Garrett Vickrey Epiphany 3+ Woodland Baptist Church 1.27.19 San Antonio, TX “When the Story Grips Us” Luke 4:14-21

My best friend Kevin grew up three how to get somewhere he drove to houses down from me. He had a his mom’s store… from there he terrible sense of direction when we could get pretty much anywhere. first learned to drive. He got lost one morning on the way to our I don’t know if Jesus ever high school. Road signs were struggled with direction much in his basically a foreign language to life around Nazareth. He seemed him. When you given directions he like he always knew the way (after would simply respond, “Yeah ok. all, he is the way). But, if he ever So Straight forever. got it.” If we wondered what he should do, what were going to get anywhere when direction he should go, he would Kevin was driving I had to tell him go back to Isaiah and from there where to go. His mom owned a he could find his way anywhere. teaching supply store (back in the These are his home verses. From days before Amazon). We worked here he can get anywhere. together everyday after school at Because this is the place that he his mom’s store; it was like a recognized the word God has for second home for both of us. One him to do. day he was telling me about what he did over the weekend— he met When Jesus returned to his some of our friends at Chili’s for hometown Nazareth he went to the dinner. Chili’s was outside our synagogue to teach. He was neighborhood. I don’t know how he handed the scroll of Isaiah. The got there without me… in fact, it bible says he found his place. was 20 minutes away through Jesus knew who he was, where he traffic with turns. He really had no was, and where he was going… he sense of direction — so I asked found his place. If we are going to him— “How’d you get there without follow him (and be his disciples) me?” “I went from the store. I was we need to find our place where at church. I drove to the store and Jesus found his. These are the first then from there I knew my way.” It words the adult Jesus speaks in turns out this is what he did all the the gospel of Luke. But, even time. Whenever he didn’t know these words echo the words of 12 1 year-old Jesus in the temple. prostitution at the age of 12. At 15, Remember that story? Joseph and she had “TRUST NO ONE” Mary didn’t know where he was for tattooed across her chest. After 3 days. Finally, they found him in years of abuse and heartbreak, the temple sitting among the Shana found her place at Thistle teachers, listening to them and Farms. It was there she learned asking questions. All who heard that the biggest lie she was ever him were amazed at his told was that she was stupid. She’s understanding and his answers. helped grow the sales of Thistle When his parents questioned him Farms products nationwide and about why he would run off and get handles spreadsheets better than lost, he questioned them back— anyone at the farm. “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in Each morning the women of my Father’s house?” Even at that Thistle Farms gather together in a young age he knew where he circle and light a candle for those belonged: among God’s people in still on the streets. In that circle the community of people shaped one morning, Shana stood up and by the story of scripture. He did the first cartwheel of her life. belonged in the interpretive Seeing an adult do their first community of those called to cartwheel of their life is really wrestle with the bible. The first two something. But what’s significant times we hear Jesus speak in Luke about that cartwheel moment is it is a testament to how he has that Shana was finally in a circle of found his place. There’s a place people she could trust, a circle of here for us too. women who loved her. Full of the knowledge that God loves her, and Thistle Farms in Nashville, in that circle she was freed up Tennessee is a community of enough to go for the cartwheel. women who have survived human This is release, recovery, and trafficking and addiction. The freedom—it’s the result of the good women use their gifts to create news proclaimed and claimed. candles and other body care products, all labeled LOVE The bible is a meeting place for HEALS. Shana is one of these that good news. It’s a mirror, amazing women. She was born microscope and lens. It unearths into addiction and sold into identity, sets our hopes, and forms 2 us in the Spirit. In scripture we proclaim the year of the Lord’s meet the depth of human suffering favor…” Jesus stops there in the and sin. We also meet the middle of v. 2 from Isaiah 61. He profound divine grace we so leaves off the end of that verse. deeply misunderstand. The bible is The end says this: “and the day of a strikingly human book, though it vengeance of our God.” Instead of is enlivened by the Spirit. It’s the reading that line, he rolls up the most dangerous book ever scroll and hands it back to the produced. Here we find out what it attendant. Brian Zand says, “Jesus means to be human— that we long has closed the book on God’s to come home (to our own vengeance.”1 Jesus is showing us Nazareth) and be received… that what kind of messiah he is going to we long to be set free and given a be, but he is also teaching us how path to our promised land. It’s to read scripture. about finding your place in this life (and the next). We are invited to There are some parts of the bible struggle and wrestle with these that say more about us than God. pages (with these stories). But, as When God commands genocide in followers of Christ we want to find the Old Testament we can be sure our place in the bible where Jesus that is more a remnant of bronze found his. Christ is the lens age culture than revealing the God through which we read the bible. of Jesus Christ. When prophets We follow his interpretive lead. And like Isaiah proclaim that God will here at the beginning of his exact vengeance on Israel’s ministry our teacher gives us a enemies we should understand lesson. that verse (and