January 27, 2019 – Luke 4:14-21
Luke 4:14-21
Today!
Third Sunday after Epiphany – January 27, 2019
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
I am still thinking about last week’s story from John’s Gospel:
the one where Jesus turns water into wine.
And not just a bottle of wine, right?
An enormous amount of wine! 180 gallons of wine!
And not just any wine: the very finest wine!
180 gallons of Chateau Neuf du Pape!
An extravagant amount of wine – Jesus wants the party to go on!
This is the first thing he does publicly in John’s Gospel,
as if to say: the time for God’s party is here, today.
God is working! God’s long promised future is starting! Today! So let’s celebrate!
And let’s live – and party – as if that were true, as if God’s long promised future of
forgivenss, grace, equity, sharing, generosity, justice, harmony, and peace were here.
I can’t stop thinking about that story.
As I shared communion wine with some of our home bound members this week,
I kept on thinking about it.
And talking about it.
And I kept thinking about what the Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard said about this story:
Jesus turned water into the finest abundant wine,
But the church has become very good at turning that fine wine back into water.
So so sad, and so so true.
As we were talking about all this, one of the members I was communing told me this story.
Way back in the day, there was a member of FLC who was publicly accused of wrong-doing,
and since he was a prominent member of society, there was news coverage of
all the accusations and all the details of the case.
Several prominent members of the congregation were outraged and came to the pastor
demanding that this member who’d been accused of wrong-doing be
removed from the membership roster of First Lutheran Church.
Without batting an eye, Pastor Eylands looked at them and said,
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Well, as you can imagine, that was the end of the matter.
And, in fact, it turned out after a trial that the member in question had been wrongfully accused
and was declared innocent.
The member I was communing said to me, “How quick human beings are to judge one another.
And they did that after all they had received!”
Right, I said: they themselves were the recipients of so much grace, so much forgiveness:
they had regularly and often drank
the abundant sweet wine of Jesus’ forgiveness and grace right here,
and what did they do with it?
They turned it back into a trickle of water.
How human is that?
Well, we all do it of course.
But let’s face it: we don’t need to.
And we can do better.
I have been thinking about this all week.
And about what it means for us in our daily lives and our work as a Christian community.
Last Sunday, Jesus’ first act of ministry in John was turning water in abundant fine wine.
As if to say: God’s great promised day is here: so let’s party and live as if it were!
Today we get a chance to see Jesus’ first act of ministry in Luke’s Gospel.
It’s a different story – and yet doesn’t it communicate the same thing?
Jesus was baptized a short time ago, then immediately went into the wilderness and
was tempted by Satan to choose a different path from the one God called him to.
But he withstands the temptation and emerges today as a public figure.
He goes to his hometown synagogue on the Sabbath.
And he is invited that day to read a portion of scripture and then say a few words about it.
He chooses a couple of different verses the prophet Isaiah had uttered hundreds of years before.
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight for the blind,
to let those broken into pieces be made whole,
to announce the Year of the Lord’s Favour, the Jubilee Year,
the year when all slaves are freed and when everyone’s ancestral
land lost through debt or enslavement is restored to its
original owners absolutely free of charge.”
Then he sits down to preach his sermon.
And the sermon is very short.
All he says is, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
That’s it!
That’s all he says!
He says, in effect: today’s the day!
God’s long promised day of healing and abundance and harmony is here!
God’s day of justice and peace is dawning today! So let’s party!
Today is the most important part of the reading.
Just as the abundance of wine is the most important part of last week’s story.
All that wine indicates that God’s long promised day is starting now. Today. Right here.
Which is exactly what he says in words in Luke’s Gospel: God’s day has come, today.
And here’s the thing: from this moment on Jesus will live his entire life as if God’s Jubilee Year
were indeed happening.
From this moment on, Jesus will live his life as if the long promised age has begun.
From this moment on, Jesus will do whatever he needs to do to bring the
blessings of the long-promised age to everyone: abundant food, abundant wine,
abundant healing, abundant forgiveness, abundant grace, abundant inclusion.
Jesus never turns off the tap, Jesus never turns the abundant wine back into a trickle of water.
Because today – from today – God is beginning something new,
a new age, with new possibilities, and new hope for everyone.
So today Jesus invites you: live as if this were true, live as if this was happening – because it is.
What is faith – or, if you will, belief – after all?
Either you believe God is by God’s grace bringing in this new day, or you don’t.
Either you believe there is hope and purpose for this world, or you don’t.
Either you live as if there is hope and purpose for this world, or you don’t.
Being a Christian means trusting Jesus’ promise that God’s age has begun.
Being a Christian means trusting that God is working right here, right now because
God loves this world and every person in it.
Being a Christian means therefore living as if that were so.
Being a Christian means working with Jesus and working with one another as if that were so.
Trusting that there is hope for this planet and for every person on it.
Trusting that God’s destiny for this world is a good one.
Trusting that little word, Today.
Today: everything is different.
Today: God is making everything different.
So today: I can make a difference.
Today: we can make a difference.
Today: you can make a difference in your homes, in your workplaces, in your communities,
in your friendships.
Today: you can make a difference at Sargent and Victor.
Today: Jesus is giving you as a free gift abundant wine: the wine of forgiveness: so share it –
don’t turn it into a trickle of water of judgment.
Today: Jesus is giving you the wine of hope, so pass it on.
Today: Jesus is giving you the wine of inclusion, so share it.
Today: Jesus is giving you the wine of friendship, so pass it on.
Today, let us forgive the sinful, let us bind up those broken into pieces, let us feed the hungry:
for the truth is we have been forgiven, we have been bound up, we have been fed.
So let us not turn Jesus’ abundant fine wine into a trickle of water.
Let us share the fine wine we have been given with all whom we encounter – today.
And together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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