Luke 4: 14-21

SURPRISE!

A man was just stepping out of the shower one evening when his wife phoned and asked him to run downstairs and turn off the iron she had accidentally left on.

Without bothering to grab a towel or robe, the man headed downstairs. Just as he reached the bottom stair, the lights came on and a dozen friends and colleagues jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!” His wife had planned a surprise party for the man’s 40th birthday.

Obviously, not all surprises are good ones, at least at first glance. Jesus had an uncanny ability to take people by surprise--and they weren’t always pleased about it.

Take, for instance, the surprise Jesus sprung on the Nazarene congregation in our Bible passage for today. Jesus had returned to his hometown in Nazareth. That Sabbath day, he went to the synagogue, as any observant Jew would.

The synagogues of Jesus’ day didn’t usually have paid or appointed preachers and teachers. Any adult male might be called upon to preach or teach on any particular Sabbath.

Can you imagine if we ran our churches that way? If any adult could be called upon at any time to preach or teach on the Scriptures each Sunday?

My guess is that one of two things would happen if we followed that practice here at Santa Teresa Hills: either there would be an explosion of Bible study classes, or we would have a stampede of members leaving our church.

But I’m wandering from the point. Jesus was handed a scroll from the book of Isaiah and was asked to preach on it. He didn’t have to flip around for a while to find what he wanted. He went straight to Isaiah 61, a Messianic passage of great importance to the Hebrew people, and read these words:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

And then, when Jesus was sure he had everyone’s attention, he closed the scroll, sat down, and announced very simply, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

SURPRISE! I guaranty you no one in the synagogue that day expected Jesus to end with THAT! You see, the prophet Isaiah had been inspired to write those words more than 700 years earlier.

For seven centuries, preachers and teachers of the holy word had preached on a coming Messiah who would turn the world’s systems upside-down. He would lift up the hurting, the oppressed, the blind.

The Hebrew people knew only too well what it was to suffer, to be held captive. They had waited hundreds of years for the fulfillment of this prophecy, and were prepared to wait hundreds more if necessary.

And now a poor, no-name carpenter, their neighbor, claims to be that Messiah who would “proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

How would you react if you were in their shoes? If one of your neighbors, a good man, a caring man, even a highly spiritual man, claimed to be the second coming of Jesus?

Well, they didn’t react well either.  As a matter of fact, those present actually try and kill Jesus, as we will find out next week.  But that day Jesus had a message and it was short and it was sweet.

In the book, Holy Sweat, by Tim Hansel, he tells of a guest preacher in a rather large church who began, “There are three points to my sermon.” 

Most people yawned at the point. They’d heard that many times before. There were always three points to most sermons.

But he went on. “My first point is this. At this time there are approximately two billion people starving to death in the world.”

The reaction through the congregation was about the same, since they’d heard that kind of statement many times before, too.

And then he said, “My second point…”

Everybody sat up. Only 10 or 15 seconds had passed, and he was already on his second point?

He paused, then said, “My second point is that most of you don’t give a damn!”

He paused again as gasps and rumblings flowed across the congregation, and then said: “And my third point is that the real tragedy among Christians today is that many of you are now more concerned that I said ‘damn’ than you are that I said two billion people are starving to death.” Then he sat down.

The whole sermon took less than a minute, but it is in many ways one of the most powerful ones they had ever heard. He was reminding us we are called not to mere piety but to genuine morality. We are called to action, not to fancy words.

Jesus also preached a short sermon. In it, he clearly denotes the kind of ministry he came to pursue. It is to be a ministry to the poor and outcast, the blind and the imprisoned.

At this point I’ll bet a number of you have already checked out, right?  I can hear you thinking,

“Tom, we know you have a heart for social justice. And we know that Jesus wants us to minister to the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, and the oppressed. I’ve heard it all before. I don’t need to hear it again. Maybe I’ll take a short nap!”

Well, SURPRISE – no social justice sermon this morning.  This morning, I would like to look at our text in a little different light.  Yes, Jesus calls us to minister to the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, and the oppressed. But we need to realize that often we are they.

Let me explain.  Could it be that when Jesus speaks of the poor he actually is including you and me? 

MAYBE WE ARE POORER THAN WE THINK. There was a beautiful article about Mother Teresa in TIME magazine some time back. She was asked about the materialism of the West. She said,

“The more you have, the more you are occupied. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is a joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. This is the only fan in the whole house...and it is for the guests. But we are happy.