others like it) as a by-product of a minority group Jesus edits Isaiah. He finds his living in an oppressive empire. place in the scroll and begins to That identity produced an image of read: “The Spirit of the Lord is hope that only the God of Jesus upon me, because the Lord has could provide, but their experience anointed me to proclaim good also brought with it the very human news to the poor. He has sent me longing for revenge. The bible is to bind up the brokenhearted, to authoritative and a perfect gift to proclaim freedom for the us. But, we don’t have to take the captives and release from assumptions about God of bronze darkness for the prisoners, to age culture as the truth revealed 3 by Christ. In fact, if we do that we times and the inside jokes in these miss what Jesus is doing. Jesus pages come to life. Learn as much has closed the book on as you can of the struggles of the vengeance… he compares God to people in these pages and you will the Father of the prodigal son. come to see yourself struggling Israel made assumptions about alongside them. God coming from their ancient culture, those assumptions have to Luke 4 gives us Jesus’ mission be left behind because of the God statement. And this should not only we meet in Jesus. Jesus is be our guide in mission and teaching us how to read the bible. ministry but also in reading scripture. Jesus is our guide, and But now we might be thinking: “It’s his mission is our map. We should only in the bible that we meet remember what Jesus does not Jesus!” I hope that’s not true. Our say here. He closes the book on whole baptist witness is born out of vengeance and opens the book on faith that we have met the Christ mercy. Jesus came to preach good out on the road of life. The bible news. So these words of scripture offers us a place to meet Jesus— are meant to be good news to you. in these stories that grip us and The captives are free. God is with shape us in his image. But, this is us. That’s a message we need to not the only meeting place. It’s a hear… and take to heart. It’s a measuring stick to measure and message that should give us understand our own experiences direction and help us find our way. of God in the world. The bible is a Let this story grip you, guide you library of human longing— it digs and shape you. deep into our conscience and exposes the blend of love, lies, Natan Sharansky was Jewish and lust, and longing that creates the lived in the old Soviet Union. He cocktail of human experience. The was thrown in jail by the KGB for bible isn’t afraid of delving deep attempting to immigrate to Israel. into human experience because He was imprisoned for over 12 the work of the Christ isn’t inch- years. He was a great deep redemption… it’s full mathematician and a great chess immersion. That’s why we need to player. His wife was religious. He read the bible. Learn as much as wasn’t. Before he was thrown in you can about the cultures of the jail, she gave him a little book of 4 Psalms in Hebrew to keep his and the Spirit of God is upon us… spirits up when he was in prison. because that Spirit has given us a gospel to proclaim. The missionary The trouble was, Sharansky Tom Harvey once said, “How can couldn’t read Hebrew. But he was we know that we have the power a brilliant mathematician, so he of the Spirit? We know because treated Hebrew as a code, and the Holy Spirit gives us something eventually he broke the code and to do for God, and a time to do it.” was able to decode the Hebrew Go set people free. And do it now. book of Psalms. In his This is the spirit that gives us a autobiography he tells how he did home and a direction. This is the it. He was decoding Psalm 23 and spirit that sets us free and helps us he deciphered these words: find our way. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear Elie Weisel was just a teenager no evil for you are with me.” when he and his family were taken to Auschwitz. He witnessed the And at that point he had a mystical death of many of his family experience. He said, “I suddenly members. He saw the depth of felt God was saying those words to human sin and despair first hand. me in prison.” And he called his And he saw the day that the death autobiography, “Fear No Evil.” He camp was liberated by the Allied carried the Book of Psalms forces. That day powerful, strong wherever he went for the rest of soldiers broke down the fences of his life. the concentration camp to release the prisoners. They were a terrible This is our story. This is your story. sight— frail, feeble, gaunt, and Fear no evil. Christ has come to near death they were terrible set us free. Not in the end of victims of a horrible criminal evil. days… now. You are free of the fear of death that keeps you In spite of his condition Wiesel chained to a way of life you hate. remembers one solider, a strong You are free of a family that tells American man who was built like a you that you are anything less than house, who upon seeing the horror a child of God. You are free of a of human suffering was overcome country that tells you you are a with grief. He fell to his knees second class citizen. You are free sobbing in a mix of disbelief and 5 sorrow. The captives, now liberated, walked over to the soldier, put their arms around him, and comforted him.2

As Jesus looked out upon that congregation in Nazareth, what do you think he saw? He saw people chained to a system of oppression they knew not how to be free of. He saw people told they were stupid. He saw people with no sense of direction. He saw prisoners in need of hope. And he said to them as he says to us today, “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.”

6 1 Brian Zahnd, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, ch. 2. Zahnd gives detailed analysis of the way Jesus closes the book on divine vengeance and calls us to see God in the light of Christ.

2 Elie Weisel, All Rivers Run to the Sea, from Brett Blair sermon 2001.

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