Now is the Time A Sermon preached by the Rev. Deana Dudley At Christos MCC, Toronto, ON and Holy Fellowship MCC, London, ON January 25, 2004 Scripture: Luke 4:14-21

How many of you are over thirty? How many under thirty? Twenty nine with experience? I was trying to think how our age might affect how we interpret this scripture. See... who we are, our experiences, our social location, can affect how we understand the Bible. Let’s see how...

What do you think people saw and heard when Jesus got up to speak? For one thing, they may have seen him as well, kind of an old guy. Does that surprise you? Anybody remember the sixties? (If you remember the sixties, you better have had your hand up when I asked who was over thirty!) Remember the phrase, never trust anybody over thirty? Well thirty isn’t REALLY considered old nowadays – at least not by those of us who are forty-something – but in Jesus’ day, thirty was a good bit longer than most people lived. I’m told the average life expectancy in Jesus’ time was about twenty to twenty five because of the high number of infant and childhood deaths. And because violence and harsh living conditions were the realities of the day, uprisings and stonings and crucifixions weren’t at all uncommon. Not to mention all the women who died in childbirth. And let’s not even talk about health care, and proper, modern sanitation, and all that.

So what does that mean for us? How does it affect the way we understand the gospel lesson? What it means is, that when Jesus began his ministry in Galilee, he really was considered an older man. Frankly, nobody expected much of him at that point. because, according to the conventional wisdom, he’d already out-lived his most productive years. He was a has been. Washed up.

But what this scripture tells us is that God had other plans in mind, and Jesus knew the time for doing God’s will was now. He knew that what the world thinks of us, doesn’t matter, when God has called us into ministry. And God has. So my first thought today is that we need to understand that even when we might think, according to the world’s standards, that we’re washed up, or that God has nothing more in store for us, God just may. God always has a future story for us. And sometimes our biggest limitation is our own doubt that God is calling US to proclaim the good news. TODAY. This day, the scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. It was fulfilled in Jesus, but it’s will also be fulfilled in us. Now is the time.

And what IS the good news that we’re to proclaim? Well, Jesus claims good news that was proclaimed to God’s people by the prophet Isaiah, several hundred years earlier. And that good news was this: "God has anointed me 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 God’s favour."

Now, we can overly spiritualize this lesson. But I will note that Jesus didn’t. The ministry that he embarked on immediately following this message was one in which he worked, literally, to take good news to the poor, free people from oppression, give sight to the blind, and proclaim God’s reign on earth. He basically declared that to be his mission on earth, and then he lived it, and died for it. And came through death so that we too might live a ministry of God’s love and justice in our time.

I think this was exactly what Jesus was doing. He declared his mission in the synagogue that morning. It was a mission of love and justice. He recognized the tremendous "systematic-injustice" in the world in which he lived where a minority of rich lived off the exploitation of the poor majority and he had compassion and was compelled to do something about it.

And it was a radical mission. As Jesus lived out his mission in the world his most biting criticisms were against the rich and powerful and his most heart-filled compassion was expressed in word and deed for the poor and the oppressed. He showed a God-like love for all people, and through his teaching and healing demonstrated that people and situations CAN change for the better. He initiated a movement in which radical inclusiveness was an integral part. He ate with the marginalized and outcasts. He declared the time of God’s favour was at hand, the reign of God was at hand, and it was about shared bread and inclusivity. That’s why we in Metropolitan Community Churches worldwide practice an open communion.

Now, anyone, in any time, who speaks and works against any system in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer are bound to be opposed by those who are getting richer at the expense of those who are getting poorer. And so in declaring his mission and living it.... he pretty much guaranteed that he’d die for it, too. But we’re here to carry that mission on.

Many folks have sought to follow Jesus by working to relieve misery, not only by acts of kindness but by trying to change the political and economic systems that produce the misery in the first place. (NOTE TO MOM.... this was the point at which the church cat, Moriarty, interrupted my sermon by walking up the aisle and hacking up a hairball. I’m not sure what that means.) Historically, Christians who have taken this calling to heart have been at the forefront in the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, workers rights, civil rights, peace, gender equality, environmental protection, and economic justice. I’m proud of the work that this church is doing, in small ways, to live out that kind of ministry. I pray that in future days, we will be emboldened by a vision of more and more ways in which we can do this.

And I admit, it’s not always easy to live that way. Some of you know that I get a lot of my best theology from watching "The Simpsons." Do y’all know The Simpsons? This is Rev. Lovejoy, the minister at the Simpsons’ church. I try not to model my ministry on his.

But I’m furthering my theological studies with a new book, The Gospel According to the Simpsons. And this book points out that, in the Simpson family, Lisa is considered to represent the sort of person who tries to live like this.

There’s a chapter entitled Does Lisa Speak for Jesus? and in it, the author, Mark Pinsky, points out that it’s Lisa who seems to have the strongest commitment to this radical kind of social gospel. There are a whole lot of episodes where she’s the one who supports the poor and downtrodden and is critical of the rich, as portrayed by the town’s richest old geezer, Montgomery Burns.

Lisa often questions the conventional wisdom, regardless of how unpopular such questioning might be. On the Simpsons’ website, under Lisa’s official biography, it says "Lisa wants everyone to know that she is a vegetarian and that if she could have one thing (besides world peace), it would be a pony." Note that world peace comes first for her. She believes in the stewardship of the earth and resources, and she takes pity on scorned individuals, offering friendship to the unpopular kids on the playground, and it’s not easy. She’s a total mystery to the rest of the family. Homer says, "There's something wrong with that kid. She's so moral."

The evangelical writer Tony Campolo wrote the forward to the book, and he writes about Lisa and says: "True religion for her is in the prophetic tradition that declares "What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6.8)" You might say that Lisa, like Jesus, declared her mission (which was his mission), and tries to live it, regardless of the consequences.

So any questions about our mission? Like maybe, how we live it out?

Well, Robert Fulghum is one of my favourite writers. He wrote such classics as "Everything I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten," and this one – "It Was On Fire When I Lay Down on It." And he tells a story in that latter book, that I think sums up our mission, in better words than I have, so I’m going to close by reading to you from what he says.

He writes, ""Are There Any Questions?" is an offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings.

Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there’s no time left anyhow. At times like that you sure do have questions. Like "Can we leave now?" and "What the hell was this meeting for?" and "Where can I get a drink?" The gesture’s supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool -- some earnest idiot -- always asks. And the speaker always answers. By repeating most of what he’s already said.

"But if there is a little time left and a little silence in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the meaning of life?" You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask, it's usually taken as a kind of absurd move -- people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting ends on that ridiculous note. Once, and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer. One that is with me still."

And Fulghum writes that got his answer from a man named Alexander Papderos, who ran an institute for peace studies in Crete, where as a child, he had experienced the horrors of war. At the end of a two week seminar, Papaderos concluded his lecture with the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?"

And Fulghum said "Quiet quilted the room.... "No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes. So I asked. "Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?" The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was. "I will answer your question." he said.

"Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this: "When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine -- in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.

""I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light -- truth, understanding, knowledge -- is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

"‘I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world -- into the [shadowed] places in the hearts of [human beings] -- and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."

"And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face....."

God has anointed us 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 God’s favour.... To reflect a little light. Any questions?

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