Third Sunday after Epiphany

January 21, 2007

Sermon by Pastor Joy Bussert

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (Luke 4:14-21)

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He 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.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O God, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

If I am limping this morning, it is because there were some pretty-impressive basketball players among our seventh and eighth graders on our confirmation retreat up at Summerset, Wisconsin, this past weekend. And their pastor sometimes forgets that she is not 25 years old anymore on the basketball court, like she once was. They are having a great time still up there worshiping together, as we are here. The theme of the retreat, of course, was “Health and well-being,” not aging. But I was reminded, with gratitude in my heart as I was driving home last night once again, of just how many wonderful young people we have here at Immanuel, how wonderful so many of our families are, as well as how quickly life goes by. It seems just like yesterday that I was in confirmation. Yet how fleeting, as the psalmist reminds us, are the days of our lives, and just how important is the religious education of our children and youth at Immanuel; how important it really is for them, for us, for the church, and for a world so in need of wise and cultivated future leaders.

And speaking of our confirmation students, in order to introduce this marvelous text from our Gospel of Luke for this Third Sunday in Epiphany, that favorite picture that we have of the young adult Jesus, the hometown boy returning to his hometown synagogue at Nazareth, in order to introduce that picture, I would like to talk to you about another young adult person in our family’s circle of friends who invited us to celebrate her coming into adulthood in her tradition a week ago yesterday, and that was my daughter Kate’s lifelong little friend—not so little anymore—Sarah Greenhalgh. Sarah along with her parents Steve and Barbara Greenhalgh have been our good friends since Kate and Sarah were in kindergarten together at school. And so it was a great honor and a privilege when the invitation arrived in the mail for us to be invited to be present, along with 10 or 15 of their other little friends, now teenagers, for the very special day in the life of a young Jewish girl, her bat mitzvah at Shir Tikvah Synagogue. The bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah ceremony in Jewish tradition, much like our confirmation ceremony in Christian tradition, is a coming-of-age and a public acknowledgement and recognition of a young person’s growing maturity and willingness to embrace the privileges and responsibilities of their tradition and make them their own. And we were privileged to be there for that moment.

When we arrived, the synagogue was packed with members of the Shir Tikvah congregation, family and friends who have loved Sara all of her life. There was Sarah, now 13 years old, up on the bimah with the rabbi, and the Ark of the Covenant towering behind her. She was wearing the traditional Jewish shawl, given at bat mitzvah, for the very first time. She was radiant and a little apprehensive, yet, in the end, poised and confident as the prayers and songs in Hebrew began.

Many beautiful things happen at a bat mitzvah. But, of course, the most dramatic is the moment when the Ark of the Covenant is opened and the rabbi carries the torah in celebration around the congregation. The world, according to Jewish tradition, as the saying goes at this moment in the ceremony, stands on three things: on torah, on worship, and on acts of loving-kindness.

Then the open scroll is set before the candidate, who then must chant the chosen passage in Hebrew, an ancient Jewish tradition. By the time of the bar or bat mitzvah, the young candidate will have studied the great wisdom characters of the Bible: the stories of Moses, and Miriam, the stories of Joseph, and Ruth, and Esther. From ancient times, the wisdom characters were considered essential for the religious education of young people. And then after the reading about the character from the Hebrew, the candidate for bat mitzvah shares a written statement of how her life’s story is similar and different to their chosen character.

Sarah, for her bat mitzvah, chose Moses as her character. “In my study of Moses,” she told the congregation, “I have discovered that Moses and I have three things in common: we were both adopted, Moses by an Egyptian princess who rescued the Hebrew child from the basket floating in the Nile; and me, Sarah, adopted by Steve and Barbara Greenhalgh from the birthplace that I never knew in Korea.” “We both have anger issues at injustice,” she continued, referring to Moses’ anger directed at the Egyptian overseer. “And, thirdly, we share the theme and love of water in our life journey—the Nile River and the crossing of the Red Sea for Moses, and the crossing of the ocean to come to America for me.”

