Sermon 1.24.2016

Luke 4:14-21 YOUR FAVORITE YEAR Ok, ... we're done with the THREE MAIN traditional themes of Epiphany. We spent some time looking at the star & the Magi. We spent some time looking at the Baptism of Jesus. We spent some time looking at the water-into-wine miracle at Cana. The big 3 are done. **BUT... until we get to LENT, there's still sorta an EPIPHANY GLOW occurring in the texts. The MOOD, if you will, is still sorta Epiphany focused....there's still that sense of there's more here than meets the eye going on. We're gonna take 2 weeks in a row... this week & next week, & we're going to see Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth teaching in their synagogue. A synagogue, btw, is a Jewish house of prayer & bible study. Once a week people would go there to hear readings from scripture; hear an explanation of those readings; and say prayers. If that sounds a little "familiar" to you, it's cuz the NT Christian church was originally a Jewish synagogue. So Jesus is here, at the synagogue in his own home town. Sidenote: Luke says in vs 16 that for Jesus, attending synagogue was his custom. That means he did it all the time. You need to know that Jesus didn't attend cuz the people were always friendly. You need to know that Jesus didn't attend cuz they sang his favorite hymns or had vibrant meaningful worship. He didn't attend cuz they had up-to-date technology; he didn't attend cuz they had pure doctrine; he didn't attend cuz they had great resources for families or passionate outreach programs for their community. He attended, cuz he was religious, and you can't practice your religion if you don't attend. Now, it's not my main point, but it's important... so let that one sink in. Talk about an Epiphany: when the God of the Universe takes on flesh and blood & becomes one of us, he does so as a religious person who regularly attends worship. I want you to think about that the next time Satan tempts you to blow off worship. I want you to think about that the next time you hear someone say I have a relationship with Jesus; I don't need to attend worship. When you take the time to read your bible, you discover that the ONLY Jesus you can have a relationship with is the Jesus who regularly attends worship. Ok. There's 2 key verses I want to lift up for you in today's reading. #1 is vs 19: to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Vs 19 is a 1-sentence summary of the 4 things listed in vs 18 about all those things, good news to the poor, sight for the blind, etc. Wrap 'em all up & what u get is vs 19 PROCLAMATION of a year of the Lord's favor. An outpouring of God's goodness to those who need it most. Then the other key verse, drop down to vs 21 He began by saying to them, TODAY this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. The title of my meditation is: YOUR FAVORITE YEAR When you think of everything you've seen & done. When you think of all of your life... however young or old you are, do you have a favorite year? ONE YEAR that just seems kinda magical? ONE YEAR that it seems like, compared to all other times... the stars just seemed to align in a special way? A while back there was a neat movie by that title... MY FAVORITE YEAR. For the character in the movie, his favorite year was 1954. That was before I was born... but I've seen the movie several times & it's caused me to think... **DO I have a favorite year? 1984 always comes to mind; it's the year Stacey & I were married. But next to that, I always think of 1978. I was only 15 in 1978.... but it was a GREAT YEAR. I was old enough to be able to do things on my own, but young enough that I didn't have any responsibilities. The nation had its problems, but none of them seemed to concern me. In my world there was a great sense of optimism. I had my whole life ahead of me; I could be or do anything I wanted. My grandparents were still alive and in perfect health. I worked for the joy of having a little jingle in my pocket, not cuz I *had to or had bills to pay. I spent a huge chunk of the summer of '78 away from home up North hanging out with my uncle. And best of all, ALL OF THE MUSIC on the radio was by my favorite bands. I mean, think about it, Classic Rock wasn't classic, then, it was BRAND NEW. "Double Vision" by Foreigner; "Don't look back" by Boston; "Infinity" by Journey; "52nd St." by Billy Joel; "Stranger in town" by Bob Seger; "Discovery" by ELO... all came out in 