Stained glass window, Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth, Israel. Photo by Stephen Crippen.
“The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.”
They watched. They waited.
Maybe they glanced furtively at one another.
What will he do? What will he say?
Maybe he looked at no one in particular. Or maybe his eyes found someone—a friend? An old neighbor, someone who knew his parents? Maybe he caught the eye of an old adversary, but they dropped their gaze, unable to withstand even a short glance from him.
If they had searched their own hearts, they would have known what they wanted him to say, or to not say.
Maybe they wanted him to tell them hard answers to deep questions: who are we? Why are we here, in this synagogue, together? What happens next? What must we do? These questions may have been most important to the people there who struggled, the people who were awake and alert, the people who perceived how precarious and fragile everything was, and how vulnerable they were. They would have wanted him to answer their questions.
But for every person who wanted to engage those questions, there was likely another who wanted anything but the answers to those questions. Some people in that long-ago synagogue (understandably enough!) may have wanted to keep their heads down. Even if it’s costly not to delve deeply with this intriguing son of a Nazareth family, it’s better, these people may have reasoned, if he just kept things simple.
But he probably won’t keep things simple. After all, he had just read a muscular passage of prophecy, about the oppressed being freed, the blind given sight, the poor receiving “good news.” The poor: yes, that meant the have-nots, the landless and the unhoused, the hand-to-mouth folk who had no money. But it also meant foreign-born residents in the town, and sick people, and so-called lepers (judged ritually unclean and therefore less-than, unworthy to enter the holy places). (Speaking of holy places, I invite you to wonder who is not here in this holy place, with us, this morning.) Isaiah’s prophecy, then, says a startling thing: the oppressed, the blind, and the poor will be lifted up, and placed in the center of human community.
Maybe some of the people in that room hoped that the prophecy foretold a faraway future, a time beyond their lifetimes when wondrous transformations will occur, but they didn’t have to be there for it, which is good because they were people of privilege, and so if Isaiah’s words were fulfilled, they stood to lose. They wouldn’t have wanted him to answer their questions.
And then, finally, from his seat in the assembly, he spoke. He spoke like the ancient scholars mentioned in the book of Nehemiah this morning, the ones who tell the people what the scripture means, the ones who give them its “sense.”
He said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Huh.
It’s like he rang a small bell, and the sound began quietly, and it sounded ordinary and unremarkable. But the sound of the bell did not dissipate. It grew stronger. It began to vibrate and pulse. It grew and grew, until it was almost deafening, and finally the meaning of what this odd person said began to throb in their ears, and seemed to threaten to crack the pillars holding up the building.
Today, he said. Not in a future Neverland beyond time, but today. Whatever God is doing, it is happening this morning. Reversals of fortune are happening today: the hungry are filled with good things, and the rich are sent away empty. Those in bondage are broken out and freed, which means their jailers are being foiled—today. The blind receive their sight today. He means literal blindness: any physical disability at that time meant that you were an outsider, and so if God stops it from meaning that, then real, literal benefits are coming to victims of ableism—today. But blindness also represents unconsciousness, lack of insight, a disempowering ignorance of something. And today, insight is given to those who did not have it before, and that makes them dangerous. People who are awake do powerful things, like vote, and organize others to vote, and confront economic systems (systems you and I benefit from) and overthrow them. And all of this is happening today.
And “today” is just the first word of his enigmatic statement, this ringing of the bell!
Next: “This scripture has been fulfilled.” A quick grammar lesson: this phrase is spoken in the present perfect tense, which means this: the action that he speaks of began to happen in the past, and is still in progress today. If I say, “After I had run a few miles yesterday morning, I ate lunch,” that’s in the past perfect tense: none of it is happening now; it’s all done; in fact it was all done before yesterday’s lunch. But he is talking about something God began back then, and is still doing now. The poor, the oppressed, the blind, mentioned in scripture as God’s beloved: their liberation was in progress then, and still is now, whether we like it or not. Scripture is fulfilled across time, and we are caught up in that.
And then he says the little prepositional phrase, “in your hearing.” So, he is here, in this room. We Christians believe that whenever we gather in God’s Name, and whenever we open that Book, and whenever we break the Bread, Christ is here. When he speaks, we can hear him. That’s why, when I announce that I’m about to proclaim the Gospel, you don’t reply to me, you pray to Christ: “Glory to you, Lord Christ; praise to you, Lord Christ,” you say, talking past me—for I’m just opening the Book, that’s all—and you’re addressing the One who has just entered the room, Jesus Christ himself. He is here. This is at once wonderful and discomfiting, for he is just as odd and intriguing as he was long ago in that synagogue. He is just as likely to say something provocative, even something upsetting.
He says to us, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
And so we hear that Christ is not here to fluff our pillows, to turn to us and say, “Good job, all is well.” He is here to confront us. If I benefit from injustice and oppression, then the risen Christ has hard news for me. I am a sighted, hearing, ambulatory, neurotypical, wealthy, educated, English-speaking white cisgender male: yes, I’m one of the people getting hard news, today, in earshot of Jesus Christ. I have a lot to lose. I have a lot to lose because I live in a world that puts me on top, and that is wicked in God’s sight. It damages other people. And so today, the scripture is being fulfilled, and I am being cast down.
But there is glad, Good News for people like me, for the oppressors: this system damages me too. White supremacy and patriarchy damage the human spirits of oppressors and the oppressed alike. And when I walk rudely and destructively on the earth, I damage watersheds and forests and skies, but I damage my own humanity, too. That’s why, after the Risen One appears to the holy women, the news of Resurrection is then immediately announced to the oppressors! It is announced to the friends who betrayed him, to the authorities who handed him over, to Saul who applauded the persecution of the first Christians. The news of the Resurrection is rough for the oppressors! But it is surely Good News. The oppressors get their humanity restored.
The sound of the bell swells so mightily that it blows up the whole system; it shatters the concrete pillars holding up worldly injustice; and it throws oppression and ignorance and violence under the collapsing building. And all of this is continuing to happen today, in this room, where, surrounded by Font, Book, Table, and each other, we encounter Christ himself.
What do you suppose he will say next?
***
Preached on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Year C), January 23, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21