Nehemiah 8:1-10
all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. 2Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month.3He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
4The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand.
5And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. 6Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
7Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places.
8So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
9And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 10Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Luke 4:14-21
14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
January 24, 2016
“The Rebel Alliance”
Rev. Jeremy Watson St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Portland, Oregon
Both of our Bible passages for today involve a recovery of a forgotten treasure, a foundational, guiding truth for a people. Nehemiah led the Israelites to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, as they returned from exile, and it was with great rejoicing that they read the Law of God, with great anticipation for recovering the ways of their people. Likewise, Jesus pointed his people back to the Prophet Isaiah, toward a recovery of the truth of how they should live, also with a promise to recover those ways. In both cases, good news is proclaimed by hearkening back.
There is a movie that came out recently, just before Christmas, that has a similar message and promise. It is a recovery of a forgotten treasure and a guiding hope, if you’ll indulge me a little bit. For me, it was a valuable dose of hope, or at least nostalgia. As I prepare to face the reality of my 40th birthday coming up, it was very helpful for me to return to my childhood with the excitement of a new Star Wars movie. I took Colby, our 11 year old, for his birthday, and it was not much of a sacrifice on my part. I loved the original 3 Star Wars movies as a kid, wore out the VHS tapes, and this one is the continuation of that original story. This movie allowed me and my entire generation, to forget that the prequel movies were ever made, and to go back to “Return of the Jedi,” and continue that story. If you haven’t seen the new movie yet, I won’t give away much. But you should have seen it by now, if you’re going to. I loved it. I’m not surprised that it’s broken every box office record. It captures the magic of the original Star Wars movies. It was everything that I hoped for, maybe even better than I expected. But there is one disappointment that I have.
The villain in the movie is not scary enough. In this movie, the main bad guy is named Kylo Ren. This is what he looks like, and he is scary-looking, and at the beginning of the movie, he is powerful, evil and intimidating. But he is no Darth Vader. It wasn’t very long into the movie that we realize that he doesn’t need that mask, but wants it to intimidate others. It’s really a display of his insecurity. He quickly comes across as weak and petulant. People challenge him, and he whines, he uses his light saber to slash away at computer screens and destroys a control room, and it looks like a child’s temper tantrum. And not too long after that, he gets overpowered and embarrassed by the heroine of the movie, before she even knows about her Jedi powers. And, again, he throws a tantrum at a computer screen as he storms away. As I thought about the movie in the days after seeing it, the one thing I kept thinking was, I wish Kylo Ren wasn’t such a weak villain. It’s kind of disappointing. He’s not a villain worth defeating. And surely enough, the mockery of Kylo Ren has become a thing.
This is what he looks like without the mask, always like he’s pouting about something. For those of you on Twitter, this is one of the funniest parody accounts there is. This is Emo Kylo Ren and he makes fun of the movie villain. The creator of this account mocks him as an emo teenager. And that doesn’t refer to Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Emo means he’s emotionally hardcore, dresses in black, gothic clothes, shops at Hot Topic, and ruminates endlessly about the darkness of his life. Here are a few of Emo Kylo Ren’s tweets.
Kylo Ren, the bad guy, is mockable, and that disappoints me. He’s made into a caricature of a petulant teenager. Darth Vader, on the other hand, was terrifying.
His own officers feared him. With that theme music and the breathing thing, no one mocked Darth Vader. If you did, he would choke you with his thoughts and an outstretched hand. For all 3 of the original movies, up until the very end, Darth Vader was scary. He had no weakness and it seemed like the Rebel Alliance had no chance against him. They were always in a crisis and victory seemed so unlikely, if not impossible. And that’s what made the story so great. And I think that’s why I wish that Kylo Ren was a better villain. It makes for a better story when there is a deeper crisis. Without the crisis, the resolution is less meaningful.
In today’s New Testament passage, Jesus walked into the synagogue of his local village, the place where he grew up, and he said something similar. Without the crisis, the resolution is less meaningful. Jesus didn’t use Star Wars to make his point, though I’m sure he would have if it had been available to him at that time. Jesus used the next best thing, the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1-2, as Jesus read it.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
This is the good news of Jesus. This is what he came to proclaim and to do, and he says that he is good news specifically for . . . the poor, for the captive, for the blind, and for the oppressed. Poor, captive, blind, oppressed. This is who Jesus directs his good news to. Am I poor, captive, blind, or oppressed? Will Jesus’ good news be more meaningful to me in the times when I do identify in one of those ways?
This is not an easy message to hear, for citizens of the United States, especially for those of us who are white, anglo-saxon, Protestant, or WASPs, as we are called. By simply living in the U.S., we know that we are not among the world’s poorest, at least materially. By being WASPs, we know that we are not among the world’s oppressed. By being in this sanctuary, we know that we are not captives. We are a free people living in a prosperous country. Are we blind? That’s one claim that we can make, if we want to speak metaphorically. That is one side effect of being a WASP is that we are often blind to much of the world, to the experience of many. Though I imagine that in this sense, Jesus and Isaiah aren’t speaking in metaphor. Jesus came to bring good news to those who are in need, to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable, as the saying goes. And this leaves me wondering if I am the afflicted or the comfortable. This leaves me wondering if this is good news for me.