1978. It doesn't get any better than that! Now... maybe your favorite year is something else. Sinatra cut "In the wee small hours" in '55 maybe you resonate more with that year. The Beatles White Album came out in '68, maybe you resonate with that year. U2 recorded Joshua Tree in '87, and Sarah McLaughlan released Surfacing in 1997.... but here's the thing: IT CAN'T BE 1978 forever! Or 1955, or 1968, or 1987, or 1997 or any other year forever. What was your favorite year? WHATEVER it was, WHATEVER made it great... whether it was where you were living at the time... who you were dating at the time... how you were feeling at the time... how much $$ you had at the time... how few responsibilities you had at the time....where you were working at the time... what the rest of the world was doing at the time... WHATEVER it was.... is fleeting. IT'S GONE NOW. You can try to re-live it... you can think about it a lot... you can be nostalgic... you can tell your kids about it... you can join online discussion groups that yak about it... you can buy one of those brand new radios that looks like an antique, you can drive a NEW VW BEATLE, ... you can go to concerts by cover bands who look and sound even better than the original artists... BUT YOU CAN'T GET BACK. Whatever your favorite year was, is GONE. And whatever made it your favorite, IS GONE. That's true for us. It's also true for Isaiah's original audience. Some 500yrs before Christ was born, Isaiah the prophet said those words ORIGINALLY: the spirit of the Lord had anointed HIM... to proclaim this awe-inspiring message. The spirit of the Lord had anointed HIM... to announce that God was doing a mighty work in their day. For those of you who know your OT History, this was when the EXILES were allowed to return home to Jerusalem. King Cyrus the Great of thought it was his idea, but it wasn't, IT WAS GOD'S IDEA. And the prophet was so stirred up about it, so excited about it that he called it a JUBILEE, A YEAR OF THE LORD'S FAVOR.. or in our terms today, HIS FAVORITE YEAR. But even THAT year came to an end. Even that year was gone. Because that's the way it always works. Well... ALMOST ALWAYS. There is ONE EXCEPTION. Cuz when Jesus stands up in that Nazareth synagogue and reads the OT Scroll of Isaiah that day... When Jesus says the spirit of the Lord is on **HIM... When Jesus says God has anointed **HIM... to proclaim a year of the Lord's favor... He doesn't talk about the history behind the text...He doesn't even offer an exposition on what that ancient text might mean for them in their day... Jesus does what no prophet, MAN OR WOMAN, before or after him could do... he says: TODAY this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Note what he doesn't say. He doesn't say now that I'm here, this YEAR is the year of the Lord's favor. He doesn't say I'm going to have a 3-yr earthly ministry and do lots of signs & wonders & miracles & then be crucified so these next 3 years will be a year of the Lord's favor. He doesn't even say at the end I'm going to rise again & so that LAST YEAR is going to be a great year, a year of the Lord's favor. He says *TODAY. And when Jesus, the SON OF GOD in the flesh says TODAY this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, something very powerful happens. The next day, is still TODAY. Roughly 50yrs after the fact when St. Luke wrote the words of his gospel, it's STILL TODAY. 400yrs later when St. Augustine was witnessing the sack of Rome and the collapse of the western Empire, it's STILL TODAY. 1500yrs later when a German monk was nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg chapel IT'S STILL TODAY. And now... 2000yrs later... IT'S STILL TODAY. When Jesus fulfills the scripture, IT'S ALWAYS TODAY. God's outpouring of Grace, through Christ, is happening NOW! TODAY! Christ is here today... as we gather around the Word & in Prayer; Christ is here today, coming to you in the holy sacrament; Christ is here today ACCEPTING YOU in spite of all of your faults and failures.... God, through Christ, is doing a mighty wonder in your life claiming you as his own son or daughter. And that means whether today is part of the BEST YEAR of your life, or part of the WORST YEAR of your life... or some infinite shade of inbetween ... TODAY this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Today is the Year of the Lord's Favor... TODAY...and ALL OF YOUR TODAYS.. CAN BE YOUR FAVORITE YEAR.