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FGBC: Hospitality & Justice: Manifesto Luke 4:14-30 February 17, 2019 Dan Hoffman

I want to start with a statement today. Here it is: People inside and outside the church think is about being nice, but it’s actually about disruptively flipping the world on its head and challenging the status quo. … We are starting a new series today called Hospitality & Justice. We are going to look at one of the central themes in Scripture which involves the call for followers to make the world we live in a better place.

I’ve said it before, but the fact is Palestine 2000 years ago was a better place because Jesus showed up. People were having their physical bodies healed, their financial situations healed, their emotional problems healed, and their relational difficulties healed. And on top of all of this people were getting right with their Creator and as a result found themselves living the abundant life designed us to enjoy – All this happened because Jesus was walking around.

And then Jesus told us to “Go out and do likewise.” Jesus was the Saviour and yet He tells us “You guys are the light of the world.”

So Jesus followers, Christians, are people who give themselves to using the abilities we’ve been given to point humanity towards God’s gift of abundant life. And one of the main ways we do this is by bringing all the abundant life we can into the situation we find ourselves in. Tim Hortons should be a better place because you work there or drink coffee there.. UNBC should be a better place because you attend there or teach there. Prince George should be a better place because we live here. … Now I’m excited about this series, but I’m also a bit nervous. And that’s because while everyone wants to make the world a better place, not all humanity agrees on what this means. And one of the biggest ways injustice breaks into a society is through blindness. All humanity from all time has been culturally indoctrinated to be blind to our own injustice.

So I just finished reading a biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a passionate Jesus follower that lived during World War 2. And most of the book is about the difficult struggle to convince genuine Christians that racism against Jews doesn’t line up with what Jesus taught. Most people in the church thought this was totally fine.

Or if you look at the life of William Wilberforce who opposed the slave trade in England in the 19th century and was a passionate Jesus lover. His main fight was against other Christians who couldn’t see the problem with owning slaves.

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Now both these issues are blatantly wrong to us, but only an ignorant person would say they were bad people and we’re better. The fact is everyone is blind to their own brokenness.

And so throughout this series we are going to work to bring out topics that are going to make us uncomfortable – I anticipate being uncomfortable, and I suspect you will be as well. But if we are going to not just listen to the words of Jesus, but actually do them, we have to allow His hard words to pierce our hearts and change our behaviour. … So if you’ve got a on your phone or see one in the pew in front of you grab it and open it up to Luke chapter 4. We are going to start this series were Jesus started His ministry. Luke chapter 4, starting in verse 14.

[Read Luke 4:14-15]

So at this point in the story Jesus is about 30 years old. Up until now He has been working as a carpenter, first under His assumed dad Joseph. But then after Joseph’s death He would have been using this trade to take care of His mom and siblings.

And then all of a sudden something changes. shows up and starts calling Israel to repent. And this is Jesus’ cue, it’s the fulfillment of He was waiting for, to switch from “carpenter Jesus” to “Savior Jesus.”

And so Jesus goes out to John and gets baptized. And while He is in the water a dove descends from Heaven and a voice speaks “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.” Let me tell you that has never happened to any baptism I’ve been part of so that’s a big deal. And then the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the desert where He spends 40 days , being tempted, and overcoming .

And then we get our text today. So this is the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus comes out of the desert and heads back to which was His home town, not as a carpenter, but as a rabbi, a guru. And everyone praised Him. Look at verse 16:

[Read Luke 4:16-22]

Now if you are a 21st century Canadian then everything Jesus says here sounds nice. And at first everyone in the that day assumed Jesus was speaking nice too. That’s what we get in verse 22 – “everyone spoke well of Him.” But Jesus isn’t working to expand His fan base here. He is defining everything His ministry is going to be about, and it’s nothing like anyone expected. What He gives here is an offensive truth claim and radical battle cry against injustice.

So let’s unpack this a little. In verses 18 and 19 Jesus is quoting the Old Testament – chapter 61. And this is one of the big Messianic . God is going to send someone to save His people.

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And so when Jesus puts the scroll down and says, verse 21, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” What He is saying is “The Messiah is here and I’m Him.” … Now this is big, but it wouldn’t have hit His first listeners as big as it hits us. Interestingly there were several people running around in Jesus’ day claiming to be the Messiah, or at least one of God’s messiahs.

