Reflection
on Luke 4: 21-30
by John G. Gibbs
The gospel text
for today initiates the long section in Luke 4:14-9:50 that
describes Jesus' ministry in Galilee. What was his ministry
about, what did he intend to do, with what main purpose was
he moving through Galilee and, finally, toward Jerusalem (9:51)?
Luke finds his answers in Jesus' opening public message at the
synagogue of his hometown (Nazareth).
Jesus focuses
from the outset and throughout his ministry on the poor, the
captives, the blind, the oppressed; and on what is to be done
for them: good news for the poor, release for captives, sight
for the blind, freedom for the oppressed. Those are the particulars
of "the Lord's favor" (4:19). Those actions detail
what "the power of the Spirit" (4:14) does in ordinary
daily life.
It is a peculiar
community that Jesus assembles - nonetheless, just what you
would expect from a leader, a teacher, a spiritual director
who thinks and moves and has her/his being within the prophetic
tradition. In fact, Jesus chose to start with the prophetic
message in Isaiah that he read and expounded (Is. 61:1-2; cf.
58:6ff.). If a community of God's people, in synagogue or church,
aims to become as strong as "oaks of righteousness,"
if they want their history to be written as if they had been
"the planting of the Lord" (Is. 61:3), then these
kinds of actions will typify their life for the common good.
Life in the
Spirit, as Jesus understood it, does not revolve around our
self-consciousness. It reaches out to include the excluded,
to gather the separated, to link the horizon to the Center.
Spiritual life takes strange bedfellows, the "No People"
in Hosea's prophecy (Hos. 2:23), and builds them into "God's
People."
The Spirit of
God that secured the creation in the midst of chaos continues
in our time to establish the inclusive Shalom of Eco-Justice.
When rivers cannot reach the ocean because the rich have stolen
their waters from the poor, then it is time for God's People
to think, vote, and act in support of Eco-Justice. When Arctic
sea-ice shrinks faster and faster, and glaciers melt more and
more, then it is time for God's people to think, vote, and act
in support of the ecosystems (including the people) that are
imperiled by "affluent societies" run amok. When this
Quarter's bottom line robs the Class of 2020 of its inheritance,
then it is time for God's People to think, vote and act on behalf
of sustainable economy. What Jesus started in Nazareth points
in the direction of Eco-Justice for all creatures, ourselves
included.
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