save.

I want to tell a story about salvation. I don’t know if any of you watch Call the Midwife. I’m not a big TV person, but I am a super-birth-nerd so I got hooked out this show a year or so ago. It’s about a group of nurse-midwifes working in the East End of London in the 1950s and 60s. In this particular episode I’m thinking of, Sister Julienne, who is one of the nuns and main characters, is filling in as a sort of chaplain in a local women’s prison. While working there, Sister Julienne encounters a woman named Stella. Stella is very pregnant and is terrified that when she has the baby, her child will be taken away from her. She is about to be released from prison, but that is not a guarantee that she will be allowed to keep her child because the State would have deemed her unfit for mothering a child as a former-convict and single mother without a place to live or a job. Stella’s solution is to make up a fictional fiancé. She tells this lie, hoping they will allow her to keep her child until she can be released and then she will figure out some way to take care of herself and the baby.

But they discover that the fiancé is made up and there is a trial to determine whether Stella will be allowed to keep her child. All this time, Sister Julienne is visiting with Stella. She is often frustrated by her – especially because her dishonesty makes her difficult to work with. But Sister Julienne continues to care. Unbeknownst to Stella, Sister Julienne works behind the scenes, calling around to work her own network and is eventually able to find the mother and the baby a place to stay and suitable work.

As Stella waits for the verdict from the trial with her newborn baby, Sister Julienne rushes into the proceedings with the news that Stella has a job and a place to live upon her release. Given this new information, the authorities determine that she will be allowed to keep the baby.

Julienne goes with the warden into the jail cell where Stella is holding her baby. Stella recoils and clutches her child, saying, “You can’t have my baby!” Sister Julienne gently tells her that her baby will not be taken away. She tells her that she’s found her a job and a place to live that that the authorities will allow her to keep her child.

This is salvation.

This is what salvation looks like. It may not have anything to do with the afterlife. It may have to do with the here-and-now. Salvation is a salve – a healing balm, a cure for what ails us. If we are poor, it is the provision of basic needs. If we are held captive, it is a release from captivity. If we cannot see, it is a restoration of sight or understanding. If we are being oppressed, it is freedom.

Jesus stood up in the synagogue of his youth and proclaimed that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him…and that he had come to save.

The Good News for us today is quite simple: God isn’t finished saving the world just yet. The Good News proclaimed by Jesus all those centuries ago has not changed. As long as there are people who are sick, or poor, or trapped, or abused, or oppressed, or silenced, or addicted, or hurt Jesus will be working on the side of those who need salvation to bring it.

Some of us in this room – most of us, I’m guessing actually – are in need of some kind of salvation. And all of us who have accepted the mantle of being Christ’s disciples – or are at least warming to the idea – are called to be bearers of this Good News to the world around us.

When Jesus dropped the mic after reading the scroll from Isaiah, he wasn’t finished with his work. His work had just begun. And Christ is working, still, even here, even now to bring salvation to those who are in need.