And the Jews loved these guys. And that’s because Israel was under the control of Rome and so all sorts of terrible things were going on in society.

So Rome was employing Jewish tax collectors to get money out of the Jews. And they were being encouraged to gouge their brothers to get rich – this was injustice.

And Rome set up kings like Herod who were essentially Jewish, but were used by Rome to keep Israel in line. And so they ruled for their own benefit instead of the people’s – this was injustice.

And when people pushed back against this kind of rule Rome would come in and shut them down. Whole cities of men, women and children would get crucified because of a little uprising – this was injustice.

And so under this kind of oppression the people were longing for someone to organize them and fight back. So about 160 years before Jesus a guy named Mattathias Maccabees and his son Judah temporarily fought off the Seleucids who were forcing the Jews worship other . These guys were heroes.

And there was a guy named Judas of , who right around the time Jesus was born, incited the Jews not to register with the Romans and pay tax – he was pretty popular too. A little later another guy named Theudas led a similar revolt.

And the Jews loved these guys because they were fighting injustice. And now all of a sudden Jesus comes on the scene. And He’s brilliant and godly, everyone can tell that. And He starts speaking about justice and so the people are excited. But they are a little nervous too because when these revolts go bad people pay.

And so, verse 22, they all spoke well of Him, but at the same time they were wondering – isn’t this Joseph’s boy the carpenter? It’s like the Canadian Tire employee turned Messiah. “Hey Fred, didn’t Jesus make that dining room set you bought a couple years ago? And now He’s going to fight off the Romans… with His hammer?”

But they listen because Jesus starts out saying all the things they think they want to hear.

So in verse 18 Jesus comes out of the gate proclaiming good news for the poor. And everyone likes someone to take care of the poor especially if you consider yourself to be close to this side of the spectrum. 4

So if I asked for a show of hands of everyone who feels the financial crunch and wishes they had a bit more money I’d probably get some hands. Right?

But this was even more the case in 1st century Rome because there was no middle class. So about 5% of the population was incredibly wealthy, and everyone else was dirt poor. So proclaiming good news to the poor is like walking into CNC and offering free food for students. Everyone’s interested!

And then Jesus says He’s come to proclaim freedom for prisoners. Now Jesus isn’t talking about jail break here. That might be good news for some people, but most of us would not be happy about that. What Jesus promises here is freedom for captives or slaves.

And again in Jesus’ day this was huge. If you weren’t part of the Roman elite you were a part of the working peasant class which lived essentially as indentured servants.

Now there is a debate about exactly what slavery looked like in the first century – some people point out that it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the horror stories that come out of African-American slavery. A big reason why is that it wasn’t ethnic in origin. So slaves weren’t a different color than non-slaves. But others say slavery is slavery.

You see when a person is owned there is no dignity. And slaves were property under Roman law which meant they weren’t legally people. So unlike citizens they could be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation, and torture. They could be executed without trial. And things were so desperate that often people would sell their own children into this.1 Think of how desperate things have to be to do that.

And the people Jesus was speaking to understood this because they were in it. And so when Jesus started preaching freedom for prisoners they heard Him saying I’m going to fight for you. … Next Jesus promises recovery of sight for the blind. Now we don’t have a ton of blind people running around today because we have medicine and glasses, but in the first century infection and disease meant physical disabilities like blindness were common.

And Jesus was known for healing these people. So a few chapters later when things weren’t going well for John the Baptist – he was in prison waiting for his head to be lifted off his shoulders - he sent a couple of his disciples to Jesus asking “Are you really the Messiah or should we look for another?”

And Jesus responded by saying:

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome (Accessed February 15, 2019) 5

Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen— the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11:4-5)

So Jesus used the abilities He had at His disposal to alleviate suffering and He gave this as a sign to the legitimacy of His mission. And, as you can imagine, people were excited.

Everyone wants a leader like this. And that’s because whenever anyone hears someone offer healing or freedom or liberty immediately they think about how this person is going to benefit them.