And here’s her point, “I find the rich poorer. Sometimes they are more lonely inside...The hunger for love is much more difficult to fill than the hunger for bread...The real poor know what is joy.”

When asked about her plans for the future, she replied, “I just take one day at a time. Yesterday is already gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today to love Jesus.” We are indeed poor compared to those like Mother Teresa.

A lay leader of a large suburban church stood to give her testimony. “My husband and I had it all,” she said, “all the good things that our society values. Good jobs, a nice home, vacations in the Bahamas. I now realize, though, how shallow and inadequate our faith was.

“I can remember when I picked out a church for us because it had beautiful chandeliers. Then it happened. Both of us lost our jobs. For over a year we struggled. It was during this time that we both came to know the goodness of God.”

Did you catch that? In the midst of their struggle they discovered the goodness of God. Surely, God’s hand was more apparent during the times of plenty. But, that’s not how it works, is it?

That is why Jesus warned us of the dangers of wealth. Wealth deludes us into thinking that our strength is sufficient. And it’s not.  We are all poor!

WE ARE ALSO MORE IMPRISONED THAN WE THINK. Some of us, have been living for years in prison cells of our own making. We are bound by addictions, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, fear, guilt, misconceptions about God.

We get this blank expression when the preacher talks about joy, or stepping out in faith, or living the abundant life. We’re just lucky to make it through the day without collapsing from the weight of our chains. But, trust me, we weren’t made to live that way.

AND AREN’T WE ALL BLIND AT TIMES AS WELL?  Jesus asked his disciples, “Having eyes, do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” (Mark 8:18)

The rich man did not see Lazarus at his gate. The Pharisees did not see that their attention to keeping the Law was separating them from the rest of God’s children. Even Jesus’ disciples did not see that the kingdom was not about power but about service.

And there are many of us who do not see. Husbands and wives who do not see the needs of their spouses, parents who do not see the loneliness of their children, successful people who do not see that their success has been won at the cost of their values. Blind people everyone.

CERTAINLY, WE ARE OPPRESSED. Anyone who’s ever struggled with a habit that resisted breaking, anyone who has left good resolutions unkept, anyone who’s been cruel when they would have been kind, lazy when they would have been industrious, short-tempered when they should have been patient, knows the oppressive power of sin and temptation.

Folks, we are all poor, imprisoned, blind and oppressed. And the remedy for these afflictions is to accept the love and compassion that Jesus offers us.  That’s why Jesus came. To save you and to save me – from ourselves.  And not only did he come for us – he promises to stay with us.

Let me tell you about a baccalaureate speech that was addressed to Harvard’s Senior Class. On the morning of their graduation, seniors gathered in Memorial Church to hear the minister offer words of solace and encouragement as they leave “the Yard” to take their places in the world.

The 1998 senior class heard the unvarnished truth from the Rev. Peter Gomes, a minister at Harvard and the author of several books on the Bible.

Rev. Gomes took no prisoners that day. He began: “You are going to be sent out of here for good, and most of you aren’t ready to go. The president is about to bid you into the fellowship of educated men and women and, (and here he paused and spoke each word slowly for emphasis) you know just - how - dumb - you - really - are.”

The senior class cheered in agreement.

“And worse than that,” Rev. Gomes continued, “the world - and your parents in particular - are going to expect that you will be among the brightest and best.

“But you know that you can no longer fool all the people even some of the time. By noon today, you will be out of here. By tomorrow you will be history. By Saturday, you will be toast. That’s a fact - no exceptions, no extensions.”

“Nevertheless, there is reason to hope,” Rev. Gomes promised. “The future is God’s gift to you. God will not let you stumble or fall. God has not brought you this far to this place to ABANDON you or leave you here alone and afraid.

“The God of Israel never stumbles, never sleeps, never goes on sabbatical. Thus, my beloved and bewildered young friends, do not be afraid.”

Did you hear that? We don’t have to be afraid.  Listen again to the words of Jesus:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Folks, he is talking to us.  We are, in a very real sense, the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed.

And thank God, that we don’t have to face those demons alone.  Jesus is with us.  Loving us, leading us, comforting us, and challenging us.

May we have ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts to truly understand.

Amen!