Scripture Reflection, January 24, 2010: Jesus' Inaugural Address

Scripture Readings:
Nehemiah 8: 2-10
Psalm 19
First Corinthians 12: 12-30
Luke 1: 1-4; 4:14-21

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Just a little more than a year ago, President Barack Obama was sworn into office and delivered his inaugural address on a cold morning in Washington. Like every inaugural address of every president, his speech was carefully analyzed sentence by sentence, word by word. The press had advance notices of the principal points that President Obama would emphasize in his talk, but the critical moment was his actual delivery of the address. At such moments, the air is filled with tension, as every word spoken is taken to portend what is to come during the next four years. Little did we know at the time that the president and others on the stage that day felt a heightened tension because there had been a serious threat from a terrorist organization to attack the stage during the inauguration. The president had to make a decision that morning whether or not to proceed with the ceremony.

This Sunday we hear a couple of very important passages from the gospel of Luke, which will be our Sunday gospel for most of this calendar year. The first half of the reading consists of the first four verses of Luke’s gospel, in which Luke tells us why he is writing his gospel in the first place. He informs Theophilus, who may have been his patron, that he is depending on the witness of others in giving his account of the story of Jesus and the story of the church (in the Acts of the Apostles). But that he wants to tell that story anew “in an orderly sequence” – a way that will help his readers glimpse the plan of God’s saving love in Christ. And he says that he is doing this so that his readers may have a deeper assurance of the truth in which they believe.

The gospel reading then skips over to a scene in Nazareth, where Jesus goes to his hometown synagogue. It is a scene filled with drama. Luke, who is a gifted storyteller, depicts the moment with such vividness that we can easily visualize it unfolding before our eyes. As an observant Jew, Jesus stands up to act as a lector for the synagogue service, proclaiming the reading from the prophet Isaiah. There seems to be a sense of heightened curiosity and expectation about this local man and about what this moment might mean. And Jesus does not let them down. He makes the very bold proclamation that “today” – at this unique moment – what Isaiah proclaimed centuries earlier, is being fulfilled in their hearing. Something entirely new and dynamic, an event empowered by the Spirit of God, is taking place in their very midst. At first the hometown crowd marvels at him. But as we will see in the gospel passage for next Sunday, his own friends and neighbors soon turn on him because he does not live up to all of their expectations.

At this inaugural moment of his public ministry, Jesus lays his cards on the table. He proclaims that he has been anointed by God to offer good news to the poor, to liberate people who are in bondage, to bring healing to those in need. As God’s anointed, Jesus identifies himself and his mission, first and foremost, as that of a servant. We have heard this message so many times that it may lose something of its impact and significance. But it is in fact a very powerful word. The long-awaited Messiah, the mighty leader, is one who leads and rules by serving those most in need. His power is deployed through courageous, self-giving love. It is a power to give life, indeed to restore life to those who have been deprived of it. It is a power that discloses the God who reverences the life of every person.

This past week we have been inundated by news of the struggle to preserve and restore life in our world. Pictures of the horribly tragic devastation in Haiti, the loss of life and struggle for survival, fill our minds. A fellow Passionist priest and friend of mine, Rick Frechette, runs an orphanage and a hospital for children on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. We have received email messages from Rick chronicling the suffering of the people there and the urgency of helping those in need. It is important to remember that, while this tragedy was caused by a natural disaster the reason for which we cannot fathom, the extent of the devastation and loss of life is due in large part to the impoverished conditions of life in Haiti. The effects would have been less severe if Haiti had been in a state of greater development. On Friday, we remembered the legalizing of abortion in this country by the Supreme Court. The number of abortions in our own city and state has increased in the past year. The lives of the unborn are invisible to us; we do not see them with our eyes or on a television broadcast. But their lives are also sacred and deserve to be reverenced by all of us. And the struggle to provide health care coverage to the tens of millions of people in our country who lack it goes on, facing new obstacles and challenges. It is an issue that reflects the health of the soul of our nation.

The words of hope spoken by Jesus to his friends and neighbors in Nazareth are addressed to us today. We are invited to turn to the living Jesus who wants us to be free and whole people. He beckons us to come to him with honesty in order to experience forgiveness when we need it. He summons us to face those things that may be imprisoning us -- whether they be physical mental or spiritual – and to ask for the grace of freedom. He calls us to recognize our own inner poverty and to allow him to meet our deepest needs. The risen Christ is still in our midst as one who serves, offering us freedom, healing, life.

This gospel reading also presents a clarion call to us to reverence the gift of life in an active, committed way. We are challenged to respect and defend the gift of life from conception until natural death. We live in a country of great wealth and privilege. But it is also a country where the lives of the unborn are often in danger of termination. It is a society where the poor, who suffer most from the effects of winter, are sometimes simply ignored. It is a rich land where people without health insurance cannot afford the medication they need. It is also a nation that has been given a responsibility to attend closely to the development needs of neighboring countries. As those called to participate in the mission of Jesus, we are challenged to imbue our society with a sense of reverence for the life of every person created by God.

The risen Christ continues to be present among us as one who serves and continually offers us life. He does that for us in a special way through the great gift of the Eucharist. As we are sent forth from Eucharist this Sunday, may we allow Christ to continue to offer life to others through us.

Fr. Robin Ryan, cp

(Image by: http://freechristimages.org)