January 24, 2016 - Third Sunday After Epiphany - RIC Sunday

Today's Music:

Let The Walls Fall Down

Where Justice Rolls Down

We All Are One in Mission 

Healer of Our Every Ill 

One Bread, One Body 

Let Us Go Now to the Banquet 

This Little Light of Mine” 

Pastor Michelle was sick so Pastor Jim Flachsbart presided this Sunday.

The two opening songs set a great tone for the service, RIC Sunday and our initial examination or future ministry. Let The Walls Fall Down there is the powerful line Strangers he has reconciled.  In Where Justice Rolls Down there was lyric Wade in the water and feel the strong current that brought to mind the great rendition of Wade in the Water done two weeks before.

Next was a liturgical Recoimmitment to Reconciliation.  Two lines made a deep impression.  First God's grace surrounds us, cleansing us from our sin, opening us to the words of scripture, feeding us with God's very presence and empowering us to proclaim good news; release, recovery and freedom! and the second line the powers of the world will continue to count your trespasses against you, telling you that you are far too flawed, too insignificant, too wounded to makes a difference.

Those aware of the church's Revised Lectionary at Creator (Pastor Michelle, Toni and others who support weekly ministry - hands down.  Any hands still up?  Let's talk!) all know that we follow a three year Lectionary cycle.  These years are imaginatively called A, B anc C.  The cycle determines what Lessons and Gospel passages are read.    

2015 is in Year C so the readings are the same as the last Year C, in 2013,  Yes, Sunday has the same progression of readings as three years ago, yet there is no comparison to the urgency and relevance the Word has taken on for me forf the past few Sundays.  I'm overwhelmed.

Today's Gospel of the Day is from Luke Chapter 4:14-21 (often summarized as Jesus Rejected In Nazareth.). Luke opens with Jesus reading Isaiah 61 1 2 in the Nazareth synagogue from a scroll.  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, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Then, rather than following the synagogue's expectations of providing traditional textual commentary (with all eyes are fastened upon him), Jesus simply starts by saying "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing".

In 2013 I heard Isaiah's proclamation as a future prophecy.  Jesus fulfilled his words on that day in Nazareth, being the incarnate son of God. Jesus acknowledged that unique authority and that "scripture fulfilled" was an end point.  Big and final win.  The others in the synagogue were angry because they did not recognize his divinity.  

Later Jesus dies on the cross, comes back, and ascends into heaven each event marking other historical end points in the past.  In the present we either wait for the overdue kingdom of God, work to bring it out about, or anticipate the afterlife where this kingdom comes to pass. 

This Sunday, however, I heard today loud and clear.  This Sunday this was not Jesus claiming superior authority to Isaiah's in my ears.  This scripture did not need Jesus God incarnate to be fulfilled.  Isaiah's words, read by Jesus, are challenging our best instincts and leave me, for one, as aghast as those in the Nazarene synagogue.  Because of that word today and knowing this is not about Jesus alone.

Is it just Jesus who is anointed to bring good news to the poor and to proclaim the release of captives?  Isn't this a scripture to stir our blood as Pastor Jim suggested.  That as Jesus is anointed so are we as one body in Christ?  Is now the time to proclaim the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor?  Wait.  Stop.  There is still social inequity, captives, blindness and oppression. Does the Lord really favor this year? This year?  Isn't everything worse than before?  Come on, what we all hope for hasn't happened yet, right?

Jesus continues to speak to the synagogue in verses 24 - 27.  His words confront how conditions are placed on spreading the good news and answers the questions above.  How should a good Christian respond?  Jesus, yes, I want to spread the gospel.  No problem but to spread it truthfully, well, let me get my list.  Yes, first all widows need to be fed, and all lepers need to be healed and, and, and, and when my checklist is complete I'll gladly proclaim the good news and see this as the year of the Lord's favor.  Spreading the good news should naturally wait until there is progress made.  Otherwise there is no good news.

Yet that response doesn't address the today in "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."  Well, surely then that can't be right.  Maybe a time limit was reached and now that scripture, once again, needs to be fulfilled?  How could Isaiah write this and Jesus declare the scripture is fulfilled when nothing addressed in this scripture has changed at all? 

Yet maybe today, this scripture is fulfilled in our hearing, in my.ears  Maybe this scripture was read and fulfilled today, January 24, 2016 just as it was read and fulfilled in 2013 and back and back to that Nazarene synagogue and further back to Isaiah.    Maybe the good news we have to spread is greater than we imagine. 

During communion One Bread, One Body musically picked up oin the Second Reading 1 Corinthains 12:12-31a.  The song was sung slowly and reverently, like a prayer. Next there was a very light and free rendition of Let Us Go Now, To The Banquet   

The service closed with a dynamic This Little Light of Mine. 

A very powerful service connected to the spirit through scripture.