Good news for losers
Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany, year C
Bible reading: Luke 4:14-21
It hadn’t rained a drop of rain in the northwest of Haiti for 10 months, and the famine was reaching a critical stage. When Wess got there to assess the situation for his Christian mission he saw the fields filled with men and women and children on their knees. He thought they must be expecting rain and so were finally planting their crops.
But not so. They were actually digging seed corn back out of the ground.
Every time they saw the clouds come they planted their seeds, but when they passed without rain, they went back to dig up all the seeds they could find, before the ants and rats got them. They were so poor and hungry they could not afford to waste their seed. Wess knelt down to help them as he brushed away the tears of sorrow for such poor, hungry people. But an old man kindly comforted him: you mustn’t cry. God is good. It will probably rain tomorrow
. Despite the hopeless circumstances, his faith and hope in God remained firm.
When Wess woke the next morning, the village was strangely silent, except for the glorious sound of falling rain. The villagers were all in the fields planting the seeds they had dug up just the day before. There in the fields stood the old man, now with his face streaked with the mud of the transformed soil, with a huge grin on his face. He didn’t say a word … he just laughed and pointed a gnarled finger toward heaven in praise.
That was nearly 30 years ago when people looked to God to help in a famine in Haiti. Now people look to God to help in an earthquake, and food and shelter and hope pour in from Christians and non-Christians around the world. God does not personally deliver the relief. He works through his servants who knowingly or unknowingly do his will. Despite the famines, and earthquakes, and fires, and floods, and wars, and terror attacks, and car crashes, and family breakdowns, and drug taking, and binge drinking, and all the criminality of our world and our own nation – God is good, and he gives us hope, and calls us to trust his promises. With God, it will probably rain tomorrow
, or the next day...
Into such a troubled world God sends his prophet Isaiah with a message of hope. There is rebellion against God. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, as in our own day. Justice cannot be found in the courts. Society is breaking down. After hundreds of years of spiritual and moral collapse God sends his people in exile, into captivity, and they are totally crushed, and feel God has deserted them, and there is no hope.
When all seems lost, God sends his prophet to preach good news to the poor… to bind up the broken hearted… to proclaim freedom for the captives, and to release the prisoners from the dark cells
. And people believe again that God loves them and forgives them, and captives return home, and hopes are raised for a while – but only to be dashed again – until they realise somebody greater must come. A Messiah must come. God must anoint a heavenly being to come and rescue and restore his people.
And on this day Jesus reads this word from Isaiah, and sits down and says: I’m the one.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and 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, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
As Jesus preaches, people’s hopes are raised again. Could he be the Messiah?
As Jesus preaches and teaches God is good again, God is loving again, God is forgiving again, God is caring for the broken, the outcastes, the sinners, the losers again. The poor and oppressed flock to hear the Good News of God. The news about him spread through the whole countryside … and everyone praised him.
But Jesus wasn’t just words. Wherever he went he set sinners free from their sins, he healed the sick, he opened the eyes of the blind, he raised the dead, he welcomed all who came to him in their need. Jesus preached the Good News of God through his words and his deeds. And the result?
- For caring for the poor and weak, he was arrested by the rich and powerful.
- For bringing release to the captives, he was captured and led to the slaughter.
- For bringing sight to the blind, the sighted blinded him and ridiculed him.
- For forgiving the sins of the penitent, the unrepentant murdered him.
- For bring freedom to the oppressed, he was nailed to the cross and sealed in the tomb.
But it will probably rain tomorrow
. Sin and death could not hold him captive. He broke the bonds of sin, and death, and the devil, and hell, to forgive all sinners, to set all prisoners free, to open all blind eyes, to bring good news to all the poor, all the losers, all the sinners.
Today Jesus brings good news to all of us poor sinners in Australia:
- all of us who have so much, and yet are so spiritually bankrupt,
- all of us who have so little, and yet turn to him in hope that it will rain tomorrow,
- all of us who will fall down in repentance for our sins, and cry out to God for mercy.
Whatever the guilt in your conscience, whatever the pain in your heart, whatever the heavy load you are forced to bear, whatever the brokenness that destroys your dreams, Jesus comes to you and calls you to trust in him, to hope in him, to find joy in him.
He invites you to hear his word and believe it, to receive his sacrament and be strengthened by it, to obey his word and find joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength.
As you find joy in what the Lord has done for you, you will become a good news person. Like the woman at the well who was set free from her sins by Jesus, you will run to others and announce: come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did. I think he’s the Messiah.
He loves me. He forgives me. He has changed me.
Our country is in need of grace… it is groaning for grace. That grace has found you. That amazing grace is there for every person, and you are a part of God’s body to live and share it. God has anointed you with his Spirit and made you members of his body to show and tell the good news.
You may not feel up to the task, but as you rejoice in the Lord
you will be given the strength to do it. If God has brought forgiveness and hope to you, then you can be sure he will bring it to others through you. Passing on the good news of what Jesus has done for us is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. You never know what amazing things God will do when his good news is lived and spoken. It will probably rain tomorrow
. Amen.