Today’s reading presents us with Jesus’ very first act of public ministry as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus is attending a house of worship on the morning of the Sabbath, just like we do today. He is called upon to read from the scriptures, not unlike how I just did a moment ago. Jesus, searching for a particular text that he has in mind, scours the scroll before him until he finds it: “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.” After this, he proclaims: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” In this, Jesus does something completely and utterly unexpected. Jesus here claims those ancient prophetic words as his own personal mission statement. The entire reason why God’s Holy Spirit came down upon him at his baptism, he claims, was to enable him to do precisely this: to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to let all the oppressed go free; and to announce the Jubilee Year where debts are forgiven and God’s justice will roll on like a mighty river, and righteousness like a never-ending stream.
Jesus, not content to simply leave this scripture as some high-flown string of lofty words from days long past, instead takes it upon himself to, for the rest of his life, in every moment, in everything he does, actually live out these words. And even still today he lives out these words. How, you might ask. Through that one body with many members that the Apostle Paul speaks of in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. Through Christ’s mystical body. Through the church. Through us. Yes, through each and every one of us, Jesus still strives, even to this day, to make manifest his mission statement: bringing good news to those who haven’t any, setting free those chained in captivity, opening the eyes of those who can’t see, helping the exploited find a life of dignity, and revealing the plan that sets out God’s reign of forgiveness, mercy, and peace. Jesus still does these things, because his church still does them.
As the activist and trade unionist Eugene Debs proclaimed it in his Statement to the Court in 1918: “Your Honor, years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
Today is Reconciling in Christ Sunday, when we, as a church, renew our commitment to uplifting the LGBTQ+ community. This community, of which many of us, including myself, are members, has as its most well-established and well-recognized symbol the rainbow flag. Some of you may have seen one hanging by the stairs on your way in. But did you know that the first ever rainbow flag in recorded history is actually from 1525? This was the rainbow banner of Thomas Müntzer. In the 16th century, during the early years of the Protestant Reformation, Müntzer, a preacher, priest, and theologian, led the peasants of Germany, inspired by the doctrines of Martin Luther and others, in a revolt against the feudal system under which they had for so long suffered. Like Jesus, Müntzer wished to proclaim release to the captives, freedom to the oppressed, and to proclaim the Lord’s year of justice. The peasants, unfortunately, were violently suppressed, and Müntzer, for his opposition to empire and oppression, was tortured and ultimately executed, just as Christ was too, over a thousand years before him. This flag, the rainbow flag, is, thus, to me, an eternal symbol representing the intersection between Christianity, those often excluded within society (in the case of our modern flag, particularly the LGBTQ+ community), and a radical politics of love and liberation. Since 1525, the rainbow flag has been flown as a sign of good news to the downtrodden and as a proclamation of hope, freedom, and social change.
As Müntzer fought for the peasants of his day, let us too, in our day, fight in every way we can for the mistreated and the marginalized. For too long has the church, at best, ignored their plight and, at worst, been its very source. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of errors to amend, but it is our mission, as Jesus proclaimed in that synagogue so long ago, to make right what is wrong.
As January nears its end, I invite you all to reflect this week upon what you are going to do this year to fulfill Christ’s mission statement. How are you going to bring good news to the poor? How are you, as a member of the body of Christ, going to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind? How are you going to bring freedom to the oppressed and how are you going to proclaim the Lord’s Jubilee?
Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Amen.
