Empty (Luke 4: 1-13)

 The 40-day season of Lent draws its structure from several stories in scripture.. 

The main story that Lent is structured after is the one we just heard: the story of Jesus in the wilderness. 

For forty days, Jesus was in the wilderness, where he faced temptation, fasted, and drew upon the strength of God’s Spirit to sustain him when his mind and body were weak. The 40 days of Lent are meant as a reminder of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness.

But there is also the story of the Exodus, when Moses led God’s people on a journey to the promised land. That also took place in the wilderness; and the number 40 also plays into it, since the book of Exodus says that they wandered in the wilderness for forty years.

And the days of Lent are often thought of as a journey.

There are also echoes of Noah’s time on the ark. God sent rain upon the earth, rain that lasted for 40 days. Drifting across the waters in the ark, Noah and his family were in a wilderness, of sorts, an empty place, a wild place, though their wilderness was a wilderness on water rather than on land.

It was also in the wilderness that Elijah encountered God’s still small voice. In the book of 1 Kings, Elijah is in the wilderness. He was on the run; people were after him. He journeyed into the wilderness, going as far as he could, as fast as he could, until he collapsed under a solitary broom tree, ready to die.

But that’s when God appeared, first in the form of an angel, who encouraged him to eat. The angel said to Elijah: “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you… Get up and eat, so that you may have the strength you need.”

…Which brings to mind the manna that God provided to Moses and his people while they journeyed through the wilderness.

After eating, Elijah journeyed further into the wilderness. Any guesses how long he journeyed? 

Forty days!

And then there was a great wind, hurling like a tornado across the prairie; but God was not in the wind.

Then there was an earthquake, stronger than any I ever felt back in California; and then, a fire; and after that, the sound of sheer silence.

And it was in that sound of sheer silence, that emptiness, that the Lord appeared.

In the silence, the emptiness, of that wilderness, the Lord appeared, and Elijah received the strength and the assurance he needed.

There are other wilderness stories. In the wilderness Hagar pleaded with God on behalf of her son Ishmael. In the wilderness John the Baptist proclaimed his message of repentance. 

So many stories of the wilderness…

And every year, on the first Sunday of Lent, the gospel reading from the lectionary is the story of Jesus in the wilderness, praying, fasting, facing temptation.

And you may be wondering: Why?

Why the wilderness?

In the wilderness one becomes disoriented and bewildered. It’s a place of questions, not answers. It’s a place to get lost, not found. 

At our Ash Wednesday worship service, I did feel a little disorientation, as people came forward, and I placed ashes on their foreheads. I found it hard to wrap my head around the significance, the meaning, of it all, even though I’ve been leading Ash Wednesday services for quite a few years now. And I felt so very humbled that I was the one who was administering these ashes.

☀ Afterward, I wondered if we shouldn’t consider ashes to be a sacrament. In Disciples history and tradition, there are two acts that are considered sacraments: Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. 

Actually, our early founders called them ordinances; they didn’t much like the word sacrament. 

Nevertheless, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are visible signs of God’s grace, which is why they are called sacraments. Sacraments are visible signs of God’s grace. God’s grace is invisible, abstract, but in the sacraments, it appears to us as something real and concrete: Bread. Wine. Baptismal water.

But aren’t the ashes we receive on Ash Wednesday similar? 

I did a little research. According to Catholics, the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday is a “Sacramental,” not a “Sacrament.” The main difference between a “sacramental” and a “sacrament,” according to the Catholic church, is that anyone can receive a “sacramental,” but only church members can receive a “sacrament.”

Well, for Disciples like us, anyone can receive the Lord’s Supper; you don’t have to be a church member. All are welcome. The table is open. 

So in our context, I’m still not sure why we can’t consider ashes to be a sacrament. Or an ordinance. 

With any sacrament—communion, baptism, ashes—I always feel as if I’m only understanding a part of the whole. Every sacrament is a sign of God’s grace and mercy and love, and who can fully understand the full extent of God’s grace and mercy and love?

