Good morning, Friends! Thank you all for coming to worship today.
Today we’re really starting the New Year. I know, we had a New Year’s sermon. But then, the next week, we had an ice storm, and had to cancel worship. Then last week was Remembrance Sunday, which was good. But remembering all the people who passed isn’t the same as kicking off a new year.
From now till Easter, we’re going to read the gospel. We’re going to hear the good news, from the gospel of Luke. Luke starts with the story of Christmas. And we heard that part already. So, we’re going to read about the life and teaching of Jesus – the things he said and the things he did.
Today, we’re going to look at a story from the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. This is the first sermon he ever preached.
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.
- Luke 4:14-22
I remember the first sermon I ever gave. I was about 24 years old. I was taking a course in preaching that semester, and the professor sent me way out into the country, to preach in small Quaker meeting in a farming community in Indiana.
I was also taking a course in Bible that semester. And I was filled with enthusiasm. I was going to set the world on fire, and I was going to teach those Quakers everything I knew. I was going to help them to know the unknowable, to think the unthinkable, and to unscrew the inscrutable. In my first sermon, I took them through the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
The sermon lasted just over an hour. And the people in the meeting were really kind about it. At the end of the meeting, one of the elders stood up, and thanked God for raising up a new generation of ministers to preach the gospel to them.
The next week, back in the classroom, my professor told the class, there are just three rules for giving a sermon. The rules may seem pretty obvious:
1) talk about God
2) talk about 20 minutes
3) if you can’t do one, at least do the other
The next sermon I gave was a lot shorter. It was on Christmas day. It was at another small Quaker meeting, way out in the country. The pastor was an older guy. He just wanted the day off, so he and his wife could spend Christmas out of town with their grandchildren.
By that time, I had learned a lot more about preaching. I kept it short, and I remembered one of the other important lessons. The professor told the class that when you preach at Christmas, you’ve got three things.
You’ve got a mother, a baby, and a star. Talk about those three things, and you’ll do OK. If you can’t find a Christmas message with those three things, he said, you’d better just hang it up, and don’t even try to be a preacher.
When Jesus gave his first sermon, back in his own home church, he was a little older. He was about 30, which was still pretty young, but most people didn’t live that long back in those days. He had enthusiasm. He had the Holy Spirit. But he also had experience.
I’d like you all to try something. Just for a minute. I’d like you all to imagine, what it would be like, to give your very first sermon.
Imagine that you were called, to stand up in front of the whole church, and give a message. It’s your first chance, to say what you always wanted to say. And then, somebody hands you the Bible reading. Imagine yourself, reading these words:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
The Lord has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners,
Recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed,
To say that this is the year that the Lord has chosen…”
Imagine yourself, saying those words. How would that feel? Could say those words honestly? How would it feel?
I think sometimes we forget the feeling of wonder and impertinence and impossibility of what Jesus said. What if we are called, and appointed, to turn things upside-down? To speak out against injustice, to restore the balance of peace and fairness in the world?
Did you ever feel that we are called, to be healers, and liberators? That we should be the ones, to help break the chains that bind people? That we should be heralds and messengers and witnesses to what God is doing in the world?
This is what Jesus said, in his first sermon in his own home church.
If you read on, it says that some people shook his hand, and said, “Nice sermon!” But other people asked, “Who does this guy think that he is? Don’t we know him? Didn’t he grow up here? Isn’t this Joe and Mary’s boy? What’s he saying?”
Every year, we go through seasons and holidays. We have Easter, and Christmas, and all the other seasons of the year. There’s a flow to it, and it’s a good flow. We like to sing familiar songs, and we like a little humor, and we like things to be short and simple. Was that what Jesus did?
In his first sermon, Jesus didn’t stand up and say, “Well, great weather we’re having, isn’t it? Boy, did you watch the Panthers play this week? Sure get good mileage on that new car I bought. I wonder how much longer winter’s going to last?”
That isn’t what Jesus said at all. He said, “God’s got good news for you. And here it is! It’s great news – not for the rich, but for the poor. Freedom, healing, an end to oppression. And this is the year! Today’s the day!”
In the Bible, there’s more than one word for time. There’s actually two words. You get a free lesson in Bible language today
The first word for time is chronos. Chronos means clock time. It means calendar time. You ask, “What day is it today?” and everybody says, “It’s January 26th. Tomorrow’s the 27th. The day after will be the 28th.”
