In the Power of the Spirit

Luke 4:14-21

January 16, 2022

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/1f4bhG74Uz0

Several of us are currently reading the book Stride Toward Freedom, which is Dr. King’s account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Reading along a couple of weeks ago, I got to the part where he described being arrested for the first time and it took me off-guard. He was arrested on a false charge of driving 30 in a 25 mph zone – not given a ticket, but arrested and taken to jail. [1] Well, I wasn’t surprised about the trumped-up charges, but I realized that I was surprised that it was his first time in jail. Because everybody knows that Dr. King was arrested many times. But there is always a first time.

And, as Luke tells the story, this is a kind of first time for Jesus. It is his first public action since his baptism. In John’s gospel, his first action is to turn water into wine for a wedding. In Matthew and Mark, it is to call disciples to follow him. But for Luke, this is it. Well, technically, maybe this wasn’t his first either. Verses 14-15 say that word was getting around about him because he was teaching in the synagogues. But this time is the first time we overhear what he is saying.

He reads scripture and offers commentary on it. We usually call that preaching. So this is Jesus’ inaugural sermon. It sets the stage for the rest of his ministry. These words are very familiar to many of us. We hear them and we think “Oh yeah, that sounds like Jesus” Just like when I read about Dr. King’s arrest and thought, “Oh yeah, that sounds like him.”

Except that when Jesus says these words here, it is the first time. He is identifying his mission publicly. He is owning up to a certain claim of God on his life, in front of his family and friends, his neighbors and the people who watched him grow up. What he chooses to say on this occasion is very significant.

Synagogues used a lectionary by the time of Jesus. Most of the specifics about synagogue worship in the first century are unclear, but scholars believe that there was a regular rotation of readings from the Torah every Sabbath. What we don’t know is whether the other readings, from the Psalms and the Prophets, had an assigned schedule or not.[2] So, when Jesus opened the scroll to Isaiah, he may have chosen it or it may have been selected for him.

Either way, what he says next are words that he chooses. Luke builds the suspense, by including the details about unrolling the scroll and standing to read, then rolling up the scroll again and handing it back and sitting down. He sits down because teaching and preaching were done by a person who was seated, not standing. After the drama has built, Jesus says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

It is an electrifying moment. The crowd recognizes that something unusual, something memorable, has just happened. At this moment, he has them in the palm of his hand. Now, many of us remember that the situation changes rapidly as Jesus goes on preaching. We will get to that in two weeks. For today, we’re sticking with this part of the story.

In the discussion of Stride Toward Freedom, the point has been made several times that every hero of social change in history did not know the future. They did not know what difference their actions would make in the short- or long-term. When Dred Scott sued for his freedom, when Rosa Parks sat on the bus and refused to move, when Ruby Bridges’ parents accompanied her to an all-white school, none of them knew what would happen next. None of us knows the future. Neither did they. But they found the courage to act anyway.

Jesus displays that same kind of courage in this sermon. He publicly identifies himself with a God-given mission. From this point on, he stands by this proclamation over and over again at great cost. You may be thinking “wait a minute. It’s different for Jesus. Jesus is God and God knows everything. So, unlike other people who took action for change, Jesus knew what would happen. He did know the future.”

I suggest that if we suppose Jesus knew the future, then we diminish his humanity. If Jesus is the one human being in history who knows everything even before it happens, then he’s not subject to the same limitations as the rest of us mere mortals. We might remember that time when his disciples asked him about the end of time and Jesus replied that he did not know when that would be, because only God knows. Or we might remember his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane “let this cup pass from me” which implies that the events that night and the coming days were not fixedly determined in advance.

Jesus does not know the future, but he does know that his words and actions will provoke a response. In the power of the Spirit, he boldly proclaims his agenda. It might be the first time, but it won’t be the last.

Jesus is God, living in human form, with all the limitations of human beings. Through Jesus, God lives as a poor tradesman and experiences the occupation of Rome. Through Jesus, God lives in solidarity with those who are suffering, because Jesus is one of them.

