The Prophetic Mission

Gospel: Luke 4: 16-30

 

The Gospel of Luke has Jesus begin his public ministry in his home synagogue reading the message of Isaiah on the prophetic mission to provide good news to the poor, healing to the blind and lame, and a year of jubilee from the Lord.  He then tells the audience that he has come to fulfill this mission in his time and in this place, reminding them that prophets of the past did likewise to unlikely places: Elijah and widow of Zarephath; Elisha and the leper from Syria; and now Jesus to Galilee and beyond. 

 

The people did not want to hear this message.  Why? The region already had a string of Messiah figures who stirred up the people, only to have the Romans come and make things far worse than before.  Besides, they knew Jesus.  He grew up among them: where is he getting all this?  He’s a poor kid with a carpenter for a father – what does he know?  Better to be rid of him than deal with all this.  And yet he disappears from their midst just as they were about to throw him off a cliff.

 

To follow the Lord Jesus is to take up the prophetic task; that is part of the baptismal anointing.  In every age it is a thankless task to bring good news to people that religious authorities would rather be excluded from God’s love and mercy, and certainly excluded from the church community.  To provide ministry to the marginalized is to invite the scorn of religious authorities and their worldly cohorts of political and economic power.  But every year is a year of Jubilee -a year of mercy, forgiveness, care for the poor, correcting injustices, extending the kingdom’s realm ever wider to include all.