Sermon Seeds: Proclaim

Sunday, January 26, 2025
Third Sunday after Epiphany| Year C
(Liturgical Color: Green)

Lectionary Citations
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 • Psalm 19 • 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a • Luke 4:14-21
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=e&d=15&y=384

Focus Scripture: Luke 4:14-21
Focus Theme: Proclaim
Series: Posted Sentinels (Click here for the series overview.)

Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay

Most of us take active measures to avoid rejection. For some, that means not speaking up when the truth on our lips could be considered controversial. For others that translates into turning away from difficult circumstances. Others may be more proactive and change the way they present themselves to the world in order to fit in with the crowd. Rejection can be painful relationally, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, spiritually, and financially. In other words, rejection can impact every aspect of our being and our lives. Our very safety may be threatened by rejection.

Further, rejection often extends beyond individuals to entire categories or groups of people. Systemic oppression serves as an extreme form of rejection that targets immigrants, trans folx, and disabled persons among others in contemporary times. Rejection coupled with power leads to indifference to human suffering, invasion of enemy territories, and isolation of thoughts and ideas. Overcoming rejection, then, requires courage and conviction, purpose and plan, strength and strategy. For some, that takes the work of a lifetime when faced with the pervasiveness of supremacist systems that devalue human lives. Others may only encounter rejection situationally. Where does Jesus fall in this continuum?

The biblical narrative illustrates rejection as a common response of humans to the Holy One. From rejecting the abundance of creation in order to taste the scarcity of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to the building of a golden calf to ignoring the warnings of the prophets to this encounter with Jesus teaching in the synagogue and beyond, the people of God demonstrate that they want to relate to the Holy One on their own terms. They want to be god and choose what is right and good. Humans, not content with being crafted in the divine image, crave power and control while resisting righteous authority and faithful accountability. Jesus, as prophet, continues the tradition of being rejected. Jesus, as God, enters into a realm replete with human rejection of the divine. The Word became flesh and dwelt among those consistently intent and successful at turning from the love, way, and kindom of God.

For Jesus, rejection remained a consistent companion, and Jesus lives as a solid ally to the rejected. The poor, captive, blind, and oppressed are his priority, which he proclaims using the words of the prophet Isaiah:

[Luke] uses Jesus’ rejection at Nazareth to set the stage for the rest of his two-volume work. In order to shape Mark’s story for his purposes, Luke significantly expands it. Mark’s account is quite simple. He reports that Jesus taught in his hometown synagogue, astonishing and then offending his friends and neighbors. They cannot believe the power and wisdom of the carpenter’s son. Jesus’ response: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house” (Mark 6:4). This saying has an obvious utility for Luke. What better way to portray a rejected prophet than in a story about rejection in his own hometown—a story with a line about dishonored prophets? And what better way to explain why he was rejected than to fill in a few details? Luke therefore adds Jesus’ sermon text and sermon. He then explains exactly what Jesus said to offend the congregation. The sermon text is Isa. 61:1-2, conflated with a line from Isa. 58:6: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 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. (Luke 4:18-19) This prophecy states everything Luke wants to convey about Jesus’ mission. The Holy Spirit rests on Jesus. God has “anointed Jesus, making him the Messiah, the Christ. What is more, the anointing has a purpose: a mission to those in need. Isaiah has said it all. Luke’s Jesus needs only to add, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).
Jocelyn McWhirter

To be clear, it is not just the person of Jesus that gets rejected; the message threatens the systems of power and calls the people to choose. Will they also follow the leading of the Spirit? Will they recognize that the good news is primarily for those in need of good news not those who are cloaked in comfort and privilege? The objects in Jesus’ declaration matter and should not be interchanged with those who do not share their oppressive state. Too often, in reading biblical narratives, Christians place themselves in the role of those who receive the favor of God, regardless of similarity or dissimilarity of circumstance. While empathy is always warranted, displacement and appropriation of marginalized identities cheapens, demeans, and distorts the gospel and changes it from good news to a harmful fantasy that supports the very supremacist systems that Jesus equips and calls followers to disrupt and dismantle.

The gospel reading cuts the passage short. If we only read these words, we would fail to witness the rejection of the message and the messenger. The story is incomplete, yet it calls us to attend to the proclamation itself, which was not only a good word for the day, but the message of Jesus’ life and ministry.

