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Sermon January 27, 2019
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers,
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi3_RCL.html
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ Luke 4:18-19 (Isaiah 61:1-2)
Please be seated.
I’ve been watching the new season of Grace and Frankie on Netflix. In this season Robert (played by Martin Sheen) is practicing for the musical “Man of La Mancha.” I saw this musical on Broadway in 2003. I bought a large mug as a reminder and I have the program and ticket stub!
The musical is a take-off of Cervantes’ book, Don Quixote. In the musical, Cervantes is in jail, and ends up creating this story to entertain the other prisoners, and also to keep them from whatever is in the trunk he has brought to jail with him. He takes makeup and a costume from the trunk and begins to tell the story of an older man, Alonso Quijano, who is full of stories about chivalry and knights. Alonso renames himself Don Quixote and sets out as a knight errant, a wandering knight.
Alonso’s friends and family are alarmed, because he seems to be totally out of touch with reality. He is not seeing his true self or the real world, they think. He believes people are virtuous when they are not. He fights a windmill! Yet, we learn that in some respects, Alonso is seeing the best in people and the best in the world. He is seeing what they could be. He is seeing what we might call their highest self.
The song many of us remember from the musical catches the truth of Alonso or Don Quixote’s view of his purpose in the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzm0SJc6GZs
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
And to run where
The brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
And to love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march,
March into hell
For that heavenly cause
And I know
If I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart
Will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be
Better for this
That one man, scorned
And covered with scars,
Still strove with his last
Ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.
In our Gospel today, Jesus has just come from 40 days in the wilderness. The writer of Luke says Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. He traveled to Galilee, the area where he grew up. He’s in Nazareth and as was his custom, he attended the Synagogue on the sabbath. He was given the scroll of Isaiah to read. He chose to read a passage from Isaiah 61.
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
These chapters in Isaiah speak of a new world. They speak of a wonderful world. They speak a vision of what life could be like, especially as the Israelites return from exile in Babylon. What will a new community look like and be like? What does a community rooted in God look like? That’s what we see in these chapters. It is not the world as it is, but the world we can create when we follow God’s teachings.
This portion of Isaiah was written over 500 years before Jesus began his ministry. Jesus says this vision has been fulfilled. In other words, Jesus frames his purpose, his ministry, the meaning of his life in terms of this vision in Isaiah.
Jesus has come to bring good news. God has chosen Jesus to bring good news to people who are poor. Jesus has come to free those who are captives. Jesus has come to restore our sight. Jesus has come to free those who are oppressed. Jesus has come to declare the year of God’s favor, or the year of Jubilee as described in Leviticus 25. This was every 50 years when debts were forgiven and land was returned to its previous owners.
Jesus explains that these things are his ministry. It’s easy to think that what Jesus says is like Don Quixote…out of touch with reality. I mean, I keep asking why poverty continues to be so pervasive, for instance?
Will oppression ever cease? You’d think with so much that has happened, even in my own lifetime or in that of my parents, that we as people would have decided that oppression is wrong and not the way to treat each other. Yet, it’s as pervasive as ever.
And don’t we keep on learning and seeing things in a new way, so our sight is continually being restored.
And it seems that the prison-industrial complex is as strong as ever. We criminalize things like being poor, mental illness or addictions. We put people in prison, rather than offer treatment. We put people in prison because they are poor and cannot afford bail.
Isn’t this word from Isaiah a pipe dream?
Yet, look….
This past Christmas, nearly 700 children received gifts because so many of us worked together through Join Hands. We give thousands of pounds of food and dollars to the Food Banks in Perry and Juniata Counties. Through our membership in Christian Churches United, we help support a prison ministry. Through our donations and volunteering with The Literacy Council, we support programs in the local jail, as well as, programs for people returning to our community after having been in jail.
We are doing the work of Jesus’ ministry.
And like Don Quixote, we can continue to dream this impossible dream and to know that
the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.
Amen
