What Would Jesus Do

After being baptized, and full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus goes into the wilderness to spend time alone with God, to open his heart and mind to God’s purpose for his life, and “to be tempted by the devil.” (Luke 4:2) Returning to Galilee, Jesus begins to teach in their synagogues and is praised by everyone. Finally, Jesus ends up in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, and now the story becomes interesting.

“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.’” (Luke 4:16-21)

Jesus outlines in his “first sermon,” why God sent him into the world. I believe he did so because he wanted people to know what they were getting into if they chose to follow him, to know what he and the Creator were asking them to do.

God’s message passed on from Isaiah through Jesus challenges us as well. How do we proclaim good news to the poor when so often we want to blame the poor for the world’s problems? How do we proclaim release to those who are captive: the wrongly imprisoned; those held captive by addictions, or poverty. How do we see our own blindness to the needs of the hungry, homeless, and those without health insurance? And how do we recognize and admit that there really are people who are oppressed because of their race, lack of education, poverty, sexual orientation and other circumstances. Following Jesus’ command is the work, not only of each of us individually, but of the community, and in our case as “followers of the Way,” that community is the Church.

After Jesus made these proclamations, which the people applauded, they then became angry when Jesus suggested that God may have this vision for all God’s people, not just the Jewish people into whose tribe Jesus was born. “The People said, ‘Is not this Joseph's son?’ He said to them, ‘doubtless. . .you will say, 'do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum. . .but the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”

Jesus’ vision, God’s vision was bigger than his hometown folks, and it got him into trouble. If we accept Jesus’ vision as our own, that vision may cause us problems as well.

So, how do we live into the vision of Jesus? How do we proclaim the Good News of God when ‘well intentioned people’ may respond by trying to ‘hurl us off the cliff?’ We live by doing what Jesus did, by saying what Jesus said, and by taking the chances he took.” In short, we become co-creators with God and we change the world in Jesus’ name.