“Jesus’ Keynote Address”
Luke 4:14-21
If you could choose the words that might encapsulate who you are, the words that you would use to communicate the essence of yourself, your life, your commitments—what would they be?
Luke 4:14-21 is essentially Jesus’ life, ministry and purpose in a nutshell.
It is His “Keynote address,” if you will, to describe what He is about…His Mission Statement, Who He is.
There was a VERY POPULAR Christian book written by the pastor of one of America’s Mega-Churches.
This book was a best-seller and it gained a lot of attention, and probably helped a lot of people.
It was basically a book about how to live the kind of life that God wants us to live.
Citations from Scripture fill this book.
There are dozens in every chapter, which makes it surprising and a bit unsettling that Luke 4:14-21 is never quoted.
Apparently, this succinct and powerful statement of Jesus’ own purpose wasn’t considered relevant for teaching a Christian what it means to live a Christian life.
And, you know, it is easy to get sidetracked from the Central Message of the Gospel.
The prophets were constantly having to remind the people about God’s main purpose.
For example, from the very same Book of the Bible that Jesus used to announce Who He Is and What He has come to do—The Book of Isaiah--the Lord asked, “The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?”
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.”
“Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me.”
The Lord commands that the people, “Trample my courts no more,” and that they “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, [and] plead for the widow,” instead.
It’s basically the same Message given in Micah and the rest of the Bible: “With what shall I come before the Lord…He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
`And so, when the Son of God appears on the scene to proclaim why He is here and what He is about it should not be surprising that He says:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jesus’ is God’s beloved Son, and Jesus has come to do God’s will in this world.
And it’s not always pretty work.
It is often hard.
The people He heals, ministers too, and hangs out with are not always the most educated folks, they may not have the best manners, they aren’t the best smelling, they don’t necessarily have much money and they often aren’t real pleasant to be around.
But this is real life is it not?
Jesus is concerned with the nitty gritty: compassion, mercy, freedom, new life, and justice for the poor, the oppressed and marginalized.
He has come to set us free.
This is FRONTLINE MINISTRY!!!
Jesus gets dirty with us!
(Pause)
When I imagine the scene in our Gospel Lesson for this morning, I imagine Jesus being absolutely on fire with passion, excitement, anticipation and joy!
After all, this comes on the heels of His baptism by John where the Spirit of God came down and rested on Him, proclaiming Him to be God’s Son in Whom God is well-pleased.
It comes on the heels of His wilderness experience where He was tempted by the devil for forty days to switch His ministry focus from lifting up others to lifting up Himself.
He was offered power, prestige, easy livin’ so to speak.
But He chose humble service.
He chose to do the will of His Father.
He chose the hard path, the narrow path.
That is why He came to this earth.
That is His purpose.
And as Christ’s followers, as His disciples—which really means His imitators—this that what we are called to do as well.
I know there is a lot of junk out there that masquerades as Christianity.
We hear stories about television evangelists who beg their followers to give them money so they can buy private jets for themselves.
One such person, who has a fleet of private jets, happens to be the richest “Pastor” in America.
He is worth $300,000,000.
There is a list of these guys, the least of which is worth a mere $25,000,000.
Instead of “pleading the case of the widow” they are fleecing the widows.
There is another phenomenon which has been spreading across America.
It has been called “Christian Nationalism.”
It is a certain radical kind of politics supposedly wedded Jesus.
It basically another religion altogether.
And there isn’t a lot of love and care for the poor in it, or anyone for that matter.
And for about a Century or so people have been making all kinds of money doing a guess-work on what the Book of Revelation and other Apocalyptic Books mean for “today.”
One such author who wrote a multi-million best seller back in the 1970’s with all kinds of claims about Jesus’ Second coming being tied to the “cold war” which was going on at the time.
Later when asked about the predictions he made in that book he replied, “There is a sucker born every day.”
I remember seeing a book on our coffee table when I was a child—a friend of my mom’s had sent it to us.
It said on the front cover that the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ would occur on May 15th, 1985.
Just this past week I received a letter in the mail trying to convince me to go to a certain website and learn about how, and I quote: “Elon Musk is the rider on the white horse from Revelation 6:2 with a bow in his hand.”
Is this Christianity?
Or is this the devil’s work getting us off track?
How do we so miss what Jesus is about…
…what Christianity is about…
…what it is means to be one of Christ’s followers?
And how do we miss out on such joy, such excitement, such passion, such love.
Because, you know what?
Study after study after study will tell you that the number 1 thing that makes human beings happy is when we are helping others.
And it makes sense.
This is what God has created us to do.
And this is what God is like.
And we are created in God’s image.
It is only when we learn and intentionally strive to live into God’s image that we become whole.
So, we are told in verse 14 of our Gospel Lesson for this morning that “Jesus returned” from His temptations in the wilderness “to Galilee in the power of the Spirit…”
And He went to Nazareth, where He had been raised.
And on the Sabbath He went into the synagogue—probably the same synagogue He and His mom, dad, and brothers and sisters had attended as children—and He offered to read the Scripture.
And He turned to the Prophet Isaiah, and He found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then He sat back down and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The implication of this is that if we are going to study, interpret, and follow Jesus we should keep coming back to these words to measure our lives, our progress, to make sure we are on track.
It’s been said that “When you really think about it, this power of the Spirit which Jesus embodies is the only thing the early church had going for it.
It had no buildings, no budget, no paid staff, and very few members.”
But look what it accomplished!!!
It’s important to ask ourselves: Do we have the power of the Holy Spirit?
And how can we know if we have it?
The Holy Spirit gives us something to do for God.
And what that really means is, the Holy Spirit gives us something to do for people—because love for God and people is what our lives are to be about.
“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”
This is where the rubber meets the road for Jesus.
This is how we are to live out our Christian identity.
And yes, it is meant to be lived—every minute of every day.
If we read further on in Luke Chapter 4, we will find that, right here, in His own hometown, that the very beginning of His ministry—the people to whom Jesus speaks and reveals Who He is: “got up and drove him out of town, and took him to the brow of a hill…in order to throw him off the cliff.”
Right from the beginning, Jesus was rejected.
Right from the beginning, those whom He came to save tried to put an end to Him.
This is only a couple months—at best—after His baptism by John.
Don’t be surprised if some folks—especially some religious folks don’t want to hear about Jesus loving the poor, freeing prisoners, and setting the oppressed free.
The religious people of Jesus time weren’t too keen on it either.
And I don’t want to condemn anyone.
I forget these things too.
I’m tempted to fall into the “rules and regulations” version of Christianity.
The Pharisaical version of our faith.
The judging; the rhetoric.
That’s why we have Jesus’ keynote address.
That’s why we need to return again and again to Luke Chapter 4 and measure the way we are living and our interpretation of what it means to follow Jesus to it.
Let’s not feel too bad.
Even John the Baptist didn’t expect Jesus to be Who He turned out to be.
For when John heard about all the “lovey dovey” stuff Jesus was doing He asked His disciples to go and ask Jesus if He was indeed the Christ or if they needed to wait for someone else.
And Jesus’ reply can be found in Luke Chapter 7:22: “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.
Blessed is the person that does not fall away because of me.”
Yes.
Lord may we be counted among those who do not fall away because of the abundant and radical grace and love of Jesus Christ—the Messiah, the Lord of Lords the King of Kings—God made flesh—the Savior of the world!
Amen.
