Happening in the Street Where you Live

Text:  Luke 4:14-21

            “Change you can believe in” Barach Obama declared as he was swept into the Presidential Office.  On the brink of an election in the UK Cameron promises a “Year for change” whilst Mandelson invites the electorate to, “Change for good, change with Labour.”  Voters want more than a manifesto presenting the prospect of change.  They want to see change happen.

            It was the final stretch of road.  Coming into Jesus’ view was the familiar outline of Nazareth.  Jesus was a changed man.  He’d left a carpenter’s son and returned as the Father’s Son. 

            It wasn’t the first time he’d returned to Nazareth having changed.  Jesus could hear his mother telling him the story of his circumcision, of Simeon’s song of salvation and Anna’s words of deliverance.  Scarred with the sign of the covenant Mary and Joseph left the temple with Jesus and went home to Galilee.

            It wasn’t the first time Jesus had returned to Nazareth having changed.  He could still see the panic and relief in his mum and dad’s faces.  His mothers’ scolding words echoed in his ears.  Their boy was growing in awareness of his identity.  He was the Father’s Son.  Jesus went home with them, changed. 

            Jesus was returning to Nazareth.  He’d been baptised by John and, submerged in the murky waters of the Jordan in solidarity with the human plight.  He emerged gasping fresh air and the Spirit descended dovelike.  He heard the voice of his Father, “You are my Son; I love you.”  Jesus could trace his lineage right back to Adam:  right back to God.  He was God’s Son.  This was scandal.  Romulus could make claims to be the son of the gods Mars and Ilia, but Jesus?!  No!  To say Jesus was God’s Son was political and treasonous.

            The voice affirming Jesus’ identity as the Son of God was tested.  The Spirit that filled Jesus led him into the wilderness.  Ravenous with hunger and physically weak he discerns that the voice of the desert is not the voice of his baptism.  He knows that there is more to life than a full belly.  God alone is worthy of his worship.  He does not have to prove his identity by performing stunts. 

            Jesus returns to Nazareth changed.  As he turns into Fig Lane and then left into Carpenter’s Close, unlatches the door and kisses his mum, he realises that nothing has changed and yet everything has changed.  Carpenter’s hands design a world of grace in the shape of a cross.

            Going to the synagogue on Sabbath was nothing out of the ordinary.  This was where he had worshipped and been schooled.  He stands to read the lesson from Isaiah 61:1-2.  Then, assuming the posture of a teacher, he sits to speak.  The silence was palpable.  Rapt attention was blown apart with the bombshell, “This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.”

            Jesus is saying, “I am what this text is all about.  I am the manifesto happening today.  I am the Spirit-filled life anointed to enact this word.  It’s happening today, right now in this synagogue, in your streets, in this town of Nazareth.  The ‘today’ I announce is ‘every day’ from now until the end of time.  It is my actions and words lived out in my followers in their own time, in their own street, in their own communities.  It is my action and words spreading as good news all over the world.”

            Jesus says, “It’s time for change.  It’s time to put fine sounding talk into action.  It’s the time for Isaiah’s manifesto to become reality.  It’s change you can believe in.  It’s good news to the poor…to those who have nothing…to those who recognise that all of life is totally dependent on God.  It is said that a man who had lost everything - his whole family - during the Rwandan massacres, told a missionary, “I did not know that Jesus was all I needed until Jesus was all I had.”  The good news Jesus brings is liberation for all those who live under the lock and key of whatever it is that imprisons.  The good news Jesus brings opens the eyes of those blind to God’s just kingdom.  The good news Jesus brings frees those oppressed whether by poverty, wealth, worry, habit, a system or a people.  The good news Jesus brings is an announcement of God's favour; his forgiveness and grace, the triumph of love over hate, and the primacy of action over creed.

            Jesus is here and he looks us in the eye, “This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.”  Jesus is bringing good news into your street…into your home…into your relationships…into your community…into your world.  Where is your poverty in life?  Are you serving time in the prison of Bitterness because there is a wrong you cannot forgive?  Do you want God to open your eyes to his right ways, to see how you can help create a just and fair life for all?  Are we living under the pressure to win approval, be successful, and seek out pleasure?  Where is poverty in Minster Lovell?  How can we bring good news and make it happen in the lives of the people who live here?  In our world we see poverty on a scale that we cannot grasp.  How can we be agents of good news to the people of Haiti? 

            How will you and I make this a year for change, a change for good, a change with Jesus, making good news a reality in our own lives, community and world?  “One day, as usually was the case, a young waif, a little girl, stood at the street corner begging for food, money or whatever she could get.  Now this girl was wearing very tattered clothes; she was dirty and quite dishevelled.

            As it happens, a well-to-do young man passed that corner without giving the girl a second look.  But when he returned to his expensive home, his happy and comfortable family, and his well-laden dinner table, his thoughts returned to this young waif and he became very angry at God for allowing such conditions to exist.

            He reproached God, saying, ‘How can you let this happen?  Why don’t you do something to help this girl?’

            Then he heard God in the depths of his being respond by saying, ‘I did.  I created you!’”[1]

            And we see a Haitian boy pulled from the rubble and lifted up, his arms outstretched in crucifix form; arms outstretched in triumph.  Jesus brings good news to the poor, crucified and risen, suffering and triumphant.  Jesus brings good news through us to others.  It is good news in the street where you live.