Prayers January 30th 2022, Epiphany 4,

Rise within us like the star 

And make us restless

Till we journey on

To seek our peace in you

Song ”I heard the voice of Jesus say”

https://youtu.be/74kyfROS4q8

Confession- a time of silence and reflection

 

The Lords Prayer in our own language

 

Reflection on Luke 4:21-30

 

Three gospels in the New Testament offer similar portraits of the life of Jesus; Luke is the third of them. Its author, traditionally Luke the physician who accompanied Paul on some of his missionary journeys, draws on three sources: Mark (via Matthew), a collection of sayings (known as Q for Quelle, German for source) and his own source. It is a gospel that emphasizes God's love for the poor, the disadvantaged, minorities, outcasts, sinners and lepers. Women play a more prominent part than in the other gospels. Luke never uses Semitic words; this is one argument for thinking that he wrote primarily for Gentiles.  

 

Last week we had the first part of Jesus’ appearance before his home synagogue (4:14-21). Now we read of the response. We recall that Luke is making this the all important introductory scene for the ministry to follow. Already he has included in it Jesus’ statement about his call and mission. Now he invites us to reflect on what is about to happen. 

 

The initial response to Jesus is awe (4:22). The people were ‘amazed at the words of compassion’. By the end of verse 22 the initially positive response is becoming something else: ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’. Jesus is the boy from down the road. Parochialism.

 

Jesus had been spreading his wings in Capernaum. Now he is back home. Mark states it baldly,with just a couple of minor exceptions he was not able to do any miracles in his local community (6:5). Jesus himself second-guesses what they are thinking: why won’t he do for them the kind of miracles he did for Capernaum? 

 

Prophets are not accepted in their homeland (4:24)

 

There were many widows in need in Israel, but Elijah was sent to the widow in Zarephath in Sidon, foreign territory, and Elisha brought a cure to none of the lepers except Naaman, the Syrian. In the gospel Jesus shows how, after initial positive responses, the crowds turned against Jesus because he went outside of the respected in Israel and reached out to the sinners, toll collectors and outcasts. Luke is arguing that his outreach incited anger and hatred and led to Jesus’ execution, prefigured here by the attempt to stone him (the common method of throwing people over a precipice and then dropping large rocks on them). 

 

People become possessive about truth and knowledge. When their knowledge power is threatened, they often become aggressive. This can include refusal to face new truth. Communities reject people of a different race, a different culture, different ideas and protect their own, fearful of change. 

 

At one level Luke’s message is simple and uncontroversial: if you join Jesus in living a life of compassion that is inclusive and without prejudice against the despised and feared, you will be living the life of the Spirit but you will be courting danger. The gospel is about challenging dehumanizing categories. There is a great deal of angry reaction today in my country to outsiders.Is that Christian?

Jesus’s message is about an inclusive mission. If you engage in living a life of compassion that is inclusive and without prejudice against the despised and feared, you will be following Jesus.  

All people have value. 

 

So if the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, how does it show itself?

Are we good news for the poor?

Do we release people who are captives in whatever way?

Are we a light to the blind, both physically and spiritually. 

 

They threw him out of the synagogue! Because he was insulting them and their way of life, which was about looking after themselves. Jesus was an outsider because of education and class. Not trained at the theological college, not middle class.

 

We are encouraged to see and think differently, to make a difference, to be the raindrop that makes the pool and the stream. And people might object! 

Our prayers for our world

Song "The Spirit lives to set us free ".

 https://youtu.be/dnt4ST8HGQA

When the star in the sky has gone

And the wise men have gone back to their homes

The real work of Christmas begins

To find the lost, heal the broken, feed the hungry and release the prisoner

 

Epiphany 4, Mark 1:21-28, The healing of the man with the unclean spirit in Capernaum

I was taking a service one morning in an Anglican church when a man appeared in the middle of it, walked up the aisle and laid prostrate in front of the altar. Some time later he appeared again at an evening service. He was agitated, dangerous if you touched him or you were a woman! His mood depended on whether he was taking his medication or not. Todays story in Mark is about mental health, how we treat people with mental health problems as individuals, in society.

The story represents a single day in the life of Jesus, a Sabbath day and the evening of the next day. Because it was the Sabbath Jesus goes to the synagogue much as we would go to church on a Sunday or mosque on a Friday. 

Jesus is already after his baptism plunged into teaching and healing. This is the first healing recorded in Mark and it is controversial because it is an exorcism or is it?

Jesus went with his disciples, new disciples just called to Capernaum, a town then with a population of about 10,000, so a large town and a busy synagogue. He began to teach, so he had been invited to preach, so he was known as a rabbi.

