Jesus attended the Sabbath service at his home synagogue in Nazareth, as he always did when he was home, and stood up when the time came for the Scripture. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” said Jesus, “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.” Then he sat down, and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
It has what? Has something happened in Jerusalem? Has Herod declared a general amnesty? Are the Romans sending their troops home? What’s going on? What are you trying to tell us? What’s the good news?
“I’m the good news,” I can imagine Jesus saying. “I’m here.”
“You’re the news? Jesus bar Joseph, we’ve known you since you were weaned. You’re a carpenter, not a prophet! You’re not even a proper rabbi, no matter what you sound like. The only news is that you’ve gotten too big for your britches! Settle down to the carpentry business with your brothers and quit giving yourself airs!”
And later, “Mary, can’t you talk some sense into your boy? We don’t want to be too hard-nosed about it, but if he’s going to spout - well to be polite, we’ll just call it foolishness - during Sabbath worship, the elders are just going to have to bar him from speaking. He may be able to flimflam folks who haven’t known him since he was a pup, but we knew him before his voice changed!”
The best news the world has ever known, and they couldn’t hear it. They couldn’t hear it, because they thought they already knew. Sure they knew Jesus! They’d grown up with him, hadn’t they? What were all those folks down in Capernaum getting so excited about?
And in our country, people by and large think they know Jesus, too. Or at least that they know about him, what he taught, what he stands for. They grew up with Santa Claus and Christmas carols and the baby in the manger; a lot of them actually went to Sunday School when they kids. Some of them still do, having formed the impression that Christianity is about being nice and doing good, and they believe in being nice and doing good. And there are worse things, I suppose. But it’s not life-changing, is it. It’s hardly worth getting up on Sunday morning for, if that’s all there is to it.
But of course that’s not all there is to it. Christianity would hardly have lasted 2,000 years if that were so, and people certainly wouldn’t still be saying “Jesus Christ!” at unexpected moments if he were only “a good, moral teacher.” Christianity is a radical, troubling, mind-blowing, revolutionary way of looking at the world. It wouldn’t be strange, would it, if many people understood and disliked Christianity on its merits. It is far more remarkable to discover how many people there are who reject Christianity without having the faintest notion what it is.
Some years ago the British writer Dorothy Sayers (whom you may know for the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries) wrote what she described as a short examination paper (both questions and answers) showing what she believed most people thought about the Christian religion:
Q: What does the Church think of God the Father?
A: He is omnipotent and holy. He created the world and imposed on mankind conditions impossible to fulfill; he is very angry if these are not carried out. He sometimes interferes in an arbitrary way with judgments and miracles, distributed with a good deal of favoritism. He likes toadies and apple-polishers, and is always ready to jump on anybody who trips up on the fine print or is having a bit of fun. He is rather like a dictator, only larger and more arbitrary.
Q. What does the Church think of God the Son?
A. He is in some way to be identified with Jesus of Nazareth. It was not his fault that the world was made like this, and unlike God the Father, he is friendly to humans and did his best to reconcile us to God. He has a good deal of influence with God, and if you want anything done, it’s best to go to him.
Q. What does the Church think of God the Holy Ghost?
A: I don’t know exactly. He was never seen or heart of until Pentecost. There is a sin against him that damns you forever, but nobody knows what it is.
Q. What is the doctrine of the Trinity?
A. “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.” Something made up by theologians to make it more difficult - nothing to do with daily life or ethics.
Q: What was Jesus Christ like in real life?
A: He was a good man. He was meek and mild and preached a simple religion of love and pacifism. He had no sense of humor. If we try to live like him God the Father will let us off being damned hereafter and only have us tortured in this life instead.
Q: What does the church think of sex?
A: God made it necessary to the machinery of the world, and tolerates it, provided that parties are (a) married and (b) get no pleasure out of it.
Q: What does the church call sin?
A: Sex (except as noted above); getting drunk; saying “damn;” murder; not going to church; most kinds of amusements. “Original sin” means that everything we enjoy doing is wrong.
Q: What is faith?
A: Resolutely shutting your eyes to scientific fact.
Q: What is the human intellect?
A: A barrier to faith.
Q: What are the 7 cardinal virtues?
A: Respectability, childishness, mental timidity, dullness, sentimentality, self-righteous¬ness and hypocrisy.
Q: Do you want to become one of Jesus’ followers?
A: Not a chance!
It is what people think they know about Jesus that is the barrier. Like the people in his home town, those who think they know the most about him often know the least. They see what they grew up with, or what they have heard from others, and rarely open their eyes to the reality that is before them.
The real news was happening all around them, in Capernaum, in Bethsaida, in Tiberias and Magdala, but they couldn’t see it. It is happening now, too, all around the world: in Korea, in East Timor, in Nigeria and Brazil and Romania. Even in China and Afghanistan. Our leaders credit all the changes for good in the world to “democracy” and “market economics;” but what’s so surprising about that? The Jesus so many of them think they know can’t possibly be powerful enough to have had anything to do with it! Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, can’t possibly be dangerous enough for governments to seek out his followers, to imprison and to kill.
But that is indeed happening where people haven’t been vaccinated against the real thing with repeated doses of a watered-down message. Because the Gospel is not only good news, it is the best news that has ever been told. And it is still new.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” said Jesus, “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.”
Today is the year of the Lord’s favor. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing. Today is the day for the good news of Jesus Christ to be preached to the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed. And most people - even our friends and neighbors - still haven’t heard the news. Isn’t it time to tell them?
