Community Church Sermons

The Third Sunday After Epiphany, Year C - January 21, 2000

"The Day Jesus Changed The Bible"

Luke 4:14-21

Considering how carefully Jesus chose his words during his ministry, it strikes me that this morning's passage from Luke 4 provokes an interesting observation about what Jesus left out of the reading from the prophet Isaiah. You and I know that, in the course of life, it's not always what someone says that's important. Often, what they don't say speaks even louder.

Did you notice what Jesus didn't say in the synagogue service that early Sabbath morning in Nazareth?

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," the prophet Isaiah had written some 500 years earlier, "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 favor, and…"

Well, that's the part Jesus left out. He included all the rest - everything I just read - but he left out the part that follows the "and".

Do you know what it is?

Well, the original sentence reads this way: "…to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor…and the day of vengeance of our God."

Do you see the contrast? Jesus included the words about "good news to the poor", and about "proclaiming release to the captives". He kept the parts about "recovery of sight to the blind", and about "letting the oppressed go free". He included the announcement about "proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor".

But he left out the part about proclaiming "…the day of vengeance of our God."

And I find myself wondering, "Why did Jesus change the Bible that day?"

I wonder if you might consider these possibilities.

First, Jesus was keenly aware of the tremendous national guilt that hung like a millstone around the necks of his countrymen. Half a millennium earlier, they had been conquered by the Babylonians and dragged off into exile. A generation later, they returned to rebuild Jerusalem, but it never amounted to much of anything. And now the Romans had swept in, occupying their land and unjustly dominating their lives. And the prevailing opinion as to why these bad things had taken place was because the people had sinned - broken the purity laws - and now God was punishing them.

And I can understand this kind of religious guilt because many people look at the cancer that comes, or the tragic accident that takes away a loved one, or the family disaster, or the inability to move ahead in life, and they wonder if it isn't some kind of divine payback. Some people see AIDS as God's vengeance against homosexuals. I heard someone once opine that the oppression of black people is the continuing punishment by God for Cain's killing of his brother Abel. Some think the injustices inflicted upon native Americans resulted from their failure to convert to the one true God of the European settlers. There are many who believe that the plight of the poor results from their failure to live up to God's principles for prosperity.

There is, in our world, a certain mindset that is obsessed with the blame game. And religious people are among its most highly-skilled players.

A young man and woman visited with me one day, telling me about a sad experience they'd had with the Christian church. The apartment building in which they lived had caught fire and burned to the ground. They, along with all the other tenants, barely escaped with their lives, and lost everything. But while they were standing, shivering on the sidewalk, watching as firemen vainly tried to control the blaze, the pastor of the church they had just started attending arrived at the scene. They were comforted by seeing someone they knew. They went to meet him. He greeted them by declaring that this was what they get for living together outside of marriage.

Is that right? When you do something that is outside the will of God, God's response is to wait until you and your neighbors are fast-asleep in the middle of the night before sending a surge of electricity through some worn wiring, causing a fire that almost kills you and all the other tenants and destroys everything you - and they - have - just to pay you back for living together?

What this young preacher didn't know - and I hope he's since read Luke 4 - is that Jesus left out that part of the Bible. Even though it was deeply imprinted in the psyche of the Hebrew nation that, when you sin, God strikes back at you, Jesus evidently decided it was time for a great national therapy session to remove this debilitating yoke of guilt. And that's what Jesus' ministry sought to do.

You see, what Jesus knew is that you cannot become spiritually whole so long as guilt is one of the operative factors in your relationship with God. This is why so much of Jesus' ministry was devoted to proclaiming God's mercy and forgiveness to people. He did that so much, he got into trouble with the religious authorities! This is why he insisted that people see his death as the complete and final atonement for all sin. He wanted to clear the record once and for all. You cannot truly come into a healthy, productive relationship with God until you leave the world of guilt behind, and enter the world of grace.

Why did Jesus change the Bible that day? Well, for one thing, I believe he did it to begin the process of setting people free from guilt so they can respond in a healthy way to the God of love.

And this should teach us some things about how we are to live as Christians.

I was impressed the other day to listen to our new President's comments about the disclosure by Rev. Jesse Jackson that he fathered a child in an adulterous relationship. I'm quite sure the news person asking the question was trying to stir up some trouble because the question asked was whether President Bush felt a person who'd done such a thing should be able to remain in a position of leadership. But the President didn't go for the bait. He said his heart went out to Rev. Jackson and his family, and expressed hope that God would bring healing to them and lead them through the storm.

