The Mouth of the Prophet

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Deuteronomy 18: 15-19

Luke 4: 16-30

We were riveted last Sunday, were we not? It was truly a “Healing Sabbath.”

For those of you who were not here, our guest preacher, who is a leader in the Presbyterian marriage equality movement, invited the highest court of the church to stretch out a withered and weary hand on behalf of a denomination that has been disfigured by discrimination for far too long, to soak up the healing touch of the Jesus who wants us all to be well, and to declare once and for all that church law can no longer be used to bind the conscience of pastors in performing the marriages of all couples who seek our pastoral care.

We were riveted. And we applauded. And we came together as one body of Christ to pray the deepest prayer we knew how to pray: that God will give Rev. Clark the mouth of a prophet in challenging the court to make our denomination whole. And that they will listen! And pay attention! And respond! Because God is surely holding us all accountable to “the words that the prophet shall speak” in God’s name through Scott Clark.

I don’t know about you, but I am still praying the prayer we began last week. Still riveted by the prophetic word that was preached from this pulpit. Still touched to the core by the Spirit of God who was so emphatically with us last week that we really could touch her as we touched each other in our laying on of hands. For Scott. For our elders and deacons. And if we are honest, for ourselves.

And yet . . .

As I read the New Testament Lesson from the Gospel of Luke this morning, I cannot help but compare us with that 1st century congregation in Nazareth eagerly awaiting the proclamation of Jesus. And I get a little bit afraid of what could happen next if we don’t pay careful attention to the full scope of the gospel as it is presented to us in this text. You see, the congregation gathering around Jesus in this 1st century congregation in Nazareth is just as enthusiastic about their anointed hero as we are about ours. Word has trickled home to them of the amazing healing ministry of Jesus throughout Galilee. Praise for his prophetic message in pulpits throughout the country has resounded.

They have welcomed him home as “one of their own,” and they are thrilled with his preaching and his teaching and his pastoral care. Just like we are thrilled with the preaching and teaching and pastoral care of Janie Spahr, Scott Clark, and Sara Taylor, who were our guests last weekend.

But then the other shoe drops. And the congregation that has touched the very Spirit of God in anointing Jesus ends up rising in such rage that Jesus fears for his very life when they lead him to the edge of the hill on which their town is built and threaten to hurl him off the cliff.

What in God’s name—literally—has gone wrong!?

The people of Nazareth are truly oppressed. They are, for all practical purposes, colonized by a foreign power. They still bear the deep scars of a bloody revolt they waged against Rome twenty years earlier. Rome decisively and devastatingly crushed them. And, in many ways, crushes them still. Their economic system has been co-opted by Rome. Their movements are monitored by Rome. Their physical wounds from the revolt—including forced blindness—have been inflicted by Rome. Their entire way of life is subject to the whim of Rome.

So when the 1st century congregation in Nazareth hears Jesus say that the Spirit of God has anointed him to “bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberty to the oppressed,” they automatically assume Jesus is speaking about them. They are the ones who are poor, are they not? They are the ones who are captive, blind, oppressed. Surely Jesus is speaking about them? And he is! And yet he is not.

Don’t forget, Jesus reminds his congregation, that the gospel is universal. It always has been and it always will be. The great prophet Elijah, himself, Jesus reminds them, left his own people high and dry in the middle of a famine to offer food and comfort to a foreign widow. And of course everyone who is listening will automatically link the foreign widow of Elijah’s day with the Roman Gentiles of their day. Is Jesus saying God cares more about them than God does about us?! That’s downright offensive!

But that’s not all.

Don’t forget, Jesus reminds his congregation, that the gospel is universal. It always has been and it always will be. The great prophet Elisha, himself, Jesus reminds them, healed a soldier of Syria—and not any of his own people—from the dreaded disease of leprosy. And of course everyone who is listening will automatically link the healing of a hated soldier from the Syria of Elisha’s day with the healing of a hated soldier from the Rome of their day. Is Jesus saying God cares more about a Roman soldier than God cares about us?! That’s not just offensive. That’s intolerable!

It is also true.

The Roman Gentile widow, Jesus is saying to the truly oppressed 1st century congregation in Nazareth, may be just as poor as you are. And perhaps poorer. Pay attention! Listen! Respond! God cares about her, too! The conscripted Roman soldier, Jesus is saying to the truly oppressed 1st century congregation in Nazareth, may be just as captive as you are. Pay attention! Listen! Respond! God cares about him, too! The good news of God, Jesus says to the truly oppressed 1st century congregation in Nazareth, is that the liberation of the whole human family is bound up together if we are truly willing to see with God’s eyes and not our own. Listen! Pay attention! Respond! The mouth of the prophet is speaking!

We who live in this 21st century congregation where we, too, have been riveted by the proclamation of good news through the prophetic witness of those who are advocating justice in marriage equality—an issue of social justice that directly affects us—that directly affects us!—encounter a crucial reminder in our gospel lesson for today. The “Healing Sabbath” that Rev. Clark proclaimed last week is—yes—emphatically about us. It is. 100%.

And yet is about far more than us. What Jesus calls “good news to the poor” is in modern Christian ethics is something like a clarion call for economic justice, and it really is for everyone and not just ourselves. What Jesus calls “release to the captives” is in modern Christian ethics something like a clarion call for civil or human rights at every level, and it really is for everyone and not just ourselves. What Jesus calls “recovery of sight to the blind” is in modern Christian ethics something like—dare I say it?—a clarion call for healthcare reform, and it really is for everyone and not just ourselves. We may disagree on the best ways to implement these clarion calls. But they are the heart of the gospel, even if they sound—horror!—“too political.”

What Jesus calls “liberty to the oppressed” is in modern Christian ethics something like a call for every one of us to take a good hard look in the mirror and repent of the ways in which we, too, have given ourselves over to the values of empire, of the ways in which we succumb to the claim God is for us and for our needs alone, of the ways in which we place our own freedom in opposition to the freedom of others. It is a call to say we want to live differently. Starting right here. Starting right now. Because “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The good news for Madison Square is that I think we already know this. This congregation has a long history of mission and advocacy for all of God’s children, and that history will guide this community well into the future. There is no need to rise up in rage against the prophet in our midst declaring the Healing Sabbath for one and for all. There is simply a reminder that we are one human family and that the mouth of the prophet speaks for us all.

So listen! Pay attention! And respond!

Amen.