The inbreaking of the Kingdom

A sermon for Epiphany 4, preached at College Communion at Christ Church on Sunday 27th January 2019.

Epiphany 4
Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Luke 4: 14-21

If you had the chance to be present at one event in the life of Jesus – to witness one moment from the gospels – what is the moment you would choose to see?

Perhaps the birth of Jesus?

Or the feeding of the five thousand?

The Sermon on the Mount?

The crucifixion?

The Resurrection?

The Last Supper?

We’re unlikely to get our wish. But the moment we would choose has something to do with what we think about Jesus – what is most important for us about his message, his life, his identity.

And there’s no wrong answer!

Everything about Jesus is important.

Everything the gospel writers wrote down was something they judged important enough to remember, and to teach new Christians about – communicating something important about who Jesus was.

The Gospel stories are moments, incidents where Jesus, his identity, his glory is revealed. That’s the purpose of everything in the gospels: whichever moment you would choose is a revelation of who Jesus is and what he shows us about God.

This has been clear over the last few weeks which we have spent in the season of Epiphany: that slow revealing of who Jesus is. In the coming of the Magi – king and God and sacrifice, light to illuminate all the nations. In his baptism – son of God, chosen redeemer, God’s beloved son in whom God is well pleased. In the water made wine, the first miracle – the one who can do marvellous things, who has the power of God, who brings the abundant, glorious wine of God’s presence, God’s love, God’s kingdom.

And in this fourth and final week of Epiphany – we have one last Gospel event that reveals who Jesus is.

Less glamorous than creating wine at a wedding. Less visual than the arrival of the Magi. Definitely not an occasion when the voice of God was heard like thunder from the sky.

Jesus preaches a sermon.

In his home town, our Jesus, as they would say where I grew up, goes to synagogue. He’s an honoured guest, a local boy who was making a name for himself as a preacher in the towns and villages around; returning to the synagogue he grew up in, among the people he grew up with; the synagogue where he had learnt to hear and read Scripture.

They give him Isaiah. And he reads:

“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 favour.”

And then he begins to preach. And he says “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In other words: the time you have been waiting for has come. The person you have been waiting for is here. Our Jesus is the one God has been promising for centuries.

That’s some sermon.

And in Luke’s gospel, it’s the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It’s the first thing Jesus does after being baptised by John and tempted in the wilderness: he goes back home, he preaches and teaches, and he tells his home town that he is God’s promised saviour.

And not only that, he reminds the people listening what the salvation that God has promised is.

It’s not something individual, or private.

It’s not located between a single person and God.

It’s not even located in the synagogue or on the Sabbath.

The salvation God has promised, the salvation which comes in Jesus, is located in the whole structure of society. It’s good news for the poor; freedom for those held captive; the year of jubilee, when debts are forgiven and society is put back the way it was when the people of Israel first crossed the Jordan into the promised land.

Luke tells us this story to set out the programme for Jesus’ ministry – the themes that will develop as he tells his story of Jesus. Themes of God’s promises, fulfilled in Jesus; themes of salvation for the whole of society; themes of God who gives hope to people who are poor, oppressed, in need; themes of God’s Kingdom, of which Jesus is sign and foretaste. And as Luke outlines these themes, he is also outlining the things that are important to God – God’s project of liberation for the whole world.

I began by asking you what part of Jesus’ ministry you would witness, if you had the choice. My answer to that question is this moment: the moment when it all falls into place, when Jesus first states boldly and unequivocally who he is and what he has come to do.

And that’s because this moment is a moment of calling as well as revelation. Revelation of who Jesus is means a call to follow – and this particular revelation of who Jesus is means a call into God’s project of liberation.

There is a famous poem carved on the Statue of Liberty, as it stands at the entrance to the New York harbour where many immigrants entered the USA in the first part of the twentieth century. It reads:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

No human society can actually fulfil that. The deep divisions in American society at the moment revolve around the way that that vision has been lost – and America is not alone.

The vision of the golden door to a better world, into which the tired, poor and yearning are welcomed and given a new start – is not one that can ever be achieved on earth. God’s kingdom can never come completely.

But in Jesus, God’s kingdom begins to break in. And that means that the vision of the Kingdom – of good news, release, freedom, an end to oppression, poverty and need – ought to fire us. It should be a vision around which we try to build our societies. We are called to look for the signs of God’s kingdom and work to bring them about: in relationships between each other, between communities, and in the whole community.

And looking for the signs of the Kingdom also means being aware of the places where the Kingdom isn’t yet there. The places where the poor haven’t yet heard good news; where captives are still in prison and God’s people held in slavery. We are called to look for those too, and to work for the Kingdom to come especially in the places that are furthest from it.

I said that this moment is the one I’d choose to visit if I could see just one moment of Jesus’ ministry. If I could have two, the other would be the Transfiguration. Where this is a call to action, that is a vision of glory; where this is a revelation of God’s purpose in Jesus, that is a vision of God’s presence in Jesus. We need both. If we are to see God’s glory clearly, we need to build his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And if we are to build the Kingdom, we need a vision of God’s eternal splendour to inspire us.

That's my calling - it comes from the part of the life of Jesus that draws me most. And so as I ask you what part of the life and story of Jesus draws you most, I'm also asking you to wonder who Jesus wants you to be: and what part of your world he wants you to transform.