The Power of the Spirit

Transcribed from the sermon preached January 27, 2013

The Reverend Robert McKenzie

Scripture Readings:  Luke 4:14 – 22

Scripture Readings: Luke 4:14 – 22
When Lois asked me to preach while the pastoral team is off doing other things today, I immediately checked the lectionary readings to discover that I had been blest with one of the most revealing passages in the New Testament. I haven't any idea how many times I've preached on this passage from Luke in the past 50 years, but it comes to me fresh and challenging every time I look at it. It's an amazingly rich lode to mine, filled with an abundance of possibilities for exploration. . So, let's get started.

At a simple descriptive level it offers us a delightful insight into the typical Sabbath morning in a remote village in First Century Galilee. It tells us that Jesus 'returned to Nazareth where he had been brought up'. This is his home village where he, his parents, his four brothers and assorted sisters formed the backbone of the community. We know that he had left Nazareth sometime earlier, walking several days South where his cousin John was holding a big revival meeting down by the Jordan River, calling upon his listeners to repent of their sins and be baptized. It smacks of the revival meetings I attended as a child at the holiness camp ground down by the James River in Jamestown N.D.

Jesus baptism by John, turned out to be an amazing turning point – that's what repentance means, a turning point in one's life – for Jesus. He came to see in that moment of being baptized that God had anointed him to a special calling. After a period of intense testing, says Luke, 'Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee' and stirred up the countryside as he traveled about teaching the people in their synagogues. And then he comes home to Nazareth where he grew up.

Luke tells us that he was 30 years old, that he earned a living with his Father, Joseph, and four brothers as a carpenter. At 30 he would have been well established in his trade and known everywhere for being a carpenter. But he seems to have been recognized as a religious teacher in the villages of Galilee as well. When he was 12, Luke tells us, he amazed the temple leaders in Jerusalem with his learning. As he grew up in his local synagogue, the local leaders must have been impressed as well. And, it is worth noting that he had learned to read, a skill few of his peers would have achieved. He seems to have served his community both as a carpenter and as a skilled lay leader in his synagogue.

So, having come home after attending the big revival starring his cousin John, he, and no doubt his whole family, 'went to the synagogue' as was their custom, on the Sabbath day. Mary and Joseph raised their family as devout Jews. It was not only their custom to attend the synagogue on the Sabbath, but to make the annual trek of three days to Jerusalem for Passover with a band of pilgrims. And it is more than likely that they would stay with the family of his cousin John during those annual pilgrimages because Zechariah, John's Father, was a priest in the temple in Jerusalem. It would be fascinating to know how the two boys, Jesus and John, born just months apart, got on during those visits, what they talked about, how each influenced the other.
So, Jesus and his family arrive at the synagogue on the Sabbath, take their seats and after the reading of the Torah from one of the books of Moses, the singing of Psalms, the standard prayers, Jesus got up from his seat, and was handed the scroll which contained the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and came to the passage, which, in our Bibles, we know as chapter 61:1-2. He read the passage, rolled up the scroll, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And every eye was glued on him, awaiting his commentary on the passage. He preached what is probably the shortest sermon on record. He said simply, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'
This choice of scripture and Jesus' brief commentary are typically referred to as his inaugural sermon. It establishes the groundwork and the agenda for his life's mission. He had the writings of a thousand years of Jewish tradition from which to choose, including Moses and Solomon and a dozen or more prophets and he went right to Isaiah to frame his mission. In thinking about what his calling was to be, he chose Isaiah as his mentor, his guide, his inspiration. Jesus chose that great thinker of the Jewish exile in the 6th century BC to point the way he was to go.
He did so because both he and Isaiah had fallen under the power of the Spirit of God. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” proclaimed Isaiah. Jesus' life was driven by that same Spirit. When he returned to Galilee following his baptism Luke writes that “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.” Earlier we are told that “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit” returned from the Jordan where he was baptized. It can be said that the Gospel of Luke is driven by the power of the Spirit of God, that whatever Jesus said and did was the work of God's Spirit in his life, that he embodied the power of the Spirit in all that he said and did. If we want to know what a Spirit filled life looks like, we have only to look at Jesus.
For both Jesus and Isaiah, the spiritual life has a clear focus. It is popular these days for people to claim that they are not religious, but spiritual. What they mean by spiritual embraces a lot of different attitudes, disciplines, practices, outlooks, and intentions. All the religions of the world are rooted in spirituality of one sort or another, and we can learn something from all of them. I am struck that the seminary from which I graduated in the 50's, had no faculty member which was devoted to spiritual development. It was sort of seen as the underlying spirit of everything that went on. But now there are no fewer than five faculty for whom the development of spirituality is a major focus, one of whom is a Catholic sister.
So, it is instructive how the 'power of the spirit' informed the lives of Isaiah and Jesus. Notice:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” and then what follows? The Spirit “has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” The Spirit has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind.” The Spirit has sent me “To set at liberty those who are oppressed.” The Spirit has sent me “to proclaim the year of Jubilee, the re-distribution of the wealth of the world.” The spirituality of Isaiah, which Jesus was anointed to emulate, was a call to bring about healing and justice to the world. It was a Spirituality aimed at restoring justice and equity to God's people with the promise that the power of God's Spirit would under gird that calling.
Jesus' whole life bears testimony to his faithfulness to that calling which, we must never forget, aroused the full power of the Roman Empire against him and his followers. It was not a quiescent spirituality, a retreat into a quiet enclave, a with drawl into an inner peace kind of spirituality. Jesus' spirituality, learned from his mentor Isaiah, challenged the spirit of greed, violence, injustice, disease, and lies that plague the world. It is a spirituality which radically engages the world, not a with drawl from the world. The spirituality of Jesus is not a refuge from life's struggles but an empowerment to confront all that diminishes life.
After reading this passage from Isaiah. Jesus only comment was this enigmatic statement: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Hearing. That word hearing is key to what he means. To the Hebrew mind, hearing is tantamount to doing. The word obedience in Hebrew and Greek is based on the word hearing. He is saying to that synagogue gathering, the fulfillment of this scripture awaits your obedient response. These words aren't go in one ear and out the other. As they become lodged firmly in your mind and heart they will become your marching orders. That will be the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophesy. I am here to lead the way in the power of the spirit, Jesus is saying. .
Today, January 27, we meet as a past generation reminds us that God's Spirit is still powerfully at work in the world. Today is ecumenical Sunday in the church's calendar. It used to be that Protestant churches exchanged choirs and pulpits to recognize ecumenical Sunday. And then, in 1962 the world witnessed a dramatic assertion of this biblical spirituality within the Catholic church. Pope John 23 called for a great ecumenical council to convene in Rome known as Vatican II. The elderly Bishop Roncalli was elected Pope to be a care taker until a more suitable candidate could emerge in a later election. Surprise surprise! This old man not only had his finger on the pulse of his church but the world as well. He saw that his church had either to reform itself or fall into total irrelevance. He called this ecumenical council to update the church in order to engage the world in all its complexity.
This year, 2013, the Catholic Church is celebrating the 50th anniversary of that revolutionary gathering. On this ecumenical Sunday it is fitting that we also remember the work of that council.
I remember watching in awesome wonder as Pope John knelt before the alter in St Peters in Rome and offered a passionate prayer invoking the power of the Spirit of God to descend upon that gathering and guide its work. God's Spirit was paying attention.

