Isaiah 61:1-3
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion--
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
I have been doing this ministry-thing for quite awhile now - 17 years here in Ukiah as pastor, and a good 12 years or so in other forms of leadership ministry – and one thing I have learned is that some people are just never going to accept that they are good enough just as they are – that they are forgiven for whatever moments of less-than-perfection they have stored up in their lives.
Before ending up in pastoral ministry, I worked, as you know, for many years in the field of religious education as the director of a very large program devoted to the religious education of lay people - from pre-school toddlers to adults. I am in this work in this church today in large part because of my frustration with constantly hearing -- from people I admired greatly – that they couldn’t teach, they couldn’t lead, because they didn’t know anything or have anything to share – that they were not, in short, “good enough.”
The church, down through the centuries, has an awful lot to answer for. Possibly the most damaging thing ever done in the name of religion was – and still is, in many churches – the teaching that we humans are born sinful – born broken and stained and repulsive to God – and that it is the work of the church to “save” us from our own sinfulness. This has probably done more harm in the world than all the witch-hunts and religious wars put together. We have been trained into balancing, sometimes with extraordinary skill, two utterly contradictory ideas: 1) that God is good and loves us, and 2) that if this same God “catches” us doing something “bad,” he will send us to hell forever.
Broken, frightened people think in very odd ways.
Today’s reading is from the Old Testament, from the prophesying of Isaiah. Isaiah is a very long book, covering a lengthy historical time span - before, during, and after the Babylonian exile, when the Hebrew people must have truly felt that God hated them and had given up on them entirely. It also contains some of the most beautiful promises to be found in the entire canon. Chapter 61, where our reading today comes from, is from the end of the book, being written, it appears, after the restoration of the exiled people to their homeland. The last few chapters are all about God’s promises of restoration – about forgiveness and renewal and a re-commitment to living out the loving covenant between God and the people.
This is the same promise that Jesus uses, in Luke’s gospel (chapter 4) to announce his mission here among us. In Luke’s words:
Before ending up in pastoral ministry, I worked, as you know, for many years in the field of religious education as the director of a very large program devoted to the religious education of lay people - from pre-school toddlers to adults. I am in this work in this church today in large part because of my frustration with constantly hearing -- from people I admired greatly – that they couldn’t teach, they couldn’t lead, because they didn’t know anything or have anything to share – that they were not, in short, “good enough.”
The church, down through the centuries, has an awful lot to answer for. Possibly the most damaging thing ever done in the name of religion was – and still is, in many churches – the teaching that we humans are born sinful – born broken and stained and repulsive to God – and that it is the work of the church to “save” us from our own sinfulness. This has probably done more harm in the world than all the witch-hunts and religious wars put together. We have been trained into balancing, sometimes with extraordinary skill, two utterly contradictory ideas: 1) that God is good and loves us, and 2) that if this same God “catches” us doing something “bad,” he will send us to hell forever.
Broken, frightened people think in very odd ways.
Today’s reading is from the Old Testament, from the prophesying of Isaiah. Isaiah is a very long book, covering a lengthy historical time span - before, during, and after the Babylonian exile, when the Hebrew people must have truly felt that God hated them and had given up on them entirely. It also contains some of the most beautiful promises to be found in the entire canon. Chapter 61, where our reading today comes from, is from the end of the book, being written, it appears, after the restoration of the exiled people to their homeland. The last few chapters are all about God’s promises of restoration – about forgiveness and renewal and a re-commitment to living out the loving covenant between God and the people.
This is the same promise that Jesus uses, in Luke’s gospel (chapter 4) to announce his mission here among us. In Luke’s words:
When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“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.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Here, Jesus himself proclaims, as did Isaiah eight centuries earlier, that he is sent to:
...bring good news to the poor ...
...to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free
When a promise shows up twice in scripture - both in the new and the old scriptures – perhaps we are meant to pay attention to it. So, how do we get from this promise – and dozens more just like it – to the idea of a God who is watching and waiting to catch us at wrong-doing?
You may look around at us here today and say, “oh, that’s OK - we all know better here.” Well, do we? I suspect there may be more than one person present here today who is willing to agree with a description of God as loving Creator- but still, somewhere deep inside – hangs onto a faint lingering suspicion that it all applies to everyone else, but that they themselves just don’t make the grade.
