MOVE OUT!

Psalm 146

Luke 4:14-30

Stephen A. Hamilton Wright

First Presbyterian Church, Wausau, Wisconsin                             Worship on the Lawn              June 6, 2010

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              This is going to be a short sermon.  This is a short sermon—we are outdoors where it’s hard to hear, and we have a whole lot happening today.  More important, the first sermon preached by Jesus Himself was very short.  Too bad more preachers through history haven’t followed that example, right?  You’ve just heard what Jesus said.  He went to his home town synagogue and read those famous verses from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and the year of jubilee.”  Then He said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  That’s quite a start, but not quite the end.  There is a little bit more. 

              Jesus wants to make sure we get it.  Jesus wants to be sure we get the message.  Everyone knows the words He read from Isaiah: anointed to proclaim good news, release, healing, freedom, and the year of the Lord’s jubilee.  They’ve heard it all before.  But Jesus means now, and He means for real.  Jesus did not say, “Stick with me and be good, and I’ll get you into heaven.”  He said, “Follow me, and I will teach you to fish for people.”  He said, “Blessed are the poor, the meek, the oppressed, the mourners, the peacemakers.”  And he read Isaiah’s words with their full meaning and power: recovery of sight, release to the captives, freedom to the oppressed, good news to the poor, and the great economic leveling brought about by cancelling property debts and reallocating property to the families of its original owners.  This is serious social restructuring, mandated by Scripture, but probably never enacted because people would think it unrealistic.  Jesus says His job is to make it happen, now.  People want to hear a different message.  They want to hear how much God will do for them, especially if they are faithful, so to make sure the message gets through, Jesus summarizes two stories from Scripture that really upset the congregation.  He tells them that there were many widows and severe famine in the time of Elijah, but Elijah was sent to help only one foreign widow; and in Elisha’s time, there were many lepers, but the only one he healed was a demanding foreign army commander.  The point is that God’s blessings do not always come to those who think they deserve them.  Guess what?  The congregation gets it.  They run Jesus out of town, and try to throw Him off a cliff.  Jesus got the point across, and it wasn’t popular.

              Can we hear the message of Jesus?  We are doing a lot of stuff today: recognizing volunteers, celebrating communion, installing new officers.  In the middle of all that very churchy stuff, can we actually hear the message of Jesus, or have we gotten so accustomed to being churchy that we forget our main purpose?  Taking care of widows and homebound and sick people is legitimate work for the church, of course, and of course we will continue; but we can easily slide from there into thinking that we should never upset anyone or talk about problems larger than a hospital room.  Jesus cared about helping people.  He did not care about membership rolls, balancing the budget, or keeping religious institutions alive.  Can we hear that?  On a day when we celebrate so much about being the church, and new officers step up to lead us into the next round, what should we hear?  As our discussion of the Core Values of this congregation continues, how much of the central message from Jesus sounds through?  If we are listening, we need to increase our interest in mission, both locally and around the world.  We should want to open our doors a little wider, so that poor and homeless people could sense a real welcome, not only to meals in the basement, but to worship and fellowship right next to us.  Today I want to call on our Deacons, especially the new ones, to shake things up a little.  You know who you are--some experienced, some brand new to the job, some older and some young.  Your call is not to keep the church happy; you are commissioned to care for people, whatever their needs.  And I want to call on our Elders to go forward determined not to get bogged down in the details of budgets and buildings and membership numbers, but instead, to be spiritual leaders, showing us how to move the love of Jesus off the balance sheets and into real life.  Let's   increase our mission work.  Let us, please, get past the idea that anything controversial is bad for the church--the church started because Jesus got powerful people so mad that they killed Him.  Can we hear that?  Listen for the message of Jesus.  

        It's time to move ahead.  In just a minute, we will call new officers forward to be set apart for their leadership roles.  The rest of us should think, also, about where we are going.  Do we look always inside, always for the safe way, or will we take a chance on the way of compassion, justice, and love?  Let’s move out.

And now, I will call our Clerk of Session and the newly elected Elders and Deacons to come forward.