And through Jesus, we see the revelation of God. “Jesus [says] the gospel is for the poor and oppressed . . . Jesus [announces] that he came to liberate from real oppressive structures the marginalized – the impoverished, the war captives, the poor in health, the political prisoners. Jesus [comes] to turn the economic structures upside down, instituting the year when crushing debts [are] forgiven and slaves [are] freed.”[3]

This is God’s intention, God’s desire, God’s agenda even – the power of God’s Spirit poured out on and through Jesus for the benefit of those who have been victimized by misused social power.

This is challenging for us who have not been so oppressed. Those of us who have mostly benefitted from the exercise of social power, those of us who are not wounded or threatened on a regular basis by poverty or hatred or violence. For us, the danger is that we will water-down or overly spiritualize or just fail to understand the deep significance of what Jesus is saying.

This week, some of us heard Nell Stokes speak. Some of you know her. Nell Stokes has been very active in our community since the 1960’s, but she grew up in Alabama. At age 16, she was a volunteer in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She participated in a study of Stride Toward Freedom last year, and during that study, she offered some thoughts on the book. She said reading the book reminded her of the everyday humiliations that black people had to endure in the Jim Crow South and even now. She said, “I am 82 years old and still we’re being treated like nothing. It bothers me and makes me very angry that other people think that we are less-than.”

Jesus was someone that other people sometimes thought was less-than. He was poor. He was not a Roman citizen. He was not the son of a priest. He didn’t have religious credentials or standing in high society. He was someone that other people thought was less-than. And in this sermon, he has the audacity to say that God is also fundamentally on the side of those who are considered less-than.

Howard Thurman was an African American pastor, theologian, philosopher, and civil rights leader who lived from 1899 to 1981. He wrote many books. He was a friend of Martin Luther King, Sr and it is often said that Martin Luther King Jr regularly carried his book Jesus and the Disinherited with him.

Howard Thurman wrote this book to talk about what Jesus had to offer those who are considered less-than. Thurman described them as those whose backs are up against a wall -- people trapped in systems of oppressions, made to feel that they don’t matter, that they will not be protected, that they are less than other children of God, and even that they are not children of God.

Thurman says that the message of Jesus was about an urgent radical change in the inner attitude of the people. He recognizes that no external force, no matter how powerful it is, can destroy a people without first winning a “victory of the spirit against them”[4]. The enemy that can crush the spirit will win, but Jesus offers real spiritual strength, a technique for survival for oppressed people. It is the power of the Spirit of God. Thurman says that the deep awareness that a person is a child of God, the God of life, “creates a profound faith in life that nothing can destroy.” “To the degree that people know this, he says, “they are unconquerable from within and without.”[5]

Writing about parents who were able to embody this for their children, he says, “In communities that were completely barren, with no apparent growing edge, without any point to provide for the disadvantaged, I have seen children grow up without fear, with quiet dignity and such high purpose that the mark which they set for themselves has even been transcended.”[6]

This is the agenda of God, liberation, transformation, and wholeness for all, but especially for those with their backs against the wall. If we do not recognize the power and the challenge in Jesus’ inaugural sermon, it may be that we are not trying or our privilege insulates us. Perhaps we do recognize it, and we are trusting the Spirit to anoint us and embolden us just like Jesus. To quote Thurman one more time, he wrote, “The disinherited will know for themselves that there is a Spirit at work in life and in [human] hearts . . . which is committed to overcoming the world.”[7]

May the Spirit of the Lord be upon you and me with power and courage and love. Amen.

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, New York: Harper and Row, 1958) p. 128

[2] Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995),p. 105

[3] Robert Parham, The Agenda:8 Lessons from Luke 4: Students Guide (Nashville: Baptist Center for Ethics, 2007) p.3-4.

[5] Thurman, p. 45-46

[6] Thurman, p. 45

[7] Thurman, p. 98