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
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