Many of the great reformers and revolutionaries and visionaries of the world have been associated with fine speeches, or with manifestos. They often burst onto the scene with inspiring words, outlining what they’re about, what they’re going to do, and then they go ahead and do it. That’s why they’re remembered. Because, unlike so many politicians, their manifestos actually come true. It’s not just words. I think of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Emmeline Pankhurst, William Wilberforce. Each championed a particular cause, with many fine words, but these words came to fruition.
One of the first things the Gospel writer Luke tells us about Jesus as an adult is what he said: his manifesto, his mission statement, if you like. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus has started teaching in the synagogues of Galilee (verse 15). It’s possible he came to be seen as a rabbi, and Luke has already told us (3:23) that “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work”. That was the age when rabbis became rabbis, when they were deemed old enough to teach. It would therefore be quite normal for Jesus to be teaching in the synagogues. And so he comes to Nazareth, his home town. And here, he is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to read from. That, of course, is where Bibles were – at synagogue. People didn’t have their own copy at home, or one to carry in their pockets. Many, most, or even all Jewish children (the boys, anyway) may have memorised large portions of the Hebrew Bible. But the hard copies were held at local synagogues.
So, from the community Bible, Jesus reads a verse or so from Isaiah 61. The thing is, though, it’s not exactly Isaiah 61 verse 1 as we know it. It’s sort of a mash up. This could be because the canon of the Old Testament wasn’t totally settled by this point, and maybe there were slight variations from synagogue to synagogue in the exact wording, or the arrangement, or the books that were included. You could say it was a loose canon…
Or, perhaps Jesus, an expert in the Hebrew Bible, made a medley, putting in a couple of bits from somewhere else to make a point. The first bit that seems to have been added is the line about “recovery of sight for the blind.” A similar line appears in the Greek version of Isaiah. But this reads like Psalm 146:8a (“the LORD opens the eyes of the blind…”). It’s as though Jesus is linking Isaiah 61 with Psalm 146, which is about God:
who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous;
The LORD watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphans and the widows,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin
(Ps 146:7-9)
According to Psalm 146, this God is the God of the poor and the oppressed and the excluded and the disadvantaged. And He puts things to rights on their behalf.
The other bit that Jesus has snuck into his reading is the line: “to let the oppressed go free”. This is a direct quote from another part of Isaiah, 58:6. There, the prophet is telling us about God’s chosen fast. There’s no point, He tells the people, being religious and perfectly observing all the worship and ritual, if they don’t seek justice and look out for those in need and on the edges of society. God asks, doesn’t the real religion I want look like this: “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” It’s about sharing your bread with the hungry, inviting the homeless into your house, clothing the naked (v7)…
Imagine, for a moment, how these words might translate today. Fast from your pursuit of clothes made in sweatshops on the other side of the world. Fast from using companies who avoid and evade tax that, if paid, might enable the welfare system to cope, so that schools don’t close, hospitals can treat people, and benefit sanctions aren’t thrust upon people at the drop of a hat…
And so these two scriptures, Psalