 For our last week of our four-part study, we see what Jesus was doing in His body so that we might learn how to "be for the world the body of Christ."
“Your Spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners." From the "A Service of Word and Table I," The United Methodist Hymnal, Copyright 1989, The United Methodist Publishing House, p. 9. Used by permission. Finally, we will look at the last three. To set at liberty those who are oppressed. This line, inserted from Isaiah 58, refers to persons who have been beaten down, shattered by society. People whose lives have been broken in such ways need more than an exit sign from the places of their brokenness. They need people who can help them remember or learn how to live free from the cycles of violence, trauma and pain they have experienced. Folks who work closely with victims of domestic violence indicate that the average number of stays in a shelter before finally leaving a violent home is seven. Folks who are aware of the prison system will tell you that recidivism -- a re-offense that lands people back in prison -- is more likely than not within the first year of release for people who have spent two years or more in prison. Persons returning from wars or any other extended, traumatic experience often have great difficulty learning how to live in "normal" life. What are we doing in our congregations, or as ministries of multiple congregations, to ensure that persons who are beaten down are not only free from their immediate situation of terror, but can learn to experience again what a life "in freedom" looks and feels like? And to announce that the time had come when you would save your people. This is a paraphrase of the biblical way of talking about the year of Jubilee -- the commandment that once every 50 years all land would revert to its former holders, all debts would be canceled, and all slaves would be set free. It was to be a "reboot" for the economic and social order. When Isaiah announced it as part of God's plan to restore the exiles to their homeland, this language made literal sense. In the day of Jesus, it may have been heard as another indication that God was about to overthrow the Roman overlordship and restore Judea to its own governance and economy. But for the ministry of Jesus, as we find it in Luke's gospel, the "reboot" would involve a new people, his disciples, who would be trained in seeing, living, and helping others experience the signs of God's "reboot," God's kingdom, active and working in the world. Such disciples would be (and were!) convinced that in and through Jesus God was out to bring salvation in all sorts of ways to all sorts of persons in all people groups on the planet. The communal sharing or mutual aid of early Christians, practices which continued long beyond the time recorded in the book of Acts, were one important indicator of the "restart" at work. In the early churches, the economic order was no longer to be based on the individual economic or social status of each member, but was understood as a commonwealth that ensured that all persons in the community had what was needed. Are you as a disciple committed to being part of God's "reboot?" Do you believe, and do you live on the basis that God in Jesus and through his body, the church, is out to bring salvation to all in countless ways? Is your congregation? What signs of "reboot" are alive in your congregation? in your community? He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners. Here is a brief statement of the practices of Jesus that revealed the kingdom of God at work most practically and most profoundly. Rather than staying away from or quarantining sick folks, Jesus drew near to them, attracted them, and extended them healing. Jesus himself made sure hungry folks were getting fed, even against the complaints of his own disciples that this simply could not be done. And most scandalous of all in his day, he ate with people that no self-respecting holy person would go near -- a sign of solidarity with folks that the "righteous" would usually shun. It is no accident that Christians invented the hospital and the profession of nursing, or that so many churches invest time and effort into food pantries and other efforts to feed the hungry. Perhaps the larger challenge of these three is whether and on what terms we will embody the kingdom by "eating with sinners." Whew! What a set of challenges we commit ourselves to when we're careful what we pray at Holy Communion! Surely, for all kinds of reasons, we cannot do all that, can we? If we're careful what we pray, we admit we can't do it all. But we also commit to do everything we can. And in what is God's and what is ours to do, we ask the Spirit to remake us through this sacrament into the body of Christ, one with him in ministry to the whole world. It is the goodness of our Lord Jesus that in feeding us at Table, he makes us one with him, and sends us into the world with everything we need, far more than we can ask or imagine, to embody him anew wherever we are. From the Table, to the world . . . and back again. This is the rhythm of our life, and our prayer. It is why we need constant communion. But it is also why we can do no less than offer our praise and thanksgiving at Table with faith, and love, and grateful joy.
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Picking up from last week, we see what Jesus was doing in His body so that we might learn how to "be for the world the body of Christ."
