Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from Luke 4:14-21

Proclaimed on January 25, 2004

There was once a seminarian who was given an opportunity to preach his first sermon in a church. This was an experience he dreaded, and yet, at the same time, it was one he deeply desired. Quite naturally, he was very nervous. So he stayed up all night before the service, reciting his text over and over. By the time morning had come around, his voice was quite hoarse from all of his rehearsals. Therefore, when he stepped into the pulpit, only the people in the front row could hear him. Soon after beginning his sermon, a man in the back of the nave stood up, saying, “Speak up, Son!” He tried, but to no avail. He just lowered his head and kept reading his text--line by line. A few minutes later the same man in the back shouted, “We can’t hear you back here, preacher! Turn up the volume!” Another man in the front row, who was able to hear the young preacher, walked back to the shouting man. He then pleaded to this other man, “Sir, if you really want to hear this sermon, please, trade places with me!”

There are many wonderful stories about first sermons. Every minister has one, including me. I preached my first sermon in the First Church of the Nazarene in Galion, Ohio, right after I had turned eighteen. It was twenty-five minutes long, fully equipped with props, and it came out of a young man hungry for God’s love in the midst of a very judgmental people. My pastor had taped it. Thirty-four years later somebody found that tape and gave it to my mother. This was a mixed blessing for I had developed quite a reputation during my youth for my preaching.

Through the many years that followed, my mother proudly heard many folks still talking about that charismatic young preacher who often filled the altar after he preached. Then several years later, after serving as a psychotherapist for over fifteen years, I preached my first sermon as an Episcopal priest. My mother was in attendance. I remember asking her after the service what she thought. Very candidly she answered, “It was not near as good as your first sermon.”

So she was thrilled when she received that tape from my youth. When I last visited her, we sat and listened to it together. It wasn’t half bad. But the voice of that young preacher came from a kid racked in spiritual pain and rejection. The words came from a kid seeking God’s love, while the words from my first sermon as a priest came from a man who had finally found this love. One thing I did get from that first sermon; in its own clumsy way it expressed well my personal statement of mission.

In some ways this is not much different from the Jesus we meet in today’s reading of the Gospel. After becoming quite well known throughout the region of Galilee, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth. This is his first trip home since his leaving to be baptized and the beginning of his ministry. Upon his arrival he went to their synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. He was given the high privilege of reading the Scriptures to the gathered congregation. In receiving the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, he opened it to a particular section and began to read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then Jesus sat down and preached his first recorded sermon. He proclaimed, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” With these words what do you suppose that Jesus was saying? Without going into a lot of deep theological speculation, my hunch of the meaning behind these words of Jesus is much like my hunch regarding my first sermon: Jesus was giving his mission statement.

A mission statement is a statement of purpose--a clear statement of one’s goals. In a nutshell, Jesus was proclaiming that the purpose of his ministry was to bring in the Jewish Year of Jubilee: the fiftieth year, the year to proclaim God as King, the year to forgive all debts, the year to return all land to its original owners and the year to set all slaves and prisoners free! This was the goal of his ministry. By these words his ministry would be evaluated. By these words he would focus all of his energies. Like that seminarian whose first sermon went so poorly, the results of Jesus’ first sermon were poorly received as well. Indeed, the congregation hated it so much that they took Jesus to a nearby cliff to throw him over. You could say that they considered Jesus’ words a bit extreme when he proclaimed himself to be the new Messiah! But, after all, it was his first sermon. How much of it could really be trusted? While I say this with tongue-in-cheek, this is the very question many are asking about Jesus today. After all, how well did Jesus really accomplish his mission? Did the Jubilee ever arrive? The answer to this question, I think, may be similar to my comparing my first sermon as a kid to the first sermon I preached as a priest--my ministry was still in process. As it is true of my ministry, the ministry of Jesus has yet to receive its final evaluation, mainly because he has not yet finished it.

Despite the doubts of many, this ministry of Jesus who proclaimed himself the Messiah, and is only too slowly beginning to be understood by this priest, may be summarized in a story told by Paul Harvey, Jr. Carl Colemon was driving home from work when he had a fender bender with a lady in another car. When he approached her car, he could see that she was very distraught, for the accident was her fault. Worse than that, she was driving a new car, just two days off the showroom floor. She was dreading having to the face her husband. Realizing she had to exchange license and insurance information, she reached into her glove box to retrieve the documents. The first paper she pulled out had on it her husband’s distinct writing. It read, “In case of an accident, remember, Honey, it’s you I love, not the car.”

Jesus came into a Jewish culture that was racked with fear, guilt, and a sense of impending doom. He proclaimed a God of love who made no distinction between males and females, the rich or the poor, or between Jews and Gentiles, or between those who are black or those who are white. Instead, as the Messiah he opened the Kingdom of God equally to all, bringing them miracles and healings, even providing bread, which eventually became the symbol of his own Body given in sacrifice for us. In essence, like that husband’s note to his wife Jesus was saying to us, “In case of the inevitable sin, remember, Beloved, it’s you I love, not perfection.”

I have to admit that my mother’s words after my first sermon as a priest hit me pretty hard. It was evident that the words of that naive Nazarene preacher boy meant more to her than those of a maturing adult Episcopal priest. The truth of the matter was, however, she did not understand the Episcopal Church with all of its strange liturgy and funny costumes. I am also sure that I was more entertaining as a kid preacher, as compared to who I am as an adult priest. I know this because people hearing this preacher in his youth rushed to the altar burdened with guilt. This for me was a problem. As I explained it to my mother, I felt I had nothing to offer them when they arrived. However, as an adult priest, once again the pews are emptied after I preach. Once again people are flowing to the altar, but this time I have something to give them--the Bread and the Wine--the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior saying, “In case of the inevitable sin, my Beloved, remember it’s you I love, not your perfection.”

But it all started with that amazing first sermon of Jesus, who offered himself to us as the Messiah, and has since been followed with the clumsy first sermons of all those ministers that have followed which have continued to proclaim this same Jesus as the Messiah. It is simply amazing that the ministry of Jesus is not yet finished for we are still waiting, waiting in the midst of our doubts and pains for the coming Jubilee which Jesus announced in his first sermon in Nazareth, and which he continues to announce, believe it or not, in all of those clumsy first sermons that ministers have been grappling with for almost two thousand years, where congregations are still tempted to take these neophyte preachers out to the nearest cliff and drop them off, but somehow God continues to spare us. That in itself is assurance to us that the ministry of Jesus is not yet finished and that there will be a Jubilee.