With the shocking death of Robin Williams this week, depression has become a big topic of conversation - and that is a good thing that people are talking about it. But that level of depression is well beyond our scope here today - that is a medical issue. I am thinking here today of just a general feeling of being beat-down by life – of being told “no” by life, over and over again. Of hearing “you’re not good enough” so often that it becomes a permanent part of our thinking and we take to magnifying our ‘wrongs’ and discounting our ‘rights.’
I have long maintained that most Christians still operate by what they heard in Sunday School when they were 7 or 8 years old. When a child that young is told, “we are all sinners,” what they hear is “I’m bad” And those lessons tend to stick with us all our lives – even when we mature and supposedly “know better.”
Well, it’s not true. We are each of us God’s beloved creation and if anyone can explain to me why God would create us to be “bad,” I would like to hear it. Jesus came - by his own declaration - to proclaim release to the captives. If feeling of unworthiness are holding us captive, then we have been released. If you are oppressed by thoughts of not being good-enough – you are now set free. God spoke through Isaiah to tell us this good news long, long ago – and then, because we humans didn’t get the message then, Jesus himself came to tell us it is so.
Are we listening yet? Do we hear God’s voice speaking out in love and forgiveness and grace? We are loved - just as we are - because what and who we are is who God made us to be. We are not perfect – but if God only wanted perfect, she should have stopped with angels. We are humans, flaws and warts and all – and we are God’s cherished children for whom God wants nothing but goodness. Just look around you and the thousands of wonderful people and things that surround us every day – God’s gifts of love and creativity and life, for us.
This sense of innate sinfulness runs rampant in our world and twists much of what we do and say - and it has done for a long, long time. Imagine what this world might be if Christ’s church had - for the past 2000 years - actively taught and practiced God’s deep and abiding love for us instead of fear of a punishment we had somehow earned simply by being born. If there is a work we are called to do in this life, it is to first, allow ourselves to be loved and healed in our own broken places, and then, to carry that love and healing into the world around us. May God give us courage to try.
You may look around at us here today and say, “oh, that’s OK - we all know better here.” Well, do we? I suspect there may be more than one person present here today who is willing to agree with a description of God as loving Creator- but still, somewhere deep inside – hangs onto a faint lingering suspicion that it all applies to everyone else, but that they themselves just don’t make the grade.
With the shocking death of Robin Williams this week, depression has become a big topic of conversation - and that is a good thing that people are talking about it. But that level of depression is well beyond our scope here today - that is a medical issue. I am thinking here today of just a general feeling of being beat-down by life – of being told “no” by life, over and over again. Of hearing “you’re not good enough” so often that it becomes a permanent part of our thinking and we take to magnifying our ‘wrongs’ and discounting our ‘rights.’
I have long maintained that most Christians still operate by what they heard in Sunday School when they were 7 or 8 years old. When a child that young is told, “we are all sinners,” what they hear is “I’m bad” And those lessons tend to stick with us all our lives – even when we mature and supposedly “know better.”
Well, it’s not true. We are each of us God’s beloved creation and if anyone can explain to me why God would create us to be “bad,” I would like to hear it. Jesus came - by his own declaration - to proclaim release to the captives. If feeling of unworthiness are holding us captive, then we have been released. If you are oppressed by thoughts of not being good-enough – you are now set free. God spoke through Isaiah to tell us this good news long, long ago – and then, because we humans didn’t get the message then, Jesus himself came to tell us it is so.
Are we listening yet? Do we hear God’s voice speaking out in love and forgiveness and grace? We are loved - just as we are - because what and who we are is who God made us to be. We are not perfect – but if God only wanted perfect, she should have stopped with angels. We are humans, flaws and warts and all – and we are God’s cherished children for whom God wants nothing but goodness. Just look around you and the thousands of wonderful people and things that surround us every day – God’s gifts of love and creativity and life, for us.
This sense of innate sinfulness runs rampant in our world and twists much of what we do and say - and it has done for a long, long time. Imagine what this world might be if Christ’s church had - for the past 2000 years - actively taught and practiced God’s deep and abiding love for us instead of fear of a punishment we had somehow earned simply by being born. If there is a work we are called to do in this life, it is to first, allow ourselves to be loved and healed in our own broken places, and then, to carry that love and healing into the world around us. May God give us courage to try.
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