At that very tender moment when the parents come forward, my good friends Steve and Barbara came forward to bless their child and to tell the story of Sarah’s arrival in their lives from Korea; how it felt to have this beautiful treasure of a child to call their own. Steve—as always, much less composed than Barbara—came forward, blowing his nose into a big, white handkerchief the whole time. And he told of how in the first days after Sarah’s arrival in Minnesota he would hold the infant in his arms, and he would sing a lullaby that he wrote just for her that included all of her given names: her given name in Korea, Sorah; her given Hebrew name Sarai; and her related given name in English Sarah—Sorah, Sarai, Sarah. Sarah was then given a portion of the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to read in Hebrew. They announced her designated choices of tzedaka, or charities for justice, given in honor of her day: the Diabetes Foundation, the Animal Humane Society, and the New Foundation of St. Paul, and she sat down.

There were many prayers and poems prayed over her, including this word from one of the rabbis:

“I wish for you to be a person of character, strong but not tough, gentle but not weak. I wish for you to be righteous but not self-righteous; honest but not unforgiving. Whenever you speak, may your words be words of wisdom and friendship; may your hands build and your heart preserve what is good and beautiful in our world; may the voices of the generations of our people move through you; and may the spirit of our ancestors be your spirit as well. May you know that there is a people, a rich heritage, to which you belong, and from that sacred place you are connected to all who dwell on earth. May the stories of our people be upon your heart, and the grace of torah-rhythm dance in your soul.”

When Jesus stands up to read in his hometown synagogue at Nazareth— and we are told that he was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to read—all of this ancient tradition and custom would have brought him to that dramatic moment. We are not told by the Gospel writer of Luke if this was a type of bar-mitzvah moment for him, as we see it in Jewish tradition today, or some other kind of rite-of-passage into his young adult public ministry, or simply a return home to the hometown synagogue, after his religious education and training, to read torah and the prophets. What we do know from Luke was that he was the hometown boy who was last seen in the Gospels debating with the great Jewish teachers in the temple at age twelve, chosen at baptism for a special calling as God’s beloved son, sent by the Spirit of God into the wilderness; and now, in Luke, Chapter 4, comes home to read from Isaiah, Chapter 60, verses 18 and 19, for all in the congregation to hear:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” And he closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

It is the public reading of a young adult about to embark on a public calling and a public ministry. It is the public reading of not just any book, but from the ancient book of Isaiah. By this time in his young adult life, Jesus would have been educated in all of the ancient wisdom material, the stories of Moses, and Joseph, and Esther, and Ruth. And the book given for him to read at this occasion, at this moment in his life, the public coming of age of all of this tradition, was Isaiah, which, along with the Book of Geneses, is the one most often quoted in the Gospels of our Newer Testament in the Christian tradition, an ancient book which becomes a living word at that moment for the young adult Jesus, led by the Spirit of God, to embark on a public ministry that would change the world for all time and place. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus says, quoting straight out of Isaiah, “because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor,” announcing a vision of justice and Shalom, stating clearly his purpose and mission for the coming kingdom of God.

Well, in addition to some pretty good basketball and volleyball players, and some pretty good musicians and artists, and some pretty good kids, I can tell you that our own Immanuel confirmation students, coming back from retreat at noon today, have each and every one of them in their own way a special purpose and mission and, yes, ministry ahead of them in their lives. Since September, our seventh and eighth graders have been studying the great wisdom characters of the Old Testament—Moses, Joseph, Job, and Esther—talking about the difference between intelligence and wisdom, excellence and kindness, about why it is that among all of the other subjects that they study at school, math and science and language arts, why it is so important in life to also be students of the book, in our tradition the Old and New Testament, the ancient stories as well as the newer stories, and traditions surrounding this person, Jesus, who comes home to the synagogue and begins a public ministry, as they will, too.

In May, our ninth graders will stand before us on their Confirmation Day, and we will publicly remember their baptism, and they, through their credos, will share how this living word is and will be a living word in their lives to come. And as we know here at Immanuel from those who are willing to share their life journey in our Vocation Series, this journey does not end at bat mitzvah or confirmation, but continues our whole life long.

And so this day, no matter how much my back aches, and no matter how often we maybe sometimes wonder, as pastors and teachers and parents, whether or not all of this instruction in the Good Book makes a difference, I am reminded once again that the Spirit is present through the word in this place, through baptism and confirmation, through word and sacrament.

Let me close with this blessing that is spoken at the conclusion of each and every bat mitzvah:

“May we be blessed as we go on our way; may we be guided in peace; may we be blessed with health and joy. May this be our blessing. May we be sheltered by wings of protection; may we be kept in safety and in love; may grace and compassion find their way to every soul. May this be our blessing.”

Amen.