Jesus’ Ministry
January 26, 2019
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:14-21
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘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.’
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ –Luke 4:16-21
Jesus accepted his call to bring wholeness to people which involves both creating oneness and assuring justice. We share his call, this call, today. All individuals in one way or another strive for wholeness. Some seek it in all the wrong places while some learn about love whether as children or later in life and choose to love and be loved; others reject what they learned and stray. God who is love always leaves the door open to them, like the prodigal son, to come home. We are not assigned the duty to judge anyone regarding their relationship with God. We are responsible for loving everyone so that all may experience the power and grace of God’s love enabling them to turn their lives around and become one who loves and receives love. The greatest challenge for most of us in answering this call is accepting people as they are and loving them anyway.
What do we do when dealing with people whose behavior is not deemed acceptable by us because of our culture or even our understanding of God’s ways. I am reading the book The Barefoot Woman which tells the story of a Tutsi woman raising her family in Africa where the Tutsi were outcasts. The author, Scholastique Mukasonga, is the daughter of the woman. In one chapter she described a tradition in that culture where the mother of a new born collects the baby’s feces and presents it with food for the other women of the village to eat denoting their acceptance of a new child in their lives including their commitment to help nurture the child. As I read this, I was both revolted by the very thought of it and impressed by the oneness such a ceremony demonstrates. The author’s mother had some qualms about the custom. While they attended the ceremony and supported the new mother, the daughters were instructed not to eat the food offered. I wonder how much of our disdain for people in our lives is more the result of our misgivings about behavior we do not comprehend and thus categorize as sin? Perhaps God knew what God was doing when God appointed Jesus as judge rather than us.
Prayer:
Help us accept each other
as Christ accepted us;
teach us as sister, brother,
each person to embrace.
Be present, Lord, among us,
and bring us to believe
we are ourselves accepted
and meant to love and live*. Amen.
*First verse of Help Us Accept Each Other by Fred Kaan see at https://hymnary.org/text/help_us_accept_each_other