The synagogue was packed. The rabbis and
regular teachers hadn’t seen that many people in the synagogue, except maybe at
Passover. There wasn’t enough room – and
the hospitality committee was suddenly thinking how on earth were they going to
find enough refreshments following the service, and could some of them run home
and grab some more bread and fruit.
One of the itinerant teachers in
Galilee, one of their own in fact, was coming to teach. He’d been teaching
around in the other synagogues, and the stories about the incredible way he
could open up and explain the texts had spread all over the region. People were
flocking to hear him. Everyone marvelled at his knowledge and gifts – so of
course, since he was one of theirs, home grown in Nazareth, everyone had to
come out to see and hear. Even the youth, who had been trying to avoid going to
synagogue as much as possible. Nothing inspiring about the regular rabbis, they
were looking for some energy, something to get their teeth into in their spiritual
question.
As Jesus entered, the muttering and
background conversations stopped, and a hush descended over the whole of the
sanctuary. All eyes turned to him – Jesus, a child of Nazareth, son of Joseph
and Mary, brother to James, John, and several sisters. One of the attendants
had been appointed to hand Jesus the scroll of the prophet Isaiah for the
morning reading.
When it was time, Jesus stood up, and
with an incredible sense of timing, slowly unrolled the scroll, and found the
words he was looking for –"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because I
have been anointed to bring good news to the poor; 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, the Jubilee Year."
He rolled up the
scroll, everyone’s eyes still glued on him – not a sound or a breath – not a
movement from the congregation. Then he said “This has been fulfilled today in
your hearing.” He sat down.
I am continually asked how I discerned a
call to ministry, and the story almost always sounds like an anticlimax, and
always a little self-serving. I was working for the Canadian Council of
Churches in the Justice and Peace section, and when I applied for the executive
position, was told I didn’t qualify because I didn’t have a Master of Divinity.
I pointed out that the job posting didn’t mention MDiv as a requirement. The
answer was that had been in error. A couple of months later I was griping to a
ministry friend at the national office that I couldn’t get that position
because I didn’t have an MDiv, he responded “So why don’t you go get one? You
do have a call to ministry.” Huh???? Me, the person who grew up in a minister’s
home and swore she’d never be a minister. Right – except – when I started
discernment and started to look back, all the work I had done from the time I
went to Japan as a missionary – was ministry. It wasn’t called that, but every
single thing had something to do with people, and every single thing added a
piece to a picture. I was old by most
standards, already 49, but by the time I
arrived in my first pastoral charge, I knew it was the right thing to do at the
right time.
The problem is, people often think a
call to ministry is something like Paul’s sudden spiritual experience on the
road to Damascus. It isn’t. It’s rarely like that. Look at how Jesus got to
this moment when he recognised his call, and made a public statement in front
of his home congregation. He had effectively disappeared from Nazareth and Galilee,
not returning till he was 30. If you look back in Luke’s text – in chapter 3,
Jesus is baptised by John, and then Luke gives a complete tracing of Joseph’s
geneaology. The beginning of Luke 4, the passage right before today’s, Jesus is
full of the Holy Spirit and - in that
text – is led by the Spirit into the desert and tempted. It’s a period of
discernment, of call, of his commitment to following the way of the God he
believes in even when fame and fortune are a possibility. He comes out of this
period of retreat and discernment, and starts teaching in the synagogues around
Galilee.
When we first read today’s text, it
sounds very simple. Jesus went to the synagogue and read from a scroll. It was
the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, and he unrolled it and found the words he
wanted. But wait – was it all accidental, or did he know? Jesus was preaching
all over Galilee, and came to his home town. He comes home to Nazareth after
being away for a long time, and goes up to the synagogue, with his whole
family, probably beaming because their eldest has returned – and when he
arrives, an attendant hands him the scroll of Isaiah. He opens the scroll and
finds the place of those exact words. The book of the Prophet Isaiah has 66
chapters – so it had to be either an enormous scroll, or Isaiah was broken down
into smaller scrolls. Even so, that’s a heck of a lot of text.
It has to be, I think, that he knew in advance
that he would be there and reading; they knew in advance that he was coming.
The local boy, turned itinerant preacher, was in his hometown and scheduled to
read from the scroll. He stands up to read, and goes right to the text which
speaks to a call.
Prophets and prophecy in the Hebrew
Scriptures are not predictions of the future they are designed to speak to the
people of the time in which the prophecies are given. So if we turn to Isaiah
and read that passage we hear two voices – God speaking to Isaiah and Isaiah’s
voice saying “I have been anointed to do this….” And included in this is God’s
year of Jubilee – when all prisoners are released, all debts forgiven, the
slate wiped clean and everyone gets to start over again. God’s word to Isaiah
was that Isaiah had been anointed to bring the word and do those things.
And then almost a thousand years later,
along comes Jesus, opens the scroll and reads as a prophet speaking to his own
time, and I believe speaking both of his ministry and the direction it would
take – his mission. Jesus has nothing except the Holy Spirit, nor did the early
church. The Rev Joan Gray, Moderator of the 217th General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church USA has commented, “When you really think about it,
this ‘dunamis’ of the Spirit is the only thinkg the early church had going for
it. It had no buildings, no budget, no paid staff, and very few members. “Dunamis”,
a Greek word meaning strength, power or ability. It is the root of our word ‘dynamic’.
So in this text Luke is telling us how Jesus recognised his call to ministry.
He was baptised in the Jordan, by water and the Spirit; his calling and
commitment were tested in the wilderness, and he found the power for an urgent
ministry of grace. Note – he had no church building, no budget – nothing but
his commitment to his new ministry, his mission.
Come, open the scroll and read the words: “The
Spirit of God
is on me because God anointed me to
preach good news to the poor, heal
the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners, to
announce the year of God’s Jubilee.” Because we are loved by God, gifted by
God, blessed by God for ministry. All of us. May it be so.
Sources:
“It’s All About Mission” by Rev. David Shearman, North Derby-Kilsyth Pastoral
Charge.
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