To what may be compare the story of Jesus in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth? And how may we describe it? It is like a woman who came to a bank in a small town in the South. She was a marketing director well-known and admired by everyone in the area.
The woman went to make a presentation to the bank about marketing strategy for the coming year. When her turn came to speak she stood before the board of directors and said, "We have a good bank which offers many wonderful services. We have knowledgeable and courteous employees. We offer generous loans and our working capital is great.
"I suggest that we tell the good news about our bank and that we target the poor. Let's go to them and tell them what we can do for them. Let's offer our services to the disabled. Let's make a special effort to reach the disadvantaged and populations who don’t often use our services - minorities, like Haitians and Hispanics. Let's see how we can reach out to prisoners and set them free. Let's forgive the debts of those who are in serious financial trouble. That's how we can tell the good news about our bank."
The board of directors smiled goodnaturedly at the young woman. Then they realized that she was serious. And they grumbled against her murmuring to one another. "Target the poor? What money do they have to invest? Try to reach Haitians and Hispanics? That sounds like a quota system to me! Help prisoners get free? What kind of nonsense is that? And forgive debts on bad loans? How does she think we survive?"
So the board of directors threw the woman out of the office and told her never to return. And she took her message to other towns.
Maybe a parable is the only way to approach how scandalous a message we have in today's gospel reading. Jesus' confrontation with the people in his hometown is a story of how the people who had known Jesus from childhood suddenly came face to face with the realization that the kingdom he talked about in his teaching was totally opposed to their understanding of what God's reign would be like. When they realized Jesus wanted to challenge their world instead of affirming it, the tide turned and they were ready to throw Jesus headlong off of a cliff. But Jesus miraculously escaped injury and walked away, leaving his hometown.
That's the end of the story. The part we all know. But the story didn't begin this way. In fact there is no hostility towards Jesus in the beginning of the passage. Jesus has been baptized by John and has gone into the wilderness where he is tempted by the devil. When he returns he is ready to begin his public ministry.
The Spirit gives him power as he goes throughout the region of Galilee, teaching each Sabbath day in the synagogues of the area and developing a loyal following. The people seemed to love him and they responded to his word. But Jesus had one place yet to go in this early stage of the journey - he had to go home. And so he returned and went to the synagogue on the Sabbath.
He must have been well-thought of, because he was given the honor of reading from the scriptures. They handed him a scroll of the book of Isaiah and he unrolled it to a series of verses that were to tell exactly what his ministry would be.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," Jesus read. Isaiah was talking about himself, but it was also true of Jesus. We know this because Luke tells us that the Spirit was upon him. Jesus goes on to talk about an upside-down world where the poor and imprisoned would have a preferential spot. And as Jesus read the words all eyes were focused on him. Right up until the point at which he said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” In him. In Christ. The scripture found its proper context.
Isaiah the prophet was probably talking about the biblical tradition of Jubilee when he was talking to God’s people after their return from exile. Leviticus talks about Jubilee as the time when, after seven times seven years all debts would be wiped out, all land would be restored to the original owners and Israelites who had fallen into slavery would be set free.
We hear this talk and we think – this can’t have happened. What society could survive like this? How could you build an economy knowing that every 49 years all debts would be forgiven? If the Jubilee was coming up, wouldn’t everyone just stop lending money? Wouldn’t everyone stop buying property? Everything would just come to a standstill.
Scholars do wonder if Israel ever actually practiced the Jubilee, but it’s clear that the people of Israel never forgot the Jubilee as an image for how God’s reign should work. When God’s in control, there is some kind of security for those who have none. When God’s in control, there is land for those who have no home. When God’s in control, there is freedom for those who have been held in bondage. And one day, God will restore that reign of peace. One day, the Jubilee will come. One day, God’s people will see where true worth lies. And when Jesus reads from the scroll he says that One Day has come. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Of course it was hard for the people in the synagogue to hear. It would be hard for any of us to hear. Just who did this guy think he was? How was it being fulfilled? Was he going to see the prisoner free and give sight to the blind? Was he going to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor?
Why, yes. Yes, he was. And all of his actions from this point on were a way of giving hope and flesh to the words that he read. Suddenly the words on the scroll were no longer the story of an ancient community – they were God’s living Word walking among us.
The artist and writer Jan Richardson tells the story on her blog this week of Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson – twin sisters from Scotland who lived in the 19th century. At a time when it was rare for women to do such things, they became well-respected scholars and translators. In 1892 Agnes and Margaret took a trip to Egypt to the Sinai Peninsula to visit the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery, where some of the oldest books of the Christian faith were found.
They dug through the old volumes and found that some of the books were very hard to read. In fact, one thick book had pages that were all stuck together so that they had not been turned or read in centuries. It’s hard to imagine any archivist allowing them to do such a thing today, but they were trying to turn pages on this book by manipulating them with their fingers and even by trying to steam them open, which they eventually did.
It turns out the book was a palimpsest, a manuscript that was written on top of an earlier manuscript. It was a common practice in times when paper, or vellum in this case, was very hard to come by. So this book, on the one hand, had the stories of the lives of women saints – Eugenia, Euphemia, Barbara, Drusis – who were respected in Eastern Christianity for the way they had given up safe and secure lives to take radical steps in following Jesus. They went to the desert to live in Christian community and to seek God’s new day.
That was one manuscript, but underneath these words about the women saints was a very old text of the gospel in Syriac. In fact, at the time it was the oldest known version of the four gospels in that language, dating back to the third century. An incredible find.
Richardson says she was captivated by that imagery. “The pages of the manuscript, with their layers of text, make visible what happened in the lives of these women of the early church. By their devotion, by their dedication to preserving and proclaiming the gospel message, the desert mothers became living palimpsests, the story of Christ shimmering through the sacred text of their own lives, the Word of God fulfilled in them.”[i]
Isn’t that what all Christians do when they place themselves in service to the Word of God? When we seek that word which is good news to the world – especially to the poor, the hurting, the broken, the imprisoned – when we say, “This news is not just good news for the people back then; it is good news for you today.” When we work to send shelters to Haiti or health kits. When we say yes to a calling and put ourselves where we would not be if we didn’t believe the gospel was true. When we are agents of God’s One Day, aren’t we saying, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”?
Maybe you learned a new word today. I bet you never thought of yourself as a palimpsest. But if the word of the gospel shows through in what you do and what you proclaim, that’s what you are. And the world will know that Christ is here. Thanks be to God.
Luke 4:14-21 [RSV]
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and a report concerning him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has annointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
And he closed the book, 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."
[i] Jan Richardson, “Epiphany 3: Fulfilled in Your Hearing,” The Painted Prayerbook, 19 January 2010, http://paintedprayerbook.com/2010/01/19/epiphany-3-fulfilled-in-your-hearing/.
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