In the letter to the Ephesians, we are encouraged “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” [3.19]. But how does one know something that is beyond knowledge?

Think about that for a second…

In the book of Proverbs, it says: “Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock; the way of a ship on the high seas; and the way of a man with a young woman” [30.18-19].

I think of the sacraments like that: as too wonderful for me to understand. 

I think of God’s grace and mercy and love like that: as too wonderful for me to understand fully.

But it is something to think about, to ponder, to meditate on night and day. Because there is more there than we can ever fully understand, we can meditate on it endlessly, for the rest of our lives, and never come to the end. It’s a never ending journey of wonder.

And the season of Lent gives me a great opportunity to do just that, to focus on the grace, mercy, and love that is too great for me to understand.

☀ Many people like to give things up for Lent. At the dinner before our Ash Wednesday service, that was one of the topics talked about at the table where I was sitting.

Ideally, what we give up makes space in our lives for God. And what we give up makes space in our lives for meditation and prayer. 

Too often, God gets crowded out of our lives. Give something up that gets in the way of God, so that God has space to enter into your life.

I think my first exposure to this idea was when I was a child, and I heard my maternal grandmother, who was Catholic, talk about not eating meat during Lent, at least on Fridays. It was to remind her of Christ’s sacrifice, she said. 

So her giving up meat on Fridays during Lent helped her make space in her life for God.

This was new to me. I’ve been part of the Disciples of Christ my whole life, and grew up going to a Disciples church with my parents and my paternal grandparents. And like other Protestants, we Disciples didn’t pay much attention to Lent, or Ash Wednesday, not until the past couple of decades.

But I always admired the deep faith and devotion of my maternal grandmother, my Catholic grandmother, and admired the way she made space for God in her life, especially during Lent.

And the wilderness experience of so many characters in the Bible helped them make space in their lives for God. A wilderness experience is an emptying experience. The things that distract us from God are no longer there, and we’re left alone with God, and left alone with our own thoughts, our own emotions, and our own temptations.

It’s very hard to set aside our distractions. For many, our cell phones are an example of this. It’s hard to set them aside, even when doing so for a period of time is good for us. We want access to the information they provide, every moment of every day. We feel an emptiness without them.

We don't like the emptiness of the wilderness. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do we. Our minds crave constant stimulation.

Why don’t we like the emptiness? Because in the emptiness, we might have to face the pain, the brokenness within. We might have to face our DEMONS. We might have to deal with the grief or loneliness we feel.

In the emptiness, in the silence, things get REAL. Too real, for a lot of people.

But if we don’t spend time with grief, we’ll never heal from the grief. If we don’t spend time in our depression, we’ll never identify what in our life might be causing the depression. If we don’t spend time with our temptations, we’ll never be able to recognize them, or resist them.

One has to spend some time alone to figure out what those demons are, what deep darkness or sadness dwells within, that has been ignored for far too long. 

You might have to spend time alone to identify them,...

And that’s scary.

But you don’t have to make that journey alone. There is strength for you on the journey to healing and wholeness…

After Jesus met his demons, angels came and ministered to him (Luke leaves that out, but it’s in Matthew, and it’s in Mark). 

After Elijah was ready to give up in the wilderness, an angel came to him as well, and gave him something to eat.

It was just what he needed.

And God was with Noah, and God was with Hagar, and God was with all those who found themselves journeying through the wilderness.

Our journey may lead us through the wilderness. Our journey may lead us to confront our fears, our pain, our loneliness, and our temptations.

But there is strength for the journey. There is bread for the journey. There is manna. There is sustenance. So even when the journey is hard, God will give you the stamina you need to endure it. God journeys with you. You are not alone.

Year of the Lord's Favor (Luke 4:14-21)

 So. This is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. He’s in Nazareth, his hometown, introducing to the world what his ministry is all about—what he is all about.

He does this by taking a statement from the prophet Isaiah, and making it his mission statement.

This, he says, is the messiah’s mission:

“To bring good news to the poor; 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.”

