Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri
Morning Worship · January 21, 2007
Third Sunday After Epiphany
Gracious and Loving God, you come to us in the midst of our lives. Help us to see you daily in new ways and new light. Give us the strength to fulfill the mighty deeds and transformation you call us to do. Through Christ, we pray together. Amen.
Scripture
Luke 4:14-21
Then Jesus, led with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and reports about him spread through all of the surrounding country. He began to teach in the synagogues and was praised by everyone.
And 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, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written:
“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.”
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, and he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Images of Jesus
Jacob Thorne
I want to begin today by asking you to think about the first time you saw an image of Jesus. Take a moment and think to yourself: “What is the first picture of Jesus I remember?”
When I do this, my mind returns to the corner of the fellowship hall at First Christian Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. I remember the large, antiquated painting of Jesus. His face had an almost calm, serene look to it. In one arm he held a shepherd’s staff. Such images, I think, are comforting.
Even as a young child, I knew this painting of Jesus meant that I could turn to Jesus when I was trouble, or afraid, or facing some big decision in life. I knew, from the teachings of my Sunday School teachers, this painting demonstrated Jesus had died for my sins, and that I was going to heaven if I believed in God. I knew from this painting that Jesus was to be viewed as an individual dedicated to living a life of spirituality and tranquility – a life that was focused on God, helping others attain peace. Looking back, I now realize how important these early images of Jesus are that we see as a young child. There is a strong connection between images of Jesus and images of Christian life. There is a strong connection between how we think of Jesus and how we think of Christian life.
But what would our first image of Jesus be like if we actually saw Jesus in person more than 2,000 years ago? Would our images and perceptions of Jesus still be the same? Let’s think about this for a moment.
We know that Jesus was Jewish. We know the Jewish people had been under foreign occupation and rule for centuries. They had faced, since 586 B.C., the rule and dictatorship of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The Jewish people had to have felt oppressed. Scripture and history tells us the Jewish people had a desire to be free, to live in their own land, to have lives that weren’t dominated by foreigners. Perhaps, most strongly, the Jewish people objected to the fact they were being ruled by individuals who believed in pagan gods, or who, at times, such as the divine Augustus Caesar, believed that they, themselves, were god. I’m confident the Jewish people asked one another, “What can we do? What hope is there for us?”
Out of such questions as this, four main groups arose. One group was known as the Zealots. They believed the Jews needed to rise up and rebel. Another group, the Herodians, believed the best action was not to rebel but to be quiet and cooperate. A third group, the Essenes, believed the only way to live a faithful life was to leave the life of corruption and move to the desert. A fourth group, the Pharisees, thought God would deliver a messiah if the Jews would just obey the teachings of God more rigorously and become pure. These four parties, much like today, vied for political power. It’s against this backdrop Jesus emerges and first begins preaching.
Imagine, if you can, a crowded and busy street. Along the street, which, by the way, is narrow enough that only a donkey and a cart can move through, you see a young man, whom you will later learn is Jesus talking to a crowd. You work your way through the people, trying to hear what’s taking place. Somebody asks, “What’s your plan? What’s your message?”
This man, in his early thirties, says, “Change your way of thinking. The kingdom of God is available to all. Believe the good news. The kingdom of God is available to all.”
Now these sayings would likely take you by total surprise. What is he talking about? The kingdom belongs to Caesar. The kingdom doesn’t belong to God. But when you look at it this way, you miss the point.
Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is here now and available to all.” Jesus speaks for a few more minutes, and then a Roman soldier tells him to move on and waves at him with his spear. You think to yourself, “Well, maybe he’s a Zealot. It takes a lot of courage to stand up on the streets in public. That’s what the Zealots are about.”
A few days later, though, you see another crowd gathered around this man. You leave what you are doing and rush out to meet him. You want to hear more of what he has to say. Then you hear these words, “Do you want to know who will be blessed? Not the powerful ones with lots of money and weapons. No. The poor will be blessed. Not the ones who can shout the loudest and get their way. No. The meek will be blessed. Not the ones who kill their enemies. No. The ones who are persecuted for what is right. Not those who play it safe, but those who stand up for the sake of justice. Not those who make war. No. Those who make peace.”