And that's grace! Pouring out grace on others is the exact opposite of heaping guilt upon them. Guilt is designed to drag people down and away from the love of God. Grace is designed to draw people up, and toward God's love. Guilt aims at keeping people bound to their past mistakes. Grace sets people free to find a new future.

Let me ask you: do you want to be a person who lives by guilt, or by grace? Jesus set people free from guilt, and released them to discover grace! If you were to do the same, you'd see miracles in the lives of the people you encounter every day.

A second reason I think Jesus omitted those words about God's vengeance was to bring dramatic emphasis to God's favor! "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 FAVOR!"

Jesus knew that, when people relate to God out of a sense of guilt, they always end up with a screwed-up understanding of God's love. I was at an evangelistic meeting once when the preacher gave the invitation, and it went sort of like this: Jesus loves you, and wants to be your friend. So come to him now...before it's too late...before he shakes the dust off his feet and says, 'I never knew you!'…Come now, while you can escape the judgment of an eternity in the lake that burns with fire…"

Well, by the time he got done, I found myself wondering whether I would even want to be a Christian if all that was true. It's sort of like saying, "Love me, so I won’t have to kill you!" And oddly enough, many people went forward.

That's because for many of us, God's love is like that! It's sort of "iffy". Kind of "provisional". Very "fragile". It's a love that's always very close to being withdrawn. So watch out!

I can remember a time in my teenage years when my best friend Dennis Astrella and I had done something wrong. We did so many things wrong that I can't remember which one it was on that particular occasion, but I remember my mother saying to us something like, "I LOVE you, but right now, I don't really LIKE you very much!"

Has anyone ever said that to you? Have you ever said it to someone else?

Well, I think I incorporated that kind of idea into what I believed about God's love while I was growing up. I knew that God loved me. But I was pretty sure he didn't really like me all that much. And there were plenty of Christians around to regularly reinforce that fact!

But into the middle of my life one day - and, I hope, into yours - a new figure arose proclaiming a different message. And Luke describes it so well. Jesus stands up in a synagogue one day and says that God not only loves us, but favors us, too! His ministry inaugurates the era of God's favor! These are the same words that the angel spoke to Mary, telling her of the role she would play as the mother of the Messiah. "Hail, O favored one! You have found favor with God!"

In other words, God not only loves us, but God likes us too!

And our job as Christians is to convey that message to people, just like Jesus did!

I once heard about a professor in a Christian college who arranged for a debate between two outside speakers - one a believer, the other an atheist. The debate was held, and both men very articulately described their positions. When the discussion was over and everyone else had left, the professor walked the atheist out to his car. Just before they parted, the professor smiled and said, "Frank, I think God really LIKES the way you think!" The car door closed, and the man drove away. But two hours later the phone rang in the professor's office. It was the atheist.

"Bob, what exactly did you MEAN by that?" he asked.

What would happen if you made it a mission in your life to tell people, and remind people that God likes them? That God thinks they're beautiful? That God appreciates their personalities? That God enjoys their sense of humor? That God is enamored by their creativity and imagination? That God enjoys the way they think, even when their thinking is full of questions and doubt? That God thinks they're the best thing since sliced bread?

What would happen if you, like Jesus, proclaimed God's favor to the people you encounter?

Well, what would happen is that these people would be drawn closer to God, and their hearts would be softened to his touch, and their minds would become open to his thoughts. Just like it happened when Jesus proclaimed the favor of the Lord to tax collectors, and prostitutes, and sinners of every kind.

I, for one, am glad that Jesus changed the Bible that day! And why did he do it? To begin a new ministry of releasing people from guilt to grace, letting them get on with their lives, and opening the door to a new relationship with God. And to throw open the closed doors of their hearts to the tremendous healing power of God's favor.

But what about God's vengeance? What about God's judgment? Does Jesus' omission mean there is no such thing?

By no means. There will be a day of God's vengeance. But it is a judgment against the powers and principalities, against the systems and the structures, against the rulers, the governments and the religions that stand in the way of God's love for the world, and that keep people from grace, and from experiencing that God not only loves them, but likes them, too!

So I invite you to stand up with Jesus today, and proclaim the Good News! Go into the community this week and lead people from guilt to grace. And somehow let everyone you encounter know, that God thinks they're beautiful, and welcomes them into his arms!