I told you yesterday that I believe this passage is foundation to understanding Jesus, both in whole, but certainly in Luke.
It takes us into the synagogue at Nazareth, where Jesus opens the scroll of Isaiah and reads words that are nothing less than his mission statement:
Good news to the poor.
Release for the captives.
Sight for the blind.
Freedom for the oppressed.
The year of the Lord’s favor.
This is not vague spirituality. It’s not a call to huddle up and lament how bad the world has become. It’s a declaration of hope. Jesus identifies the work of God as tangible liberation, real healing, and embodied justice.
People sometimes do not receive this message as one of hope (like the Nazarenes there listening). It’s hard to believe. But it happens. It is true - sometimes people get so angry at the announcement of God’s justice that they want to throw someone off a cliff - even Jesus himself.
We often get tempted to despair: “things are too corrupt, too violent, too entrenched.” Or we make the gospel only about a spiritual, “in the heart only,” personal ticket to heaven. But this passage doesn’t allow for that only. Jesus ties the good news of God directly to concrete acts of mercy, justice, and restoration.
That means the Church is not called to sit back wringing its hands. We’re invited to take part in this hopeful work: announcing good news, loosening chains, opening eyes, walking with the oppressed. These aren’t naïve distractions. They are signs of God’s reign, breaking in already.
It’s striking that Jesus’ hometown rejected him after this. Maybe because it sounded too radical, too inclusive, too close to home. But even their rejection doesn’t undo the hope he proclaimed.
The same Spirit that anointed Jesus is still at work in us, if we will let her. And so we, too, are called not to despair but to hope.
Luke 4:16-30
Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been raised. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue as he normally did and stood up to read. The synagogue assistant gave him the scroll from the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to liberate the oppressed,
and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the synagogue assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the synagogue was fixed on him. He began to explain to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.”
Everyone was raving about Jesus, so impressed were they by the gracious words flowing from his lips. They said, “This is Joseph’s son, isn’t it?”
Then Jesus said to them, “Undoubtedly, you will quote this saying to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we’ve heard you did in Capernaum.’” He said, “I assure you that no prophet is welcome in the prophet’s hometown. And I can assure you that there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it didn’t rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land. Yet Elijah was sent to none of them but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon. There were also many persons with skin diseases in Israel during the time of the prophet Elisha, but none of them were cleansed. Instead, Naaman the Syrian was cleansed.”
When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with anger. They rose up and ran him out of town. They led him to the crest of the hill on which their town had been built so that they could throw him off the cliff. But he passed through the crowd and went on his way.
Psalm 146:5-9
The person whose help is the God of Jacob—
the person whose hope rests on the Lord their God—
is truly happy!
God: the maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
God: who is faithful forever,
who gives justice to people who are oppressed,
who gives bread to people who are starving!
The Lord: who frees prisoners.
The Lord: who makes the blind see.
The Lord: who straightens up those who are bent low.
The Lord: who loves the righteous.
The Lord: who protects immigrants, who helps orphans and widows,
but who makes the way of the wicked twist and turn!
Prayer
God,
Not despair, but hope.
Not ignorance, but wise intentionality.
Not indifference, but purposeful action.
Not flighty and fanciful escapism1, but attention to reality.
Not just heart-talk, but whole-body-sacrifice.
Lord, help us to keep on, eyes fixed on Jesus, remembering that there are no handles on the cross (nor wheels), but that sometimes following our savior requires some pain. Even so, bring us quickly to the joy of seeing people freed, redemption enacted, and captives liberated.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.
Thanks to Samuel Wells’s book for the term “Nazareth Manifesto.”