Don't Steal my Joy!

Epiphany3C, Sullivan Park Care Center, January 27, 2013 by Annette Fricke

                My mother used to give my brother and me a blank check to purchase groceries at the local grocery store.  For those of you who need to know, it was Hurd’s store in Rockford. Somewhere along the way, my brother had acquired a mixed yellow lab that followed us everywhere.  So one day we all went to the grocery store, our wagon in tow, and the owner of the store, Neil Hurd, asked us, “Whose dog is that outside?”  Neither of us wanted to say it was ours because we knew instinctively that Neil did not want any dogs in front of his store.  We asked him what it looked like and then said, “We don’t know.”  We went to the cashier, filling out the amount, and left without another word. 

            Then there was the husband of the usual cashier at Hurd’s store.  He would get mad at us for riding our bicycles on the sidewalk next to his house.  He saw it as his sidewalk. We figured it was safer than being in traffic and we literally rode our bikes all over town: to the top of the town hill, to Wes Brown’s place, to the cemetery, to the town dump, and even to the Melvin LaShaw farm. At one time, my brother bicycled half the town and I the other half of town to deliver the Spokesman-Review.

            The pursuit of joy in the midst of conflict was a theme of my life that began when I was very young.  Preachers and teachers, for the most part enjoy preaching and teaching.  But there is always bound to be conflict.  President Obama, in his second inaugural speech mentioned the often quoted portion of our US Declaration of Independence, from the beginning of the second paragraph, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”  He went on with, “The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.” I admit that I did not pay much attention to what the critics said following the speech, but I am sure that this phrase and what followed is what ticked off a few people in the governmental offices as well as the general public.  There is always conflict in the midst of joy.

One thing in particular that struck me as I was reading up on this particular gospel text is this: This is Jesus’ inaugural speech.  It is the beginning of his ministry according to Luke, just as last week’s gospel from John is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is telling us here what he is going to do.  Consistent with the rest of the gospel of Luke, we are again talking about the role of the Holy Spirit and God making it right for the poor and the lowly.  As I mentioned two Sundays ago, the Holy Spirit’s work in the story of Jesus in Luke is from the very beginning.  At the start of Luke, people are praying in anticipation of the Messiah, the one who will once and for all set everything straight and God’s justice will be accomplished on earth.  Or as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father: Your will be done on earth. I don’t think the disciples at this point understood “as it is in heaven.” We see Anna and Zachariah, Mary and Elizabeth in expectation and anticipation and the excitement they express when their prayers are answered.  We see the joy expressed in Nehemiah when the Word of the Lord is read to them.  We see the implied joy when the crisis of no wine left at the wedding becomes way more than enough.  God’s word to us is intended to be one of joy all the way back through the Old Testament. We need to separate the conflict from the joy.  We need to dismiss those who see only conflict. Remember that every time you pick up the Bible to read it. There have been many minds writing the Old and New Testaments. Don’t get caught up in the “eye for an eye” sayings.  As put forth on a sign at a church on Ray St, which I am certain is a quote from the movie, Fiddler on the Roof, “If we executed the ‘eye for an eye,’ everyone in the world would be blind.” The in-breaking of the kingdom of God is intended to be one of joy. It is exciting. For the longest time, all I could think about was these two men from my past saying essentially, “Don’t bring your dog to the store.” And “Don’t ride your bike on my sidewalk.”  And now, I would say to them if they were still alive, “Don’t steal my joy!”

Everyone likes compliments, especially when they first get up to read a lesson or preach.  I don’t know if this was Jesus’ first time reading in the synagogue, the second or even the last, but for some reason, they didn’t like it.  I am thinking they didn’t like the part where he said that this prophecy from Isaiah is being fulfilled in the present.  They might even have thought that he was being some kind of smart aleck talking in such a way as a child brought up in the area. Why?  Because Jesus, by saying this, is claiming to be no ordinary person and is claiming that he is the ideal messiah of Isaiah’s prophecy.

Now, I flunked out of Hebrew my second quarter, but this much I know: the word we translate from the Greek messiah means “anointed one.”  One of the first places we find one who is anointed is in the book of I Samuel when we read about the anointing of Saul to be a king, the first king.  So actually, it follows then that there were several messiahs before Jesus, but none of them were permanent nor meeting the expectations of the ideal messiah.  Remember two Sundays ago when I talked about the permanency of the Holy Spirit with Jesus?  I said this: As Richard Jensen observes, only in Luke is the Spirit of God described as a bodily descent of the dove upon Jesus. Bodily descent has the character of permanence.  The Spirit will remain with Jesus, unlike the prophets and kings of old when the Spirit would only last the length of their ministry or kingship. The Spirit in those cases was temporary. 

When men in the Old Testament were anointed as king, they were set aside, so to speak, for a specific purpose.  They were to be the king for the people and to do what God, through the prophets told them to do.  Saul was called to account for his behavior by Samuel for not doing what God told him to do. Saul was human and gave in to what the people wanted.   Samuel was very harsh with him. Saul came to him in repentance. Saul deeply regretted what he had done.  And remember David who killed another king so he could take his wife?  Even the greatest of the kings of Israel had serious faults.  The whole purpose of the kings was to carry out the will of God.  So also, the whole purpose of Jesus is to carry out the will of God.  Our whole purpose is to carry out the will of God. And where do we find the will of God for our lives?  Is it not the same as that of Jesus?  Isn’t that what God expects of us?  The Spirit of the Lord is upon you, because he has anointed you to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent you 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.  This is good news.  It is a joyful duty.  It is indeed right, our duty and our joy that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise to God, through our Savior Jesus Christ. By the leading of a star you were shown forth to all the nations; in the waters of the Jordan you proclaimed Jesus your beloved Son; and in the miracle of water turned to wine you revealed your glory. Strengthen us for the journey by your Holy Spirit and your holy sacraments to bring good news.  Amen.