And certainly if you stopped here you might think this. But Jesus wasn’t interested in filling people’s pockets with warm fuzzies. And so as soon as He has people’s attention He gives us verse 23:

[Read Luke 4:23]

Here’s the transition in the sermon where Jesus starts saying “If you think I’m talking about peace and good will for church folk you’ve got something coming. My ministry isn’t primarily going to be about fighting the injustice you are suffering from, I’m going to fight the injustice you are perpetrating… Just imagine some quizzical looks going around the synagogue. Us? We’re perpetrating injustice? … And then Jesus digs two totally unexpected stories out of the Old Testament that exposed the injustice all the good “synagogue going” people had embraced as normal. Look at verse 24

[Read Luke 4:24-27]

So and are two of the big prophets in the Old Testament. They called down fire from heaven on their enemies. When a bunch of kids started mocking Elisha for being bald a couple bears ran out of the bush and mauled them. You didn’t mess with these guys. And God spoke through them.

And so in there is this devastating famine in Israel and everyone is starving. And God’s prophet Elijah gets sent to bring blessing and salvation to some widow in Zarephath. Now in case you miss this, she’s an unholy, pagan Gentile woman. All the Jews were better than this woman. And yet for some reason God extends His favor to her instead of to any of them.

And just to make things crystal clear Jesus tells a second story from 2 Kings 5 where the leper gets healed by Elisha. It’s the same point. Jesus says “there were lots of lepers in Israel, but none of them got what God was handing out. God gave it to the servant of some Syrian.” 6

Here’s what Jesus is saying “Hey, God’s idea about who gets the good stuff He has to hand out is different than you think. God’s love isn’t reserved for a chosen race, or a bunch of good church attending folk, in fact His heart is for people church attenders often turn a blind eye to.

And so Jesus says “My ministry isn’t aimed primarily at fighting the injustice you are suffering from. It’s aimed at benefitting people you don’t even care about.” … That’s what Jesus preaches in His very first sermon in His home town. And the offense of this isn’t lost on His audience. Look at verse 28

[Read Luke 4:28-30]

What they didn’t know yet was that Jesus was God and wasn’t interested in dying before His time – so He simply didn’t – but talk about social suicide. Talk about destroying your fan base. After Jesus’ first sermon people want to kill Him. And they want to do this because He has poked His finger into the bubble of contentment that every religious group of people is susceptible to building around themselves.

So here is what happens: a group of people come together to center their lives around God and salvation. And transformation happens. Lives get changed. People get healed from sin addictions and substance addictions and illness and financial trouble and relational brokenness and all sorts of stuff – Jesus is in the business of healing people.

And Jesus is in this business because He was all about pointing people towards the abundant life God designed us to live. And so life is better for broken people when Jesus shows up.

But very quickly broken sinners who are unfairly selected to receive Jesus’ free gift of grace turn into righteous people. And righteous people easily fall into believing we are better than those who are struggling beside us.

And then instead of fighting to give away the abundant life Jesus has given us, we turn a blind eye to the plight of those who aren’t like us.

This has always been the struggle. Jesus dealt with this on day one, and God’s people still struggle with narcissism – we think mostly about ourselves.

But Jesus calls us to be different. Jesus’ ministry is about offering hospitality and justice to those who aren’t like us. It’s about using the resources and abilities we have to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. And this kind of mission always flips the world on its head. And that’s because Jesus’ mission has Jesus at the center of it. You see Jesus wasn’t simply a social reformer, He was God with skin on. And so the motivation behind the good He did was to bring sinners back to God. 7

And we see this in the hugely offensive truth claim He gives us at the beginning of verse 18. He says the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor.” Now if you read , what He’s saying is YHWH is endorsing Me. I’m not one of YHWH’s men. I’m His answer. God chose Me.

So here’s the thing with Jesus. Jesus didn’t think He was a great teacher, or a gifted life-skills coach or a social justice worker. Jesus thought He was God’s Messiah, the answer to humanity’s problems, and that’s offensive. Now people didn’t pick this up right away because they got excited about all the good things they were going to get.

But people who really get Jesus realize that what He offers is not primarily for us, it’s for us to give away. Our job is to do what Jesus did, and that is to lead people towards the abundant life God designed all of humanity to enjoy. And this is found in Christ.

But it’s not just all people we are to target. God’s heart has always been bent towards the poor and oppressed and weak and marginalized. God cares for people nobody, even in the church, is prone to care for.