Or you ask, “What time is it?” and you take out your watch, or your smart phone, and you say, “It’s 11:35,” or something like that. Chronos is clock time, it’s calendar time, and we understand that.
The other word for time in the Bible is kairos, and that’s something really different. In the Bible, kairos means a different sort of time.
Kairos is more about God’s time. It’s about what time God thinks it is. Kairos means that it’s high time. It’s special time. It’s time for us to listen to God, and get the message right, and then get on board, or the train’s going to leave without us.
There’s a time for arguing and second-guessing. But there’s also a time when you pull up your socks and step out and cross the Red Sea.
There’s a time to do the laundry, and get supper on the table. But there’s also a time to say, “Nope! I’m going to stop what I’m doing, and sit down and listen to Jesus.”
That’s the story of Mary and Martha. Mary recognized that today was her special opportunity to listen to Jesus. That time might never come again. The dirty dishes and vacuuming the house are with you always; now is the time to stop and listen.
The Bible is full of stories of people who recognized it was time to stand up and be counted. Or when it was time to be healed, or to turn their life around.
Part of what it means to be a church is to know what time it is, whether it’s chronos or kairos. Allen Jay used to say, that Springfield had leaders in the meeting who knew what time it was. In his words, “They knew what Israel needed to do.”
Did you ever hear somebody say, that it’s high time for something to happen? It’s high time, it’s past time, to do something important, to stop what we’re doing, and do something new. It’s high time to change your life. It’s high time to turn around. That’s what Jesus was talking about. This is the year! Today’s the day!
I think a lot of churches are floundering these days, because they don’t know what time it is. We aren’t sure what we should be doing.
There’s this idea, and that idea. There’s this person teaching on the internet, and that person talking on the television. What should we really do?
Whatever we do in worship, whether it’s prayer, or singing, or a sermon, people in our meeting want it to be honest and authentic. We don’t want anything which is canned, or fake.
We want worship which takes peoples’ feelings and spiritual needs seriously. We want worship which will be interesting to all ages. We want to be challenged, but we don’t want to be beaten up when we come to worship.
We want our meeting to be a safe and friendly place. Whether it’s in worship, or in conversation, we all want to feel that exposing ourselves, letting people see who we really are, is going to be OK. We’re don’t want to be attacked, or abused.
We’re want to be respected, and treated honestly. Not everything people say is going to be accepted. We don’t always expect to be agreed with. But nobody wants to get jumped on, for speaking our mind, or opening our hearts.
Call me a dreamer if you want, but I think that people really want to hear about Jesus. We want Jesus speak to our hearts. We want to give time to the Holy Spirit. It’s a little scary, but I think that some people want to take what we have learned together into our daily lives.
Sunday isn’t the only day we talk about this stuff. Monday matters. And so does Tuesday, and Wednesday, and all of the other days of the week. Our daily work and our daily witness are essential parts of our faith.
We want to share all this with our children and grandchildren. We want them to love Jesus, too. Our children and our young people are so beautiful, and we’re so proud of them. But they’re so busy. And it’s hard for us to share what means so much to us.
In Jesus’ first sermon, he talked about healing, and people having their eyes opened. He said a lot of people are blind – they can’t see what’s happening all around them.
Later on, Jesus spent a lot of time healing people. Sometimes that meant healing physical problems. But a lot of the time, Jesus healed people in their hearts. He set people free, from fears and things that tied them up. Over and over, Jesus forgave people. He told people that God loves them, that God wants to help them, right now.
Jesus said that God could move mountains if we pray, that God can unlock doors and open warehouses full of blessings, if we just ask for help.
“Seek, and you will find. Ask, and it will be given. Knock, and the door will open. . .”
Jesus was always big on truth. He could be gentle about it, if people were hurting. But he didn’t hold back.
Jesus hated hypocrisy. His harshest words were against people who twisted God to stay in power, or to profit themselves. He talked about people who pretended to know everything, but were walking in darkness.
Jesus ripped into people who told lies about God, or who made people trip and fall and lose their faith, or people who kept little children from coming close to him.
A lot of that came later. In his first sermon, Jesus said that he felt the Holy Spirit. He felt that God was calling him.
He said it’s high time for people who are poor to get some real good news. He said it’s high time for people to be healed, to be set free, to see the light.
And then – Jesus went out and did it. He practiced what he preached. He didn’t just talk the talk. He walked the walk, all the way. He lived the new life he wanted everyone to share, the life that begins now, and lasts forever.