SERMON 117 - SUNDAY 13 MAY 2018

Sermon delivered at All Saints’ Church, Whiteparish, Wiltshire on Sunday 13 May 2018

Psalm 147; Isaiah 61; Luke 4:14-21

If I had been given a pound for every time somebody has said to me:

 “I don’t get the Old Testament with its God of wrath and smiting.  It has no relevance to my belief in the God of Love of the New Testament - so I don’t bother to read it”,

then I would be extremely wealthy and could probably fund the replacement of the bells here in Whiteparish!   It is a well-known fact that preachers generally tend to use, as the subject for their sermons, either the Gospels or the Letters of Paul. Even then there can be confusion between the Gospels – especially between John’s Gospel and the three synoptic ones; but this evening, the importance of having a knowledge of both the Old and New Testament has been highlighted in hearing the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah spoken again by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel and we are again reminded of Jesus’s own words in Matthew 5:17 where he says

"Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.”

We sometimes overlook the fact that during the time of Jesus’s ministry with us here on Earth there was no New Testament. The Gospel’s themselves were not written until many decades after Jesus’s death and indeed did not come into being until after the Pauline letters.  That is why we hear our readings in the chronological order we do – Old Testament reading, Epistle reading and finally Gospel reading even though the Gospel’s precede the Epistles in the bible itself.  Jesus was a great reader of the scriptures even from an early age and used the Psalms frequently as prayers.  Indeed, the psalter was the early Christians’ prayer book and even today, as we have sung this evening, form an important part of the church’s liturgy throughout the world. Did you know, for instance, that Verse 1 of Psalm 110 appears 25 times and Verse 4 appears five times?  The most quoted Psalm in the New Testament.

The Psalms play another important part in our modern day liturgy. The lectionary, you will find,  places each psalm as a comment on or as complementary to the first reading – which this evening was Isaiah 61.  Psalm 147 which we sang together has the words, in modern day English –

“Praise the LORD!  How good it is to sing the praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting it is to praise him!  The LORD builds up Jerusalem, he gathers the exiles of Israel, he heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wound” (Psalm 147:1-3)

which echoes the very beginning of Isaiah 61 – “He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted” (Isaiah 61:1).

Such is the power of the connectivity of scripture throughout the Old Testament and into the New.

Isaiah 61, which Christians throughout the world believe is a direct prophesy of the coming of Jesus, is probably one of the most beautiful passages in the whole bible in the way in which it proclaims the Good News, the Gospel and is a wonderful message of hope in a time of despair.  As may be gathered by the reference in Psalm 147, Isaiah is writing during the period of the Exile when many Jews were in complete and utter despair having been involuntarily removed from their homeland and their sacred temple.   Isaiah tells them that their deliverance is at hand and that they can look forward to a time of great rejoicing just as Psalm 147, written some 400 years earlier declares:

“The LORD strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses the people within you; He grants peace to your borders and satisfies you with the finest wheat.”(Psalm 147:13-14)

It’s an amazing piece of liberation theology of the type which caught on so well in South America in the 1960s.  It reads poetically but it also has a stinging political message too – it is a call to action which we can read into our modern day world with its oppressive regimes and poverty. It is a call to us Christians to proclaim God’s love and compassion to those who believe and follow Christ.

It is a well-known passage to us today and it would have been extremely well known to Jews back at the time of their Roman occupation; promises of liberty to the captives, good news to the oppressed, oil of gladness instead of ashes, the building up of ruins – a reference to the restoration of the Temple – and above all a declaration that the LORD GOD – YAHWEH – will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all nations.

In our reading from Luke we find Jesus back in his home town of Nazareth – in the local synagogue – the Jewish place of learnin;  (synagogues then, as today, are as much places of learning through scripture as places for worship).  I think I know how he probably felt – all eyes were upon him, the local carpenter’s son  - because this morning I was back in my old church in Winterslow, amongst former fellow members of the congregation, taking a full service there for the first time since I was licensed wondering what sort of reaction I would get after such a long absence and conscious that I was preaching to former fellow congregants.

A wonderful portrayal of the moment Jesus steps up to take the reading is seen in the epic film series “Jesus of Nazareth” which whether you like it or not is a wonderful moment in the film, when Jesus, after reading this particular passage from Isaiah declares that in the hearing of all present the prophesy of Isaiah had been fulfilled. In effect Jesus is saying the time of healing, the time of binding up of wounds, the time for rejoicing is at hand as foretold by both the psalms and the prophets for Jesus, the Messiah has come.

Little wonder then the local people thought him to be either mad or bad – either out of his mind or a blasphemer.  I wonder how we would feel if somebody well known in this church suddenly declared that they were the returned Christ!  

The great thing is that looking retrospectively through the lens of the New Testament, following Jesus’s Resurrection and Ascension, we know the wonderful truth of that statement. In a few days’ time we will celebrate Pentecost when the Apostles received the Holy Spirit as promised by Jesus.

As disciples of Christ and with the aid and power of the Holy Spirit we are expected to continue the work of Jesus as foretold by Isaiah – “bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim freedom for the captives – and that includes captives to addiction and other other habits which keep people away from God; comfort those who mourn, preach the good news to the poor”.  The Kingdom of God is here if we recognise it through the Spirit.  We are its ambassadors, we are Jesus’s disciples. In the words of Teresa of Avila (1515-1582):

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

I think we ignore the Old Testament at our peril. It is so full of rich prophesies and stories many of which confirm and affirm the faith we profess as Christians. Let us profess that faith not just in reciting the Creed but in our daily life and actions.

Amen

MFB/09052018