HOLY

TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH

An Episcopal Church in the Worldwide Anglican Communion

The following homily, based upon Luke 4:14-21, was delivered by Father Johnson on Sunday, January 24, 2010 (if you wish instead to listen to the homily, click here):

In the Twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, the people of Israel were commanded to observe the year of Jubilee every fiftieth year. During the year of Jubilee, any Israelite who had become a slave was to be released from his or her bonds. Any land that had been sold was to be returned to the family that had sold it. Any debts that had been incurred were to be forgiven. This year of Jubilee was to be a time of celebration, a time when the community was restored, a time when the people of Israel demonstrated their reliance on God’s blessing. It is hard to imagine the joy that such an event would bring.

Sadly, there is no record that the year of Jubilee was ever celebrated on a large scale in Israel. Most of us can probably understand why it was not observed. It sounds good if you are the one who has been sold into slavery. The Jubilee sounds good if you are the one who owes a debt that you cannot repay. It sounds good if it was your family that had to sell land. However, if you are the one who has to release your slaves, or cancel debts, or restore land, suddenly the prospect seems less attractive. If you look at the difficulty we have in our own nation passing regulations to prevent predatory lending, or to create fair standards of practices for debt collection, then you may have some idea of why the Jubilee did not have the widespread devotion of the people of Israel.

Why is it that we, as humans, have such difficulty with extravagant grace? At first glance, we may simply think of it in terms of self-interest. If I have to forgive debts owed to me, I may lose more than I can afford to lose. If I forgive the injury that someone else has inflicted, I may open myself to further injury. That would explain why those who have extended much credit would find it difficult to embrace the celebration of the year of Jubilee. What about those who would not be directly affected? There is something inside of us that still bristles at the idea of canceling debts, returning lands that were rightfully purchased, or freely forgiving a wrong perpetrated by another. Could it be that we have a hard time extending grace because we have not experienced grace ourselves?

When Jesus stood up to speak in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth, He read from the scroll of Isaiah. "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." Then He rolled up the scroll. If you read on past verse 21, where our Lectionary stops today, you will find that the people of Nazareth responded to the message of Jesus in less than favorable terms. In fact, they attempted to throw Him off a cliff. Why did Jesus get this response?

The portion of Isaiah that Jesus read from was a favorite passage for people who were anticipating the coming of the Messiah. The text in Isaiah does not stop with the phrase ". . . . the year of the Lord’s favor." Isaiah goes on to speak of the day of God’s vengeance, a time in which the gentiles will serve the people of Israel. When Jesus rolled up the scroll after proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor, He canceled a debt owed to Israel. The people of Israel had served the gentiles. It was time for the gentiles to serve Israel. Jesus forgave sins without exacting punishment. The gentiles had oppressed Israel. It was time for Israel to see the gentiles oppressed. When He stopped at the year of the Lord’s favor, Jesus extended a grace that was too extravagant to be tolerated.

Those who heard the message of Jesus this way missed the one thing that would have allowed them to celebrate the coming of the Messiah and the inauguration of His ministry. This was not just a message of grace to the gentiles, it was a message of grace for the people of Israel, it was a message of grace for the people of the synagogue of Nazareth. The year of the Lord’s favor envisioned by Jesus was a perpetual Jubilee for the entire world. When Jesus said that He came with the proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor, He was saying that the debt of Israel was being canceled, that the sins of its people would no longer be remembered against them. The people of the synagogue in Nazareth, however, were too focused on the debt owed them, on the sins of the gentiles against them, to experience the grace that was being extended to them. They saw themselves as the creditors in the Jubilee rather than the debtors, so they could not celebrate God’s grace.

In our culture today there is a near total silence on the topic of individual sins. We are great at talking about corporate guilt and institutional guilt. We are very good about calling for days of corporate repentance for the role of our nation in the mistreatment of the Native Americans, in slavery, in the interment of the Japanese in World War II, in the oppression of women, and in the pollution of the environment. It is healthy to call attention to these issues, and to work to create a society that does not continue a pattern of abusing certain classes of people. Sometimes I wonder if the reason we continue to call for corporate repentance and focus on corporate guilt is because we are afraid to face the mounting debt created by our individual sins. As long as we keep the guilt at arms length, as the failing of society as a whole, we do not have to see that we are individually the debtors, that we need the perpetual Jubilee proclaimed by Jesus Christ for us, as individuals. As long as we view sin as a matter of institutions and communities we can be self-righteously indignant when the grace extended to individuals is too extravagant.

Does something inside of you bristle a bit when you see another person receive some kind of grace that is a bit too extravagant? When you hear of a jailhouse conversion or a deathbed conversion, is your first instinct to rejoice at God’s grace, or is it cynicism, thinking it just might be a conversion of convenience? When you hear of someone who has received charity using some of what they have received in a less than responsible way, is your response to promise never to help that person again? Does it seem sometimes that grace is just too extravagant, that the debts of others are canceled too easily? If so, perhaps you are missing the grace that God has extended to you.

If we are ever going to be able to rejoice in the grace of God proclaimed by Jesus Christ, we must experience the way that grace has been extended to us. Take some time to truly reflect on your own, individual sins. It may be a time you were impatient with a migrant worker who was struggling to understand what you were saying. It may be a time when you snapped at your spouse, your children, or a friend because you were frustrated about something completely unrelated. It may be the time that you made the deliberate decision to deceive someone because the truth would bring consequences you did not want to deal with. Whatever your sins have been imagine yourself standing before Jesus, and hearing Him say, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Your debt is released. You are no longer a slave to sin." As you come to the Lord’s table today, receive God’s grace, receive the blood of the new covenant which was shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Most of all rejoice with Jesus, rejoice with the rest of the faithful who have received God’s extravagant grace, and rejoice wherever you see that grace at work in the world, for Jesus has brought the year of the Lord’s favor for us and for the world.

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