The Inaugural Speech

Earlier this month, I sat with the Social Justice committee of this congregation as they intentionally shared with each other what areas of justice work were important to them and how they saw themselves as agents in that work. As I reflected on those questions for myself, I thought about the last time I asked myself how to be an agent in the work of social justice.

It was a couple of years ago in Minneapolis when I went to a class designed to equip people to build anti-racism cohorts and after the lecture, I went to one of the leaders there, a member of the Lakota nation, and asked him how to do this in faith communities. He said to me, “Ashley you can’t do this work until you know who you are. And you don’t know who you are.”

Ah! After I picked my sense of self off the floor, I was able to listen to what he was saying. He said that he meant that both personally and institutionally. I didn’t know enough about my people’s history, what soil they came from, if they ever enslaved people, where they settled and why, what kind of work their hands did, and who that made them become, and in turn, how that shapes me. Institutionally, I didn’t know the answers to these same questions about the church.

Some of those questions can be handled with research. But the deeper question remains: How do we know who we are?

Typically, the answer to this question is rooted in three parts: we are what we have been through, we are what envelops us today (what’s around us and serves as our context) and we are who we say we want to be. All these things shape who we are in this moment, today. That is who we are.

Though, it’s a loaded equation. Sometimes, rather than embrace all these things to help us live into today, we focus too much on the past. We romanticize who we once were through rose-colored glasses and long for moments that have gone by. Sometimes, we focus too much on the future and dream of who we could be, placing all our hope into times too far for us to see, putting the burden of change on our young people by asking them to carry us there.

But, defining who we are is meant to help us navigate through today. When we feel a connection to who we are, it’s emboldening, empowering, enlivening. Have you ever felt that feeling of connection to a part of yourself? Sat on a piano bench and felt your fingers come alive. Read a book and shed a tear for your truth in its pages. Gone to a meeting and felt a smile creep along your face because you felt you belonged?

I remember one summer I was heading to the General Assembly of the PCUSA, a national gathering that happens every two years, to modify our church policies. I was with a crew, and we stopped at a gas station right before coming to St Louis where the assembly was being held that year. A bunch of us were wearing orange shirts (as you do, those moments in matching t-shirts, right?) and the t-shirt said, “for creation - a fossil free PCUSA” on the front to solidify our solidarity with those urging for action on climate change. The gas station attendant turned to my friend and said, “Who are you guys?” And she looked back and exclaimed, “We are Presbyterians!”

What I felt inside me at that moment was a wave of heat. I had never, in describing myself in a moment of action, thought to name myself first as a Presbyterian; as a church person standing on the grounds of change. I was so moved by her enthusiasm. We all started laughing and the whole rest of the trip anytime anyone asked who we were we said, “We are Presbyterians!”

At that moment the gas station attendant looked at her and the rest of us, with a “yeah, okay.” But, my friend, she was so ready to claim that that day she was acting on behalf of something she believed in, in that part of herself. In that simple sentence she told everyone in the gas station who she was.

In the passage from Luke, we are reflecting on today, we encounter Jesus’ inaugural sermon at his home temple when he tells them who he is.

It is an act in which Jesus proclaims his identity, his purpose, and his vocation. And Jesus chooses to reveal the meaning of his life and work through the beloved and well-worn words of Scripture. He doesn’t improvise; he does as many had done before him in the temple, he opens the scroll for the prophet and speaks the words of the tradition: The Spirit is upon me. God 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.

Words his audience had heard many times. Words no doubt rich with communal history, with memory and meaning, and with promise in hope of what was to come, and words in danger of losing their power through ritual.

Those in Nazareth, hearing this in the synagogue, were intimately acquainted with the broken heartedness of captivity, even though that period was technically over. The aftermath of trauma and occupation leaves a lingering sense of loss and defeat. Generations had lived through that. And who did they want to be? They wanted to put their trust in the good and healing news of liberty. However, it was often only their own liberation they longed for.

After Jesus read from Isaiah, the congregation anxiously awaited his word, they fixed their eyes on him, and he said to them, “in your hearing the Scripture is fulfilled TODAY.” Jesus' one line sermon - can you imagine?

His response for the congregation was a brief one but, a powerful one, given the fact that he had already started to get a reputation. Word was spreading throughout the country and murmurs were going around as people were trying to figure out who this Jesus man was.

In the temple in Nazareth, he announced who he was. And it was with the word of God given to us all. It would have been entirely different if Jesus had said, “This Scripture is fulfilled in me.” Instead, he points to the reading of the holy words – the moment the congregation heard the words proclaimed – and that is the point at which Isaiah’s words were fulfilled. In your hearing, it is fulfilled today. In our hearing, it is fulfilled today.