What is “the year of the Lord’s favor?” Isaiah explains a little more…

Isaiah says that the year of the Lord’s favor is “a day of vindication for our God, to comfort all who mourn; to provide for Zion’s mourners; to give them a crown in place of ashes, oil of joy in place of mourning, a mantle of praise in place of discouragement.”

Isaiah says “they will be called Oaks of Righteousness, planted by the Lord to glorify himself. They will rebuild the ancient ruins; they will restore formerly deserted places; they will renew ruined cities, places deserted in generations past.”

Isaiah is talking about life after captivity and exile, when God’s people would return to Israel and would be able to rebuild, restore, and renew their nation. It would be (Isaiah says) the year of the Lord’s favor.

But that phrase, “the year of the Lord’s favor,” draws on an even earlier idea present in the Torah. In Leviticus, the year of the Lord’s favor is called the year of Jubilee.

So Jesus’ statement draws on the wisdom of the prophet and the wisdom of the Torah. Jesus quotes Isaiah, and Isaiah has in mind the idea of Jubilee from Leviticus, so all these scriptures are connected. By studying Leviticus and Isaiah, we better understand Jesus.

According to Leviticus, the “year of the Lord’s favor,” the year of Jubilee, is supposed to happen once every 50 years. 

In Leviticus 25:10, it says: “You will make the fiftieth year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants… each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family.” This command is repeated in verse 13: “each of you must return to your family property in this year of Jubilee.”

So the year of the Lord’s favor is a year of freedom. It is a year of returning people to their land, and returning land to the people. It is a year when all debts are forgiven, and all captives are set free.

And, according to the scholars and historians, it is something that was never actually practiced. It is a vision for the world that is, perhaps, too idealistic.

Yet when Jesus reads this passage from the scroll of Isaiah, in the synagogue in Nazareth, the crowd listens, intently. They long for their debts to be forgiven, they long for the return of their property, they long for this vision to become a reality. 

So, when Jesus says “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” it’s what they’ve been waiting to hear. It’s what they have been longing to hear. It’s what generation after generation has been longing to hear! 

The people are amazed. They all speak well of Jesus. They cheer, and—with tears in their eyes—say to one another, “That’s Joseph’s boy! From right here in Nazareth! We’re so proud!”

And that would be a great ending to the story, a wonderfully happy ending… 

…except that, a few verses later, after a few more words by Jesus, the crowd turns against Jesus. 

I think the people who put the lectionary together thought that the crowd’s sudden shift from praise and adoration to anger and rage involved too much emotional whiplash for one Sunday, so they separated that part and assigned it to next Sunday. But I’m going to talk about it today.

The people become filled with rage; so much so, that they grab Jesus, and drag him out to the edge of town where there was a cliff, and they try to throw him off the cliff, except that, somehow, Jesus gets away from them, and manages to escape.

What happened? Why do they get so angry?

According to the scripture, Jesus explains to the people that these promises of God and the year of Jubilee aren’t just for the people of Israel. They are for all God’s children.

This includes those who were from other nations and cultures. Those living in other lands, and those living among the Jews who were not Jews themselves, but foreigners and immigrants.

In Leviticus 25, when it talks about the year of Jubilee, it mentions that immigrants were to be cared for as if they were citizens. Leviticus is very clear about that. And Jesus is very clear that his message is also for all people, including those who are not a part of Israel.

But that is not something the people want to hear. Many of them see immigrants, foreigners, and anyone who is different from them as a threat. They don’t want to show any compassion to the foreigners among them.

That’s one reason they turn against Jesus.

And perhaps there are a few among them, in that crowd, who also realize what it really means to forgive debts and return land. Especially those who are of the privileged few who actually own their own land; what is this going to mean for them?

Perhaps they start to realize that this year of Jubilee talk—this “year of the Lord’s favor” nonsense—doesn’t really sound like “good news” to them. 

So they quickly rile up the crowd against Jesus.

Because they realize that the year of Jubilee, or, the Year of the Lord’s Favor, is God’s plan to limit injustice, which is another way of saying, take away the privileges they enjoy. 

