Justice, Isaiah and Jesus

The reading from Isaiah (ch.61) is quite unusual - because it's initial verses are well known not so much because of the words of Isaiah himself, but because they were the words quoted by Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth. There Jesus stood to read and quoted part of these verses, 'the Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour' (Luke 4:16-19) and then he proclaimed, 'today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'

That is how important the passage from Isaiah is - important enough that Jesus should quote part of it as he continues to outline his ministry.

And it is no surprise that Jesus quoted a radical message for his ministry, because however gentle we sometimes make it sound, it was radical. He came to challenge the corruption of authorities, political and religious, and he came to offer a message of hope and peace to all. He came to offer not judgment and condemnation but a bridge leading directly back into a closer relationship with him.

Just as Jesus' message was radical so was that offered by Isaiah... Someone once said the role of prophets was to speak truth to people in power who don't want to hear it. Isaiah's message was a message of justice - good news to the poor, binding up the broken hearted, freedom for the captives and release from darkness for prisoners...

Just as Isaiah and Jesus were concerned for justice, so must we as the church be. In the bible there are over 2000 verses relating to justice and poverty. All around we see victims of injustice. We see people abandoned in poverty, victims who are hurting every day, people who are massive underdogs in society.

At the beginning of the passage Isaiah writes of the year of jubilee - a long established principle where every 50 years slaves were freed, debts were cancelled and ancestral property was returned to the original family... Jesus extended this freedom by offering not just a freedom from earthly concerns, but liberation from sin and all it's consequences.

What was common in the teaching of Isaiah and the life of Jesus was that it was personal. On some occasions there seems little we can do for people other than pray or perhaps donate money and those things can be tremendously important, but there must always be a willingness to get more involved - to make things personal. Prayer and action often go hand in hand.

Ash Barker in a book called 'Making poverty personal' said, 'I am convinced that the tragedy in the church is not that rich folks don't care about poor folks, but that rich folks don't know poor folks.' It may be rather harsh but it does make us aware of a challenge to seek to reach more people and touch them personally.

In our New Testament reading (Luke 7:11-17) there is the powerful account of Jesus raising to life the widow's son at Nain. It is a story of justice - here an only son of a widow has died. Leaving aside the emotional turmoil of this, there were huge practical issues - her life without a son would become almost impossible. She had no means by herself of raising money. Her life might as well have been over. 

If this account had just been about miracles it would raise all kinds of questions about why Jesus chose to raise this man from the dead, and not someone else; but it was also about justice. The point was being made of the need to support a vulnerable woman, of the need to care for all who are downtrodden, for all those underdogs in society.

Injustice comes in many different forms - it is all too apparent in situations of hunger, or in countries where citizens live in desperate conditions while leaders live in luxury. But it can also occur much more locally as people struggle to survive , not perhaps as a result of malicious intent but because of an inability to know where to turn or who to turn to.

Offering a voice to the down trodden, hope for those who are struggling or ill or grieving, love to all, is something that involves a personal commitment. Sometimes prayer and money is enough, sometimes our time and ourselves are what we must give.

And this may not be comfortable - people like Martin Luther King offered a great example of becoming personally involved, of sacrificial giving. He said, as a challenge to his listeners, 'Cowardice asks the question is it safe. Expediency asks the question is it politic. Vanity asks the question is it popular. But conscience asks the question is it right. And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right'.

Perhaps I'm in danger of quoting too many people this evening, but I have a couple more to come - N T Wright, the former Bishop of Durham, said that 'everywhere St Paul went there was a riot - everywhere I go they serve tea !

The church must regain the radical involvement in transforming lives - the sort of involvement Jesus had, the sort of involvement that helped to end slavery and apartheid, that ended child labour and so many other things - the sort of involvement that today must involve challenging situations where people are deprived of basic rights and needs...

One quote to finish from John Wesley, 'do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.' Amen