Luckily, we don’t have to look very far in the life and ministry of Jesus to start getting some answers to these questions. It was not long before Jesus lived out his message of good news, and there are 2 things that he and his followers did that we should pay attention to.
The first is that they very quickly engaged with all sorts of people, across all sorts of societal boundaries. Outcasts, prostitutes, tax-collectors, demon-possessed, poor fishermen, zealots, women, men, Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans . . . Jesus and his followers quickly became a big tent of common humanity. To be in the company of Jesus means being with those who are poor, captive, blind, and oppressed. If we are not poor, captive, blind, or oppressed, we are surely in solidarity with some who are. That is what it is to follow Jesus. The way of Jesus, which became the church of Jesus, has always been about our common humanity. We are called to have more solidarity with all of our neighbors. And when we come into relationship with people, it is hard to avoid the difficult work for justice in our society.
This church family has made significant efforts in recent years to engage in Neighborhood Ministries. We have followed the call for to ensure that our mission commitments are not just about dollars being given to causes, but about our own hands and feet engaged in relationships between sisters and brothers. As we become family with those in Santa Clara, Cuba, we engage together in battles against poverty and oppression. As we become connected with those in our community through Neighborhood House or other organizations, we engage together in battles against poverty of all kinds. As we join together with our Muslim brothers and sisters, as we did last Saturday, we engage against the oppression in our country and community.
When we connect with communities of color, or at least listen to them and pay attention, we will quickly understand the problem of captivity in our country and community. As a nation, we house 25% of the world’s prisoners, despite having 5% of the world’s population. Only China comes close to us in holding people captive, and most of our prisoners come from communities of color, as you can see in this graph.[i]
The mass incarceration of people of color becomes hard to ignore when we listen and engage. Even if we lack racial diversity in this church and community, this still involves us. One only needs to revisit Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to get some insight into our place in this. That letter was written to white clergypersons and their churches. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” King wrote as he eloquently described the disastrous impact of white Christians standing on the sidelines and called us to join with our black brothers and sisters as a display of the Gospel.[ii]
When we connect with others, as we are called to, we become engaged in the need for the good news of Jesus. We become part of the Rebel Alliance, working against the brokenness of our world. So that’s the first thing. To be the people of Jesus means to be joined with the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed.
A second thing that Jesus and his followers did, that we should pay attention to, is that they shared a common purse. We know that Jesus and the 12 did this, because Judas was the keeper of the purse. And we know from Acts, Chapter 2, that the early church, led by the 12 initially, held everything in common. They sold all they had and sacrificed their individual freedoms for the sake of the community. Whatever resources they had were for the common good. That’s one side of that arrangement. But the flip side is just as important. Whatever struggles they had were shared in common. The Jesus community had to be vulnerable with each other. Struggles, challenges, complications, worries, and brokenness could not be kept from one another.
An authentic community requires us to be open about our own brokenness. The temptation to put on our best face always can’t work here. The tendency to have it all pulled together all the time can’t last for long in a family. Any assumption that we’ve got it all together here is false. There are needs here within this church family. The financial needs in this comfortable neighborhood are often hidden. Mental health concerns carry a similar stigma. But we are called to go beyond those stigmas or any sense of misguided shame. A Jesus community is called to share everything in common, our best and our worst, to be open about our own poverty, captivity, blindness, and oppression.
When Jesus walked into that synagogue and proclaimed the good news for the poor, captive, blind, and oppressed, he was calling for an authentic community. He was calling us to join together in a common struggle against the brokenness in our world. To have solidarity with the poor, blind, captive, and oppressed. Our villain, our “Darth Vader” is the brokenness that is out there, the power that is used to oppress the weak. And it is a worthy villain, that’s for sure. But it is also the brokenness that is inside of us, the brokenness that we are afraid to share with one another. We are joined with the Rebel Alliance against the brokenness of the world and the brokenness of ourselves. We are called by Jesus to embrace each other, to embrace the poor, to embrace the prisoner, to embrace the blind, to embrace the oppressed, we are called to embrace all.
That is what Jesus said in his hometown. As we think about and respond to these words in this coming week, tune in next week as Pastor Chris shares with us how Jesus’ hometown responded to his message.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Works Consulted:
Craddock, Fred Luke: A Commentary (Interpretation Series)
Lewis, Karoline A Commentary on Luke 4:14-21 http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1558
Harrisville, Roy A Commentary on Luke 4:14-21
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=502
Lose, David J. Jesus’ Inaugural Address
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1771
McClenney-Sadler, Madeline The African-American Commentary
http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupLectionaryReading.asp?LRID=12
Miles, Sara http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20100118JJ.shtml
Lose, David J. Epiphany 3 C : A Peculiar Power
Evans, Rachel Held Christians, MLK Day, and Historical Amnesia http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/mlk-liberty-trump-historical-amnesia
[i] http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html
[ii] http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/letter-birmingham-city-jail-0#
Upside Down World 