“Your Spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners." From the "A Service of Word and Table I," The United Methodist Hymnal, Copyright 1989, The United Methodist Publishing House, p. 9. Used by permission. This week we will look at the second and third. To proclaim release to the captives. In the original context of this prophecy in Isaiah, the captives were the people of Judah taken from their homeland and forced into exile in Babylon. "Release to the captives" meant something palpable -- a homecoming for exiles and prisoners of war. Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled in his day when Cyrus, the leader of the conquering Persian Empire, made it possible for many to return to their homeland. In the time of Jesus, many in Judea continued to experience their entire nation being in captivity to the Roman government, and before that to the Greeks, Seleucids and Persians. When Jesus declared that this prophecy is now fulfilled in their hearing, while some may have interpreted it broadly to mean deliverance from spiritual or other forms of captivity, others may have been looking to Jesus as the Cyrus for that day. But the message of Jesus about deliverance from captivity was not about earthly political regime change. The signs Jesus pointed to for God's deliverance were signs of a Lebanese woman being provided for in the midst of famine, and a Syrian army commander being healed from leprosy, both through Jewish prophets. In this context, deliverance from captivity appears to be much more about intentional initiatives to love and care for enemies -- much like the prophet Jeremiah's admonition to work for the welfare of the Babylonian cities in which the exiles of Judah would find themselves. If enemies become the object of love and care, captivity loses its power. In his book with Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens, Bishop William Willimon describes a conversation he had with students at Duke University about what a Christian response toward the people of Libya might have been at the time that President Reagan decided to bomb Muamar al Q'adafi's palace. He wrote: "A Christian response might be that tomorrow morning the United Methodist Church announces that it is sending a thousand missionaries to Libya. We have discovered that it is a fertile field for the gospel. We know how to send missionaries. Here is at least a traditional Christian response." "You can't do that," said my adversary. "Why?" I asked. "You tell me why." "Because it's illegal to travel in Libya. President Reagan will not give you a visa to go there." "No! That's not right," I said. "I'll admit that we can't go to Libya, but not because of President Reagan. We can't go there because we no longer have a church that produces people who can do something this bold. But we once did." (From Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, p. 48). How, then, practically might we embody what we pray at Eucharist, become the body of Christ that is bold enough to proclaim release to the captives? Certainly ministries of compassion to prisoners of all sorts are in view, as Wesley rightly required of the leadership in the Methodist Societies. But even more to the point will be for us, as congregations and as Christian denominations and systems, to begin to be clear about who our enemies are and offer multiple paths for ensuring that we are extending intentional care toward them. Currently, apart from groups like Christian Peacemaker Teams, I know of few examples of this kind of thinking or practice. And recovery of sight to the blind(ed): In the Septuagint version of Isaiah and the Gospel of Luke, the Greek text reads "to those who are blind the ability to see again." The Hebrew refers to "opening for the bound," which has often been translated "setting prisoners free," which would be in parallel with the previous line, simply adding prisoners to captives (political, military) as those for whom God is declaring new freedom. Threading between these two traditions -- Greek and Hebrew -- an alternate reading emerges: "opening the eyes of the blinded," that is, those who were made blind through bondage. Certainly, ministries of healing for literal blindness, a regular part of Jesus' own ministry, are part of what is intended here. But if the "threaded" reading I'm proposing is on track, another part of the embodiment of this text through the church will be that of helping the church and the world name the ways we live in blindness and the ways we have been blinded and seeking to overcome the blindness we discover. There are many forces that blind us to our calling to see the world through the lenses of God's kingdom -- materialism, racism, consumerism, the list goes on. We might consider adding a new phrase to our prayer of confession where we say "we have not heard the cry of the needy" now to read "we have not seen the plight or heard the cry of the needy." But if we are careful what we pray, we will do more than modify our prayers. We will be intentional about keeping the situation of the needy always before us and before the world -- not the way the news media do, by "leading" with the "bleeding," which only overwhelms and numbs, but by learning and educating ourselves and those around us about their lives and what keeps them (and us!) so blind and in such bondage that we remain unaware of, ignore, prevent, or even block pathways to improving their situation. This is the necessary work of learning, consciousness raising and advocacy that augments the work of programs and personal relationships described earlier, so that the voice of the needy is no longer only one among a thousand other voices and agendas that keep their voices unheard and their situation unseen. |
AuthorIn matters of faith, we at First United Methodist Church, Sealy put primary reliance on the Bible. In scripture, we understand that we are all God’s children; therefore, we will be a church that cares for the needs of our church and local community through prayer, deeds, inspiration, and love in the spirit of Christ. Archives
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