Can You Hear
Can You Hear
— Today this text has been fulfilled in your hearing —
Jesus has indeed fulfilled the purpose of God first spoken by the prophet Isaiah. So all these things are perfectly possible: the inclusion of those who are poor or otherwise outcast; vision for those who can only see what is in front of them; relief from whatever weighs down the body and the soul; forgiveness or release from the claims we hold against each other; and this is the year acceptable to God for that fulfillment of God’s purpose for all of us. And so it has been every day that the Word who was with God, and was God, and who became flesh, has spoken through this Gospel; because every day is an opportunity for those hearing this text to fulfill it.
All three “synoptic” Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record Jesus’s frosty reception in his hometown. Only Luke, who explicitly set out to write what he called “an orderly account,” made this confrontation in Nazareth the setting for Jesus’s inaugural address. He already has a reputation for powerful teaching and powerful things done in Capernaum. But when he chooses to read from “2nd Isaiah” (Chapters 40-66), he chooses passages that were applied to Israel’s hoped-for Messiah. The poor and the outcast receiving good news of inclusion and relief from need, liberation for those who are oppressed by the powerful who lord it over them, the Jubilee year in which crushing debts are forgiven and those who had to sell themselves to the highest bidder are released. What’s not to like?
Well, maybe those in that synagogue who recognized what we call the 61st chapter of Isaiah might have been waiting for the next line, “and a day of vengeance for our God.” Jesus’s fellow Jews suffered from a strange mixture of guilt and rage. The Judeans weeping at the reading of the Torah in our reading from Nehemiah had returned to Judea from their Babylonian exile. They had rebuilt their Temple, but were still overwhelmed by their previous failure to keep their covenant with God. But they still had many grievances against the nations that had oppressed them.
Maybe some today are caught between guilt and retribution. Maybe some might not have waited for others to exact retribution. Maybe some today might have legitimate grievances against the powerful who exploit them. Maybe some may feel oppressed by powers so far removed they can’t put their finger on them, so they look for scapegoats. What Jesus understood was that simply reversing the force and violence would do nothing more than keep the cycle of force and violence rolling. Including, healing, liberating, and unburdening his fellow Jews had to go along with including, healing, liberating, and unburdening all the Gentile nations with their own grudges to nurse. It was their own sense of centuries-old grievances that seems to have enraged Jesus’s fellow Nazarenes when he suggested that their resentments might lead to Gentiles being saved before them. But how to heal from enslavement, exclusion, theft, and violence and find reconciliation in that healing is an issue for us today.
Yesterday, the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, meeting in the same Cathedral that was in the news last week, voted to commit $5 million from Diocesan assets as reparation for the harms done by white Episcopalians to black Episcopalians in Maryland and the District. Those harms stretch back to the time when slavery was legal in Maryland and white Episcopalians profited from that enslavement. They include the Jim Crow era when white led churches exploited black churches. It is understood that it is impossible to repair all of the harm and loss of our back siblings in this Episcopal Church we all love. But reconciliation that takes no account of that harm and loss might make us whites feel better about ourselves, but it is not the good news of Jesus to the poor and outcast that our black siblings need to hear from us.
But the good news for all of us is that — Today this text has been fulfilled in your hearing. Note that Jesus doesn’t say that today this text has been fulfilled in his saying, but in our hearing. If it had only been fulfilled when he said it, then it would have only happened once, a very long time ago. But ever since he first delivered this inaugural address of the kingdom of God that he is bringing into this world as Israel’s Messiah — Anointed King, Priest, and Prophet — it has been fulfilled in the lives of those who have heard it and acted on it. We can only appeal to those who would rather nurse their grudges, to hear this good news for them and for those whom they begrudge. But every single day is a new opportunity for us to hear this good news, and in that hearing, fulfill it.
3rd Sunday After Epiphany
The Rev. David Kendrick
Jan 26th 2025