Interpreters often call Jesus’ proclamation in Nazareth his inaugural sermon, but the preceding summary (4:14–15) shows that it is an instance of his ministry already underway. The incident has four foci. Jesus reads Isaiah, announces a word-event that occurs when the congregants hear the reading, implicates himself in this word-event, and provokes a response. Luke’s audience would hardly have understood God’s sending Jesus as one anointed with the Spirit in terms of a developed Christology. With thematic emphasis on the Spirit (annunciation, baptism, temptation), they would have heard that where God’s Spirit is, God’s favor is manifest, like the Jubilee Year. The poor who receive good news are the bottom 90 percent, dominated by elites in a two-tiered system. Their social status is that of Rome’s vanquished victims. Concretely, debts are annulled, debtors are released from prison, blindness is overcome, brokenness is mended. Jesus assumes the power of God’s Spirit in his ministry. This is what God’s commonwealth is (4:43).
Robert L. Brawley

And this is the ministry of the body of Christ. Good news is found in participating in the liberation and flourishing of those who have lacked the favor of the world. This is salvation as the kindom of God is realized on earth as in heaven. The good news is communal, restorative, and generous. In the synagogue that day, the listeners were amazed…almost as if they had not heard this message before.

Perhaps, they heard it anew…with new emphasis and impact. Perhaps, the people in that room who had grown accustomed to the idea of waiting for their Messiah were surprised as the reminder that they were not the ones the Chosen One would come to save. Those who expected a conquering king did not look forward to a compassionate companion. Yet, before self-righteousness overtakes our evaluation of the audience in Nazareth, we might look at the priorities of our own faith communities.

Have we become preoccupied with our own salvation? Has the maintenance of our structures become the focus of our communal energy and efforts? Has the survival of the church, as we know it, superseded the condition of our neighbor as our primary concern? Do we bring good news to the oppress, freedom to the bound, and accessibility to the disabled? What do we proclaim…with our words, our worship, and our witness?

Luke’s prophets recall the church to Jesus’ mission—a mission to bring good news to the poor; to heal the blind, the lame, the lepers, and the deaf; to raise the dead; to seek out and to save the lost; to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations. Clothed with power from on high, Jesus’ emissaries need no money or extra tunics. They need no barns full of grain and goods, no purple clothing or fine linen or sumptuous feasts. They have Moses and the prophets, including the prophet whom God raised from the dead. Let the church listen to them.
Jocelyn McWhirter

Let the church, in spirit and in truth, in witness and through worship, in season and out of season, proclaim this good news. Amen.

Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.
The man who walked in seemed even more nervous than I was. He glanced at me, his face screwed up in a worried wince, and he quickly averted his gaze when I looked back. He didn’t move far from the room’s entrance, as if he didn’t really want to enter the visitation room. He was a young, neatly groomed African American man with short hair—clean-shaven, medium frame and build—wearing bright, clean prison whites. He looked immediately familiar to me, like everyone I’d grown up with, friends from school, people I played sports or music with, someone I’d talk to on the street about the weather. The guard slowly unchained him, removing his handcuffs and the shackles around his ankles, and then locked eyes with me and told me I had one hour. The officer seemed to sense that both the prisoner and I were nervous and to take some pleasure in our discomfort, grinning at me before turning on his heel and leaving the room. The metal door banged loudly behind him and reverberated through the small space.
The condemned man didn’t come any closer, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I walked over and offered him my hand. He shook it cautiously. We sat down and he spoke first.
“I’m Henry,” he said.
“I’m very sorry” were the first words I blurted out. Despite all my preparations and rehearsed remarks, I couldn’t stop myself from apologizing repeatedly….
The man looked at me worriedly. “Is everything all right with my case?” “Oh, yes, sir. The lawyers at SPDC sent me down to tell you that they don’t have a lawyer yet….I mean, we don’t have a lawyer for you yet, but you’re not at risk of execution anytime in the next year….We’re working on finding you a lawyer, a real lawyer, and we hope the lawyer will be down to see you in the next few months. I’m just a law student. I’m really happy to help, I mean, if there’s something I can do.”
The man interrupted my chatter by quickly grabbing my hands.
“I’m not going to have an execution date anytime in the next year?”
“No, sir. They said it would be at least a year before you get an execution date.” Those words didn’t sound very comforting to me. But Henry just squeezed my hands tighter and tighter.
“Thank you, man. I mean, really, thank you! This is great news.” His shoulders unhunched, and he looked at me with intense relief in his eyes.
“You are the first person I’ve met in over two years after coming to death row who is not another death row prisoner or a death row guard. I’m so glad you’re here, and I’m so glad to get this news.”
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

For Further Reflection
“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” — Judith Lewis Herman
“Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.” — Catherine of Siena
“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” — James Branch Cabell

Works Cited
Brawley, Robert L. “Luke.” Gale A. Yee, Ed. Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.
McWhirter, Jocelyn. Rejected Prophets: Jesus and His Witnesses in Luke-Acts. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013.

Suggested Congregational Response to the Reflection
Conduct a ministry inventory and resource allocation to determine your faith community’s demonstrated ministry priorities, determine how that aligns with your mission and vision, and consider what new initiatives the Spirit may be calling you to engage.

Worship Ways Liturgical Resources
https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/after-epiphany-3c-january-26/

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

A Bible study version of this reflection is at Weekly Seeds.