And so this is the call for us today: Fort George, make Jesus God in your life and allow His passions to shape yours. As painful and uncomfortable as it is, choose to make your life about shining His light into this city and this world. … This last week I received an email from the daughter of the pastor we served under when Nikki and I lived in Korea. And the deacons thought I should share it with us and give us the opportunity to respond. Here’s Kate, who with her mom has started an orphanage in the Philippines:

Dear Dan and Nikki, I pray this message finds you well and enjoying this leg of your life’s adventure. I am writing to you because of an extraordinary opportunity that has come up for a precious little girl in our care and the future of all the children who will be served by our mission. I know that you have your own mission connections and are very active, and I have great respect for that. I am not looking to start an ongoing support relationship, but rather I want to be bold and bang on every door I can to be able to say, “yes” to a door that has opened for us in truly miraculous ways.

You may or may not know that our mission caters predominately to children who are either being trafficked or are in imminent danger of being sold. Since opening residentially, we have been involved in the lives of 12 children. Eleven of them came from trafficking situations. We have a little girl, “Anna”, who is currently 29 months old. She came to us at 18 months of age. She had already been prepped for sale as a sex worker, and she had already been forced to work. Anna had endured the many months of conditioning that break a child in the ways necessary to enable them to perform like that. She was kept in a cage and denied human contact and food. She was only let out to receive candy and perform. Sometimes, the men would be too drunk and replace her to her cage without locking it. At those times she would be found on the roadside competing with stray dogs for food. Every time she was returned to her parents who were running this business. She is the 6th child of this mother. At least four of her siblings had been sold already. When Anna came to us, she didn’t make a sound. She was expressionless, even upon her hospital exam, blood draws, and other procedures. She was completely shut off from the world. The deep attachment wounds she has suffered and the trauma itself are profound……and yet an all too common story here.

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Anna was our first child. But when other children came, we had to move her out of the nursery because she was a danger to others – her whole life to this point being a struggle to survive, she only saw other children as competition for food and, quite frankly, life itself. At that point, she moved in with me. I have been working with her personally since June. Today, she is still radically behind in spoken words, but her receptive language skills are outstanding. She is a bright, determined, resilient, precious little girl who consistently amazes me with her compassion in the face of all she has endured. She still struggles tremendously to make eye contact, and is plagued by horrific nightmares. And as is common in trauma situations, especially when there has been no healthy attachment to assist in regulation – even positive experiences confuse and overwhelm her.

She often experiences seizure like activity when overloaded, her whole body shaking and becoming rigid before completely going limp. And this is the intersection where I am banging on doors and asking for your help.

An experienced child trauma counselor and attachment disorder Play Therapist in the U.S. has committed to DONATE 12 to 15 weeks of intensive therapy for Anna, and will train me as well to do this process with ALL our kids when I return to the Philippines. Additionally, because of the strong attachment needs Anna has, this therapist will donate some babysitting hours as well to spell me while keeping Anna’s environment as stable as possible. Someone has donated a car for transportation. And some church folks are gathering cool weather clothes for our little tropical baby. (The counseling is in Colorado.)

What we need desperately are folks who can help with airfare, a budget for diapers, and a small amount of pocket money so we could have a few treats like going to the Denver Zoo or spending time at a state park. (Anna LOVES animals and nature.) The “cheap” flights are around $1,500 each – but those require an average of 40+ hours of travel – which I am honestly not sure I can pull off alone with a traumatized toddler. The flights that get us 30 hours or less seem to run around $2,500 each. I know that is a big ask, but I have to bang on every door for this Little One who has no one else to fight for her. I am also thinking of all the kids who will come after her – benefitting from this training and process.

Would you be willing to consider a one-time gift to help make these last pieces fall into place? And would you also be willing to think about folks you know? Is there anyone you might be willing or able to pass this on to who has a passion to stop the trafficking of children and a heart to invest in helping the ones who have already suffered?

The counselor wants us to arrive in the U.S. as close to March 10 as possible as she could clear her schedule then and we would not lose valuable time to her vacations and other commitments. So our clock is ticking. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I would be happy to help in any way I can. Thank you for considering this. I know you already do so very much. With hope that God will open doors as we all knock, Kate

Nikki and I are giving to this, and if you would like to contribute as well that would be a huge blessing. Pat is going to have an offering basket in the foyer after the service. Any cheques can be made out to Fort George and we will transfer all the funds together.