Epiphany 3 C Luke 4:14-21

I've talked about money a lot this week to different poeple in different contexts but all in a professional setting, all in the role of pastor, all for the sake of the church on earth. That is never a comfortable thing to do in fact just starting my sermon out this way I can see a few people bristle just a little. It is uncomfortable to talk about money, especailly when the church is an organization that runs on donations and is therefore often in the uncomfortable position of asking for it, at least implicitly, at least by passing out offering envelopes, reporting budget shortfalls or passing the plate around. And believe me it makes me uncomfortable to talk about money I mean who I am to ask anyone to give anything to anyone else? And frankly it makes people unhappy, sometimes downright angry to hear someone else talk to them about their money, especially about using their money in a way that doesn't get them more money. It makes them mad.

But everyone can breath out now, I wasn't talking about money this week to try to fill a budget gap or increase overall giving and that isn't what I'm going to talk about now. I talked about money a lot this week in the same way that I talked about money a lot the month that Katrina hit New Orleans and the week that that the earthquake hit off the coast of Indoneasia causing a giant Tsunami that killed about 225,000 across about 15 countries. I talked about money this week in the same way that I talked about forgiveness and understanding the week of September 11th. I talked about money this week the same way that I talk about new life when someone dies. I talked about money this week the same way that I talk about thankfulness when someone is born.

I talked about money this week because people kept talking to me about the earthquake in Haiti, kept asking what God is doing. What is God doing to help those poor people and the answer is working at incredible rates to bring healing by using Christ's body on earth, us. Using our genorsity, our love, our prayers, our care, our concern, our excess, our abundance, our hearts. And one of the easiest ways for us to give all of that is by donation, hence all the talk of money. People in this country and in a lot of others are doing a great job of giving what they have and it always amazes me, no amazes isn't the right word, perhaps reminds me, that God is at work in the hearts of people when terrible things happen, using us to bring healing to our broken members. God is working through us, right now today, to bring healing to a broken people.

In the gospel lesson today Jesus takes a scroll, as if he were to pick up the bible and he flips through it and he finds a passage from Isaiah and he begins to read. A great passage, filled with hope for a dying people, a people exiled from their homeland, a people who had fallen to the armies of at least two other countries, a passage that promises release for the captive, sight for the blind, protection for those in danger and healing for the broken. Jesus choose that scripture to read. Read it and then sat down to teach the people. And he told the people that that scripture had been fufilled in their hearing. That Day, that day God's annointed was there to proclaim release to the captive, sight to blind and life to the dying.

People were with Jesus up to that point but as soon as he said that he kind of lost them. In fact he didn't just lose them, he made them angry. They were so angry that they ran him to a cliff side with the intention of throwing him off. I think it is safe to say that he offended them or worried them which is odd because as you hear what Jesus is saying, I've come to declare freedom to the captive, sight to the blind and healing to the broken it seems like pure good news, words of life. He is in his hometown here and we often blame that for the strange response but I think if that is the case they really overreacted. They still wouldn't have wanted to run him off a cliff. I think that perhaps their problem with what Jesus said was that it didn't sound like good news to them.

It was a text written for broken people, people with problems, people who had been driven out of their homeland, people who had lost entire generations to war and hunger, people who had incurred the wrath of God and needed to be let back into the promise of the gospel. They were not that kind of people and how dare Jesus, who was one of them, compare them!

This is why what Jesus was saying was radical and different and why it tended to insight such a strong angry reaction. People didn't have a sense that the suffering of someone else mattered to them. As long as they weren't suffering they were content to believe that they already had the favor of God. They believed a lot like Pat Robertson if any of you heard his appalling comments about Haiti, believing that when something bad happened it was a result of some wrong action by the party that it happened to. So in a way Jesus was telling them they were part of the bad things that were happening to other people.

Likewise, Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians that we read today that we are all part of one body. Each of us as Christian people, as people of God, are connected to each other. No escaping it he says, just like your eye can not suddenly declare itself a separate entity from your body and even if it does that doesn't actually make it separate, it doesn't make you stop needing your eye and it doesn't me the eye stop needing the you.

The way this plays out for us it means that if someone is hurt in some way because we are all part of one body in Christ we are all hurt and therefore all responsible for helping to heal the brokenness, just like if a part of your body is hurt your whole body works to compensate and to heal the hurt part. It could be in the case of those who sat around and listened to Jesus teach that the Lord's promise for healing, liberation and wholeness for all, made them think more about this responsibility for others and less about God's love for each of them as individuals.

You see the hard news about being part of a body of believers is that we are always part of the whole body of Christ in all things that that body experiences and it is always our duty to care for our other parts. That is what it means to be people of God. It doesn't always feel like good news. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable like when you ask where is God in terrible tragedy and you are told to look at what your own hands are doing in the midst of that tragedy.

But the flip side of that, the gospel part of it is that we are always part of the whole body. And that means that wherever we are, whatever is happening to us, with us or around us the rest of the body is still connected to us, still holding onto us, so knit together with us that

when we move it moves,

when we hurt it hurts

and when it comforts, we are comforted.

Nothing can ever seperate us from the whole body of Christ and therefore from Christ Himself. This is scary news, this is hard news, this is good news because it is life-giving news for us and for the whole body. Thanks be to God. Amen.