Luke 4:16-21

3rd Sunday in ordinary time, year C.

by Matthew Neville

This week’s reading begins with an image of extreme ordinariness. Jesus enters the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth, “as was his custom”.

“He stood up to read, and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah”.

No indication from Luke as to whether Jesus pushed himself forward, or was invited; or was this just a normal thing for him to do, much like the plea for ANYONE willing to read that frequently occurs in our churches.

Likewise it seems that the choice of scroll wasn’t made by Jesus’. Was it simply the next up in the lectionary? Or maybe the first scroll to come out of the box?

In any case Jesus takes the scroll of third-Isaiah and open it right in the middle, as is generally easiest with a scroll.

There he reads the first few verses of Isaiah 61, generally thought to be the lynch-pin of the third part of Isaiah (ch 55-66), probably written on the cusp of the return from exile in Babylon.

This final chapter in the Isaiah trilogy acts as a more wary counterpoint to the triumphalism of Ezra and Nehemiah (from which this week’s first read comes), warning of the responsibilities inherent on the returning exiles to build a more just society.

In the midst of third-Isaiah is this call to a renewed Jubilee, “the year of the Lord’s Favour” an evocation of the great liberation commanded in Leviticus chapter 25, this command itself evoking the archetypal event in Jewish history, the liberation of Passover. Babylon stands as a type for Pharoah’s Egypt, and beyond that for all destructive empire throughout history.

The returning Jews from Babylon are receiving their liberation and the freedom to return to ancient Israel, but bound up in that liberation is the command to act justly, to share their bread with the hungry and bring the homeless into their houses (see Isa 58:7), to welcome the foreigner as a sibling (see Isa 56:3), and to be a light to the nations of a different way of being (see Isa 60:3).

Jesus reads this very short text (one wonders if Luke might be reductively editing a bit here), then sits down.

Next week we get Jesus’ fuller sermon which will rile the congregation, but for now all the lectionary gives us is the intro. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”.

Jesus declares the Jubilee, he blows the horn. Debts are cancelled, land is redistributed, prisoners are released. Freedom is not just coming, it is here!!

And that’s where it pauses for this week! We’re instructed by our lectionary to stop there, to savour the moment. To not (yet) dwell on all the ways this liberation is a fantasy, or unpractical, or quite simply non-existent. Dispel all that realism for now. (In fact let’s ignore this paragraph)

Take a deep breath, let the joy and the celebration of this liberation wash over you, let the promise of freedom intoxicate you.

Jubilee is not on its way, it is already here, right now, among us.

Questions

• What are your initial thoughts, emotional reactions and questions regarding the text?

• What are your personal experiences of liberation and Jubilee?

• What experiences of Jubilee have you experienced second-hand?

• What does it mean to be anointed by the spirit of the Lord?

• How can we live “Good News” in the present moment?