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| ps from ps Don’t eat yellow snow. (Especially in Houston or New Orleans of all places!) Don’t poke the bear. Just do it! Be the change. So many short phrases to recenter us and help us to make better choices, reframe the hard moments and direct our dailyness. Could sermons be this short?? Could my sermons be this short one day? Maybe. (It’s OK if you’re saying “Hopefully!:) Jesus had one. In Luke 4, he’s in the temple teaching, reads Scripture, rolls us the scroll and says: This Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Mic drop! Sermon over. And the crowd soaked it in and appreciated his brief message. They were fine with it! Interesting part of the Scripture he read though. It proclaimed who he was and what his calling was: bring good news, proclaim release to the captives, sight to the blind and freedom to those oppressed. And to let folks know that God has broken in. So, much like those pithy little statements, it seems that this sermon and that text is meant to do the same thing: to recenter us and help us to make better choices, reframe the hard moments and direct our dailyness. What’s intriguing to me is that he says: it’s fulfilled in your hearing. He didn’t say: in your doing. The crowd is very comfortable with his sermon and proclamation when he’s just talking about “hearing it”. But, immediately after his mini-sermon, he actually heads out and starts DOING it! And that’s when they get uncomfortable. Maybe our “hearing” is meant and intended to motivate and guide our “doing” and we, like those who heard the sermon the first time, can get uncomfortable too? I mean, that would never happen still in church today, right? A preacher sharing tough words about release to captives, sight to blind, freedom to the oppressed and then after hearing it, being invited to do it and getting uncomfortable?? Monday, on MLK Jr and Inauguration Day, I watched the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC share a sermon in the prayer service with the incoming President, as tradition holds. She reflected Jesus’ teachings and made a passionate plea for those in need today, which sounded quite similar to the scroll Jesus read. When asked after worship how the President liked the service, he said: it wasn’t very good. Turning the hearing into doing makes us uncomfortable. How’s your comfort level today? Are we ready to hear Jesus open that scroll for us again today? To hear that God’s good news had indeed broken in, and the call to the doing of that good news is as needed now as it was then? “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 set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And maybe also, your doing. Lord, thanks for this powerful and short sermon. Amen Still in One Peace, ps |
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