Reflections from The Hill – Grace – Luke 4.14-21

 

Once upon a time, I had the world at my feet, my shoulder to the wheel and my eye on the prize. As a result, I now have constant leg cramps, rotor-cuff damage and myopia (short-sightedness).

 

In those days, I had no money, no wife on my arm and no job to go to. Now look at me.

 

The condition in which I once wallowed highlighted just how individualistic our world was back then. My guess is that nothing has changed in the meantime. That’s sad because it’s still all about me.

 

Church stuff just adds to the sadness. Right at the point where salvation came to my precious soul, right there at that sweet spot where amazing grace became a reality, we have persisted in the belief – and dare I say, the practice – that this saving grace has been brought on by some decision or action on our part.

 

In a world that has taught me to believe that life is all about No1, my actions, my strategies, my plans and my decisions, it’s confronting to discover that things aren’t like that at all if we’re serious about our faith-life.

 

In that setting, there’s nothing I can do because it’s all been done.

 

In a lot of ways, it would have been easier if we stopped reading at bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and setting the captives free. At least there’s plenty of action in that.

 

This part of the Gospel Reading today is the classic passage for every Liberation Theologian, every Evangelist and every preacher who can say “Jesus” in three syllables. It’s The Bloke’s Manifesto, his Inaugural. First words are important.

 

In a remarkably short sermon in which he uses only nine words, one of which is ‘fulfilled’, The Bloke lays down what he’s really on about. We modern day preachers could learn a valuable lesson here about the length of our sermons.

 

When something is ‘fulfilled’ – as in “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” – then that’s what it means: something that’s crammed full to the brim. It’s complete accomplishment. It’s something where there’s no space for me to do anything. And, frankly, it drives me nuts.

What does it mean that this scripture has been filled up and by whom is it filled? What does the promise mean for the poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed? Should it be limited to just those people?

What about the abused, the addicted, the put-down? What about them? And what does it mean for those who don’t suffer such difficulties? Are they to be left out? If not, is there another level of meaning here that I’ve overlooked?

There’s no easy answer to these conundrums (or is it ‘conundra’?) except that it doesn’t mean ‘no compassion’. What it does mean is that there are to be no whimsical feelings without my presence.

 

It doesn’t mean there’s to be no activity. What it does mean is that there’s to be no planting of a culture in someone else’s, something for which we in the west have been famous and for which the costs are just beginning to be counted.

 

The long and short of grace, for that’s what all this is about, is for us to realise and recognise and accept that The Bloke who read the scroll in the first place is fully aware of what he’s doing and saying and that we will too when and if we but stay close by him.

 

I guess that’s why we call it “Amazing”.