Probably the disciples lived in Capernaum, on the northwestern shore of lake Galilee. Jesus makes it the center for his ministry. People were amazed and terrified. His teaching and ministry disturbed the people. There appeared a man, who started screaming. He cried out. "What to you and to me?" What do we have in common, an Aramaic saying. "Have you come to destroy us? We know who you are". By knowing a person, power was gained over them. The demons knew Jesus: his name, Jesus of Nazareth, his business, judgment; and his task. "We know who you are and so you have no power over us, the Holy One of God".

Jesus told the man to "Be quiet. Silence! Hold your tongue". He rebuked, censured, warned, and spoke sternly to him saying. "Come out"! The man shook violently, convulsed, was torn apart, and pushed and pulled to and fro and with a shriek the unclean spirit left him. They were amazed at this new teaching with authority.The news got out immediately everywhere into the surrounding region.

Jesus has stepped outside of what was acceptable teaching provoking hostility. He has confronted and won over evil as part of his ministry of healing. Unclean spirit like the scribes controlled the synagogue but the man is also a social outcast. Jesus is healing on the Sabbath, which was regarded as taboo. He is also confronting evil, and the powers in the synagogue and the political context. This is the new way. Healers and exorcists were common place, so why did Jesus have this trouble?

Jesus moved from the margins of Capernaum, Galilee to the centre of power to Jerusalem and the ultimate struggle with political and religious authorities. The panic of disruption and of the accepted order causes a reaction from the powers. The story is about wrestling people from bad spirits.The demons know who he is. Mental illness is still a socio cultural taboo. It was linked to sin and impurity. The outcome is that through the healing, this social outcast becomes one of the in crowd. 

Jesus's ministry put him at odds with the authorities both religious and civil much as Iceland, Greece and Spain are currently upsetting the status quo!

The unclean spirit could represent the Scribes and the Pharisees who controlled organised religion at that time and in that place. Jesus is grabbling with two sacred spaces, the synagogue and the Sabbath.

Mental illness in first century Palestine meant you couldn't work, you couldn't buy food, you were a social outcast, and were forced to beg and could die.  How different is this from today? But Jesus has his own approach to health care-healing! No cuts here the man is healed and restored to normal society, and given dignity again.

These symbolic actions remind us of Luther at Wittenburg, Matin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech and Mandela's actions-they were all inspired by Jesus to confront the powers. 

What sort of demons are we confronting, in our families, at work, in wider society, in global humanity? Do they seek to destroy us, pretend to know us and lie about us? In confronting them do we cause conflict and put ourselves at odds with the accepted norms at work and ourselves at risk of retribution. 

After the healing Jesus withdraws because he wants to avoid fame, the massage of the ego.  Conflict is a part of discipleship, both confrontation within and without but we don't like to hear this message. We want a different sort of discipleship. A soft option.
In the breaking of bread we remember that we are all broken, fragmented and put together again,  healed, restored, re-membered.

Good news to the poor Epiphany 4

Luke 4:14-21 Good news for the poor

Focus on Isaiah's prophecy about the Servant of the Lord.

4:14 The whole countryside was talking about him probably meaning throughout Galilee.

v15 He taught

v16 and then he went to Nazareth where he had grown up his home town.
as was his custom displaying Jesus as a practicing Jew.
he stood up in order to read. An essential element in the synagogue service was the reading of scripture. The teacher stands to read and sits to teach. There was probably a cycle of readings, first a reading from the Torah followed by a reading from the Prophets. The reading was in Hebrew with a translation in Aramaic, Aramaic being the local language of Palestine at the time.

v17 and when he unrolled the scroll. he found. The fact that Jesus found the reading in the scroll possibly indicates that it wasn't a set reading, since if set, the scroll would have already been open ready for the reader.

v18 The quote is an extract from Isaiah: 61:1, 58:6, 61:2, not only does he proclaim the coming kingdom, in terms of the long-awaited Jubilee year (freedom, release of slaves, wiping of debts ...) he actually institutes the Jubilee himself - he is "anointed ... to release the oppressed". Given the context of Isaiah 58, setting at liberty those who are oppressed as faithful Israel, breaking the bonds of wickedness Israel that practises fasting rather than justice. to communicate ..", "to proclaim ..", "to release .." and "to proclaim ..
to preach good news-important communication imperial
Who are the poor?
He has sent me to preach. freedom – forgiveness the prisoners
recovery of sight
to release the oppressed

v19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's Jubilee, Leviticus 25, the fiftieth year when slaves are released, debts cancelled, etc.

v20 he rolled up the scroll gave it back sat down. A teacher would normally sit down to teach; he took the preacher's seat.
were fastened on him

v21 he began today is fulfilled in your hearing

v22 spoke well of were amazed - Amazement is an important initial response to the gospel; it is the kind of response a person makes when confronted by a theophany
the gracious words