So why is this a part of God’s vision for the world? It’s a part of God’s vision for the world, because God knows that a society where the rich take advantage of the poor to continually add to their own wealth, while the poor have what little they own taken from them, leads to a more unjust and unstable society. It leads the world away from God’s vision of shalom.

The year of Jubilee is meant to keep things a little more balanced. A little more just.

The year of Jubilee is designed to restore justice to the land; to ensure that no one lives in poverty; to ensure that everyone has enough to eat, and is able to make a decent living.

Because God truly does care about the welfare of every single person. And when some are so economically oppressed that they are stuck in poverty, God is filled with compassion for them. 

There are over 2,000 verses in the Bible about caring for the poor. There’s one just a few verses before today’s reading, in Luke, chapter 3, when Jesus tells his followers: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none.”

When unjust practices and policies lead to things becoming so unbalanced that some are starving while others are feasting, it’s time for a reset. It’s time to rebuild, restore, and renew. That’s what all this is all about.

Even the Lord’s Prayer, which we pray every week, is a Jubilee prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” because in God’s kingdom, no one should go hungry. No one should be so poor as to not be able to afford food to eat. We pray that we all may have enough. 

I suppose that if, every day, you receive a week’s worth of bread, then praying for your daily bread means praying for less bread than you have now.

And in the Lord’s prayer, we pray, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” 

Growing up, when I first learned this prayer, I assumed that these words were being used to mean something else, the way grown-ups often say one thing and mean something else. So I was surprised when I learned that Jesus was, in fact, talking about forgiving actual, monetary debts. As the year of Jubilee commands.

And that might be another reason why the people of Nazareth get so upset. They don’t like this message. Especially when it is applied to other people.

Later in Luke’s gospel, we meet a rich ruler who hears this same message from Jesus. He asks Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 

Jesus ends up telling him to “sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

But when the ruler hears this, he becomes sad, for he is very rich. 

Then Jesus says, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

The year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor, the time when the poor have good news proclaimed to them, when freedom is restored… 

To the crowd, it all sounded so good, at first… until they realized what it actually meant… until they understood that Jesus really does demand that we make some life-altering choices, on behalf of those who are the meek, the poor, the least-of-these.

This week, a lot of people got upset at the bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, because of what she said at the inaugural prayer service. Bishop Budde invited the president to show mercy to those who are vulnerable and scared in our country right now. Her message was consistent with Jesus’ vision, and the vision of the prophets, and the calls for Jubilee.

But so many do not want God’s mercy to be shown to those who are not “one of us.” And they accused Bishop Budde of perverting the gospel. She’s even received death threats. 

Yet showing compassion and mercy to those who are scared, to those who are vulnerable, to those who are poor, to those who feel threatened—to “the least of these”---according to Jesus, this is what it’s all about. This is his mission. It’s the message he was anointed to proclaim by the Spirit.

But the crowds didn’t like it. And they wanted to throw him off the cliff. 

And it’s why they eventually killed the prophets, and crucified Christ; because asking those with power and wealth to show mercy and compassion is sometimes too much. 

And when the prophets are killed and when the messiah is crucified, it becomes so hard to have hope.

Which is exactly what those who abuse their power want. They want the people to lose hope. They want the people to give up the fight, the pursuit for justice, and just quietly accept their rule and their control.

But we know that even when death comes to the prophet, it is not the end. The prophetic vision endures. 

And when death comes to the messiah, it is not the end, because crucifixion is followed by resurrection. And the year of the Lord’s favor will still be proclaimed, and shouts of jubilee will still ring out… 

Because God is the God of compassion, and compassion will prevail. God is the God of justice, and justice will reign. God is the God of love, and love will not rest until it accomplishes its purpose and sets things right.

And love will do this, because it is the greatest of all powers, and no power will ever overcome love in the end. Not injustice, not racism, not prejudice, not homophobia, not transphobia, not corruption, not death, not anything else in all creation, will separate us from God’s all-powerful love. 

No matter how many times they try to kill the prophets or crucify the messiah, God’s love will never fail. And God’s vision of shalom will never die.