It is as if to say: the Word lives, here and now. Today. It is organic, it breathes, it moves in fresh and revolutionary ways. The Word of God is neither history nor dream. It is alive.”

Jesus’ inaugural speech declares his identity and ministry and vocation to the congregation with a simple sentence that also declares the ministry and vocation of the congregation. And in turn all who come to hear it, including us. As it says in Corinthians, we are now the body of Christ here on this earth who are called to be the ones who declare who we are today. We are called to be the ones doing the work to make us who we want to be.

How can we, the body of Christ here on earth now, recognize the word alive, and fulfill the prophets’ words? How do the words of the prophet Isaiah fit into the definition of who we are and help us navigate through today?

The call of the prophet Isaiah is to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, which is also known as Jubilee, the traditional year of debt forgiveness. It’s quite a lot.

And this is our vocation, but we may need to ask ourselves: Do we want this?

We, too, are now at a time when it would be easier to long for our own liberation rather than the full fulfillment of the prophet’s call. That’s a lot. That can wait for tomorrow.

However, the liberation we long for ourselves is not a liberation that can be won alone. After all, even if I am healthy, we are not living in a post-Covid world, we are living in a with covid world. We are not living in a post-isolation world, we are living in a with isolation world, with the US holding the highest level of incarceration in the world. We are not living in a post-war world, we are not living in a post-racism world, we are not living in a post-sexism world; even if I am healthy, we are living with it.

Even when climate change puts profit over the project of living; even when the wealthiest nations choose controlled manipulation over the participation of everyone; even when we choose the health of some, while nurses care for hospitals overflowing with illness and death; when the work of the world seems big and long, far away from now; even then, Jesus comes into temple and says: “This scripture has been fulfilled today.”

So, it is indeed in our hearing that we be called to this work, today. And I think it is the inclusivity of this message that holds us to account. To remember when we make acts of caring and change, that not until liberation is for everyone will it be for anyone.

When we operate with that mindset, as called by the prophets, then, when oppression tries again to fix something against someone, we are prepared to call that our work.

Because none of that oppression has a place on earth; nothing that makes anyone less than has a place on earth. When God looked at the world in the beginning God said this is good, and people, like us, have messed it up a bit. So, we also have the call to make it right. And even when it seems grim, our chances are very good, because, as the prophet Isaiah told us and Jesus reminded us, we have God’s Spirit with us today - and every day - leading our way. In this vocation we are held together by God’s Spirit. The Spirit is the one living in us.

I remember reading somewhere that the Holy Spirit is like a telephone line moving from one prophet to the next, carrying the message down the line, holding us tall and just tight enough, moving through us all...

Theologian James Cones said, “The Holy Spirit’s presence with the people is a liberating experience…it is God’s power to be with and for the people…The Spirit is God’s guarantee that the little ones are never left alone in their struggle for freedom. It is God’s way of being with the people and enabling them to shout for joy, even when they have no evidence in their lives to warrant happiness….in our work with the Spirit, everybody becomes somebody….and in the act of worship itself, the experience of liberation becomes a constituent of the community’s being…it is the power of God’s Spirit invading the lives of the people.”

It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are empowered. It is through the Holy Spirit we remember who we are: All we have been through and all that we want to be. What we have is the moment of now.

It is my friend walking into a gas station saying, “We are Presbyterians!”

Who are we in this story? Us, the ones stumbling along trying to find the way? This is our story, this is your story too, and dare you imagine the Spirit of God upon you today, breathing on you, moving through you, moving through us. These words of scripture have come down the line, across the centuries and are alive in us. The Spirit is upon us. Listen, as the Spirit whispers a word in your ear.

The time for transformation, renewal, and change is at hand. May we lean into any act of liberation today. For “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” is the call of our vocation. Here in Luke’s gospel Christ has proclaimed that we don’t need to wait and we don’t need to look back. God’s promise has been fulfilled. We live into that promise, today. We have the tools for this work, today.

You are capable, you are qualified, you are ready, you are called, now.

Whatever you did in the past or whatever the past did to you, it has prepared you with what you need. Whatever desires you have for who you want to be are evidence of what you see possible before you. We can trust in the God of Today.

I wonder how this is sitting with you this morning?

I hope you join us next Sunday as we read together how the congregation in front of Jesus reacted to the inaugural one-line sermon of Good News. Until then, let us stay in this moment, relish this call, and claim our work for today.

This is the day the Lord has made. The past has led us to this moment and who we want to be begins right now. This is who we are. To do the work the prophets have called us to do we need not look anywhere else for the things we will need, because the Spirit is upon us, just as it was upon Jesus, today. Amen.