The Council began by throwing out the agenda developed by the Curia, the powerful in-group that rules the Vatican in Rome, and adopted a totally revised agenda developed by the Bishops who came from all parts of the world, an agenda that grew out of the lives of their oppressed people. Second, the new agenda was grounded in the biblical message and by-passed centuries of theological and ecclesiastical jargon, which no longer speaks to the modern world. When the biblical message engages the real world you have an explosive mix.

The work of Vatican II has had a profound impact on the Catholic church, though it must be said regretfully, that there has been more effort at derailing its impact than implementing it. My liberal Catholic friends shake their heads in despair. It also profoundly impacted the Protestant churches when the council extended a hand toward us. Locally, Bishop Begin of Oakland had a lavish luncheon-gathering at the Claremont Hotel, inviting all us Protestant pastors to meet with his clergy for an open conversation. I had just arrived in Berkeley and came away from that gathering with a profound change of heart about the Catholic church toward which I had always had an unhealthy antipathy. One of my first weddings in Berkeley was held with Father Brian Joyce at St Augustines. We have become fast friends. During our Sanctuary days I felt moved to call Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador my Bishop. You can't begin to imagine what a change that was for me.
Vatican II helped overcome centuries of hostility and suspicion between the Catholic Church and many other segments of society, not only Protestants. But its most profound impact has been its posture toward the poor of the world. Shortly after the council finished its work, the Bishops of Latin America asserted that the God of the Bible – citing our morning scripture and many others - “Has a preferential option for the poor.” That statement reversed centuries of Catholic practice which gave preferential place to the rich and powerful. To illustrate:
The Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Camara famously said: “When I fed the hungry everyone called me a saint. (The rich were happy to support the church's charity toward the poor. It kept them grateful and quiet). When I asked why they were hungry, everyone called me a communist.” Those two statements illustrate the difference that Vatican II made toward the poor.
Too long the church has been content to feed the hungry and feel good about its good works. It seemed not to notice that feeding the hungry just plays into the hands of those whose policies keep people hungry. As essential as it is to keep people from starving, not being able to provide for themselves is demeaning and eats away at their humanity. Liberation theology, of which Camara was a chief architect, empowers the poor to reckon with their poverty and confront the powers that keep them poor. This movement in the churches of Latin America has had a profound effect on their politics, confronting moneyed brokers, controlled largely from outside their countries, demanding that they be able to take charge of their own lives. The power of the Spirit's work is richly evident throughout Latin America.
This past Monday we took time to inaugurate a President whose Father was African. It happened on an auspicious holiday. This President, as he himself reminded us, stands on the shoulders of that black Baptist preacher, whose message, whose work, whose bodily commitment, whose martyrdom, fueled by the power of the Holy Spirit, understood and embodied the words from Isaiah more fully than any Christian in American history. I think it can be said that Martin Luther King has done more to redeem the promise of America than any other American. He went where angels fear to tread and aroused the enmity and violent attacks of a racist, war mongering, economically exploitive, and self-righteous society. As he mounted the pulpit of Riverside Church in New York, the government, the FBI, the New York Times, many of his own followers clamored for him to cease his condemnation of Vietnam as a racist war for the benefit of corporate America.
I, we, all of us have been consoled, challenged, instructed, sustained, forgiven by the Spirit of God time and time again. Some of us have been led through the valley of the shadow of death and emerged into the richness of God's abundant life. We all are able to give thanks and praise for the Spirit's presence in our lives. But the power of the Spirit of God has bigger fish to fry as well.
When the power of the Holy Spirit flexes her muscles thru unlikely servants like Pope John 23, thru Black Baptist preachers like Martin Luther King, thru repentant Bishops like Oscar Romero things begin to happen. The church gets shaken at its foundation. Oppressed people claim their freedom. Wars cease. Politics begin to work for the good of the people. And all creation joins in a mighty chorus of praise and thanksgiving. Amen