By now you are really intrigued. You think to yourself, “Well, some of what he is saying does sound a lot like the Zealots. But that can’t be. They’re all about power. He probably isn’t an Essene, because they wouldn’t bother preaching to the public. He’s probably not an Herodian, because they would say to keep quiet and obey the rules.”
You want to hear more, but then that same Roman soldier that appeared the other day disperses the crowd once again.
The following day, you hear him once again on the street corner. He says, “You must be more just and good than the Pharisees are. They just wash the outside of the cup. They don’t deal with the inside. The Pharisees won’t enter the kingdom of God. If you want to enter the Kingdom of God, you must surpass the Pharisees in your pursuit of goodness. Even the prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God before the Pharisees.” By now you may be shocked. You don’t understand. How could anyone be better than the Pharisees? They follow the rules exactly.
Then a few nights later, you see Jesus at a party. Attending this party are prostitutes, and drunks, and tax collectors – the very people the Pharisees say cause all the trouble. Jesus seems to be enjoying the wine and the food.
For the next several weeks, you listen to Jesus whenever you get a chance. You are so taken by what he has to say. He begins to talk about a new kingdom – God’s kingdom. His words are full of hope and peace. He offers a new vision – a vision that consists of mutual care, nourishment, and support for one another. “This new kingdom – God’s kingdom,” says Jesus, “is available right now.”
During the reign of the Romans, to say that a new kingdom was present would have been a crime, a direct threat to Caesar Augustus. During the time of Jesus, for example, if you entered the city of Priene, located in western Asia Minor, you would see a calendar at the front of the city gates that stated Caesar was the beginning of the good news. But, for the earliest Christians, for the Jews, for Jesus, Caesar was not the beginning of the good news. This is why, in the opening lines of the gospel of Mark, it says, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The good news that Mark described, that Jesus spoke about, was in part, an alternative wisdom, an alternative vision.
The wisdom that we are used to, the conventional wisdom that we know today, is the wisdom of the world that says we must succeed. Several times, actually many times, I have had youth tell me they work hard in high school so they can get good grades. They get good grades so they can go to a good college. In college you get good grades so you can get a good job. You get a good job so you can make lots of money. You make lots of money so you can have a family, own a big house, take nice vacations, and not worry about debt. This, my friends, is the conventional wisdom that many of us live by today.
In his book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Marcus Borg argues that our culture’s wisdom does not affirm the alternative wisdom that Jesus shared with those who were willing to listen. Borg believes that most of today’s society turns to the material world for satisfaction and for meaning.
We search for meaning in what Borg calls the three As: Achievement, Affluence, and Appearance. We live our lives in accord with these values, with our self-worth and our level of satisfaction dependent on how well we achieve. The difficulty with such goals, the problem with such goals, is that even when we are reasonably successful, we still find the rewards unsatisfying. We’re still hungry for more. We’re yearning for a deeper, more intimate, more spiritual relationship with God.
The message Jesus preached so many thousands of years ago still speaks to us today. I really think that if we heard Jesus on the corner of West Broadway and Stadium, he would still speak the same words. We are all in such a hurry. We are so concerned about what we can do to get ahead and become successful. The times really haven’t changed that much.
Can we honestly say that Jesus would have fit better amid the values and priorities of our own culture than he did in first-century Roman Palestine? Can we honestly believe that Jesus would not have ended up the victim of our own culture, just as he became the victim of his own?
So, what can we do?
Jesus speaks of life of transformation. The life of transformation “leads from a life of requirements and measuring up (whether to culture or to God) to a life of relationship with God. It leads from a life of anxiety to a life of peace and trust. It leads from life centered in culture to life centered in God.”
In our text we heard this morning, taken from the gospel of Luke, Jesus goes to his hometown of Nazareth to preach the good news. When he unrolled the scroll and turned to the prophet Isaiah, he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
These words, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” are critical to understanding how Jesus understood himself and his relationship to God. Jesus, at his deepest, deepest core was a spiritual person. He was a sage, a person of wisdom, a healer. Before he became popular… Before the whole movement of Christianity took off… Jesus recognized he had a spiritual relationship with God. He was, you could say, “in tune” with God.
Several weeks ago on New Year’s Eve, I officiated at a renewal ceremony for some friends I had known since I was a young child. For the most part, the service went pretty well. Let me tell you the story.
The plan was to have the actual service at three o’clock, and the rehearsal was going to be at 1:30. I showed up at 1:30, eager to get things in order, to go through the rehearsal, and be calm before the guests started to arrive. At two o’clock, I was becoming concerned the only person there, beside myself, was the pianist. By 2:10, I was really starting to worry and get a little anxious. Finally around 2:20 the wedding party showed up, and they came flying through the door.
I said, “What’s going on? Where have you been?”
They said, “It was snowing, so the groom thought it would be a good idea to pull the van up to the front door, so people would not get their tuxedoes and their dresses muddy.”
In theory, I think this was a good idea, but what happened was the van got stuck in the snow. The groomsmen decided they would push the van out of the mud. The groomsmen fell down. They got mud all over their tuxedoes. They tried to clean themselves up with Baby Wipes. Then to top it all off, the bride and groom got in a huge fight and weren’t really speaking to each other. When they first arrived, I really was not sure if there was going to be a kiss in the ceremony, or not.
However, once everybody was settled down, and once the service started, everything went very smoothly. One of the reasons for the transition from a rough beginning to a smooth service was due to the pianist, Jeremy. Jeremy, like Beverly, or Josiah, or John, or Terry, or Michael, or any other musician at Broadway, is extremely talented. I’ve noticed that when playing as an accompanist, Jeremy can match anyone’s pitch. When he plays, just as when Josiah plays, or Shannon Farr sings at a Christmas Eve service, or anyone of our talented musicians at Broadway sings or plays, the music is just so beautiful. Everything seems, for the moment, in tune and filled with harmony. The music Jeremy played at the wedding was calming and meditative, providing peace in the midst of chaos.
In the same way, when we search for this relationship with God, we’re seeking peace in the midst of chaos. We’re seeking for the same type of relationship that Jesus had with God. We’re seeking, like Jesus, to be in tune with God.
In a sense, we’re searching for a song – a song that people have heard for thousands of years. It’s a song that constantly surrounds us, a song that moves us, a song that brings tears to our eyes, a song that, at times, is raw, and at other times is polished. This song is the Song of the Spirit – the song of God speaking to us.
For a long, long time, I thought real music had to involve an electric guitar, a bass, and at the very least, a loud, loud drum set. When I listened to music, I wanted the windows in the house to shake. I wanted to feel the vibrations. I wanted to have my Mom running up the stairs telling me to turn it down.
But after a time, I started to realize that when the bass is turned up so loud that you can’t hear anything else, you lose sight of what’s around you. You lose sight of your relationship to God. You lose sight of what’s important.
This morning, I want to suggest that we need to take time, both in music and in our everyday lives, to listen to the melodies and the counter-melodies of life. A counter-melody is a separate melody that is sung along with another melody. It’s a melody that can offer a different message at the same time.
What we are going to do now is I’m going to invite you to turn in your hymnals to page 661. The hymn is “What Does the Lord Require of You?” Now this hymn is designed to be sung with both a melody and a counter-melody.
The first verse asks, “What does the Lord require of you?” The second verse answers, “Justice and kindness.” The third verse gives advice: “Walk humbly with your God.” These three verses are symbolic of our lives. We constantly face questions. We constantly look for answers. We constantly seek the advice of God.
So, we’re going to sing this hymn now, singing both the melody and the counter-melody. Our musicians are going to help us.
What Does the Lord Require of You?
What does the Lord require of you?
What does the Lord require of you?
Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.
Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.
To seek justice and love kindness
And walk humbly with your God.
I hope you were able to hear both the melody and the counter-melody.
As we move forth into the new year, I challenge you, as I challenge myself, to live in tune with the song of God that speaks to us. To live in tune with those who surround us. To live in tune with our relationship to Jesus. Listen carefully for the counter-melody that speaks to you. Listen carefully for the voice that offers you the possibility of transformation.
Do not be afraid to find peace. Do not afraid to live an alternative wisdom. Do not be afraid to redefine your values. And remember, that the breath of God, the Spirit of God, the presence of God constantly and always surrounds you.
In Christ, we say together… “Amen.”
Do you hear what I hear? God of the roaring seas and silent, starry nights; let our spirits ever tune in to the melody of your love. Let our hearts resonate with the beauty of your voice all around us. Let our voices chime in and sing your counter-melody that transforms us. Amen.
