Your eyes are like a deer caught in the headlights.  You couldn’t see this one coming.  It was a special Sabbath.  The hometown boy could really teach and preach.  News had come from other synagogues in Galilee - he was on a roll. 

Frankly, you were excited to hear what the boy had to say.  It was all printed up in the synagogue bulletin. 

“Preacher: Joseph and Mary’s boy, Jesus.” 

You were all settled in.  You watched him do like he had been taught for his Bar Mitvah.  He was even using that yad you gave him to read the scroll.  But then he threw you and the entire congregation a little curve ball.  He went off the lectionary. 

You figured, “Eh…it’s allowable.  Maybe he’s been preaching a D’Var Torah series.  ‘Sides, this Isaiah Servant Song stuff will preach.  It gives us something to look forward to.” 

But then the other shoe dropped.  No D’var Torah, i.e. Sermon.  Instead, if you heard correctly, this upstart said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

And you, along with the rest of your fellow Nazarenes are staring. 

He was supposed to say, “The Word of the Lord,” not “I am the Word of the Lord.”  Which is about what his little fulfillment prank amounts to.  This here is not your Mama’s worship.  This is something different…completely un-Orthodox…

Well.  Just think what could happen if what this Jesus says is true. In, with, and under this Jesus’ announcement would be the counterpart to the displacement and ending of present kingdoms.  This one, by claiming that Isaiah’s reading has been fulfilled, would be announcing the beginning of a new age.  In short, Jesus’ alarmingly brief announcement - in Worship - carries within it a smack down on all those powers and forces of the present order. 

He’s speaking to the poor.  Certainly what he’s saying won’t set well with those keeping the poor poor and benefiting from their poverty.  He addresses the captives (hear slaves) but we know some folks who’d like to see that one stay the same.  He’s naming the oppressed, but there is never the oppressed without the oppressors.

No, if what this Jesus says is true, this truly ain’t worship as usual.   Since as long as can be remembered, the people of God have gathered to worship the God revealed in Torah and the Prophets.  But what Jesus is calling for is entirely new and different.  It entails a shift from worship gathered around a book to worship gathered around Mary and Joseph’s son -  the Son with the Spirit of God upon him.

From our vantage point on the other side of the Cross, perhaps we receive today’s good news with a bit more ease.  Or perhaps we receive this good news with something beyond ease that smacks of complacency. 

For while the worship and life of this early first century synagogue in Nazareth has come to a bit of stand still, we wonder if we can still stand, after all these years, a worship and life that bears Christ’s name.

The Church in the Western sphere is all too often formed to think of worship as strictly a “religious” affair.  Worship, humanly conceived, involves participating in certain ritual practices.

Some deem these practices as pure drudgery.  Others regard these practices as routinely isolated  -physically sequestered,

intellectually irrelevant, and

morally removed from everyday life.

What happens in the nave stays in the nave.

Example: Everyone knows that worship talk must be counted along with politics as one of those identifiers best kept to yourself.

Perhaps this what drives Jesus, the anointed one of God, to become the embodiment of the prophet par-excellence.  There’s just something about this Jesus we worship that will not keep things on the down low.  He claims centuries-old prophetic words as fulfilled because he’s sitting in the room. 

Though he’s sitting among family and friends, he won’t be polite and keep this stuff to himself.  He’ll not relegate the words he embodies to the religious sphere, for they shine a light on a way of living into God’s reign - a reign that calls for the poor to hear good news, the enslaved to be released, the blind to receive their sight, the oppressed to go free.

Couched in worship, Jesus sets the agenda for his mission in the world. The same Spirit that alights on him at his baptism; that drives him out into the wilderness to be tempted – this same Spirit compels him to offer a proclamation and ministry within worship that saves, redeems, and transforms. 

By the grace and power of God, this highly unusual and alien worship encounters and transforms us in this time to be ones who pray without reservation, “your kingdom come, your will be done.” 

Such unusual and alien worship across the centuries has created and sustained new identities.

Such worship has also encouraged those gathered to see their lives not as something to be grasped, but as gifts to be given for the service of God.

Such worship has led countless gatherings, animated by the Spirit of Christ in the room,

• to feed the hungry,
• to give drink to the thirsty,
• to clothe the naked,
• to take in the stranger,
• to bind up the wounded, and
• to share their possessions with those in need.

Such worship has even empowered those gathered to denounce the unfaithfulness of their own brothers and sisters - as was the case with the Confessing Church in Germany.

It is this very worship where the embodied prophet that is Christ seeks out and inspires Rice students to raise awareness on human trafficking in our city…that the Church may truly be the Church.

You, like me, probably got up this morning not seeing this One coming.  We all too easily lose sight of Jesus’ presence in the world and among this worship community. 

Completely understandable. 

Sometimes, we’re overwhelmed by the catastrophes and calamities that fall upon humanity, and we lose our sight. 

Other times we find ourselves foolishly captivated by insolent powers and forces.   

And yet other times, we let other physical, moral and intellectual spheres oppress us to the point of keeping silent. 

To you and I gathered here in worship, Jesus announces good news.  The prophecy has been fulfilled. 

In spite of our brokenness - ye because of it - that fulfillment is with us now.  This day is holy to the LORD our God.

We are invited to come this way.  To eat this bread.  To drink this sweet wine.  And then to be sent, that we may become a portion of Christ’s presence to those for whom nothing is prepared. 

That streams of living justice may flow down upon the earth, give freedom to the captive, worth to the poor, sustenance to hungry hands, and dignity to the trafficked worker.

That a hurting world may come to know, this is the time of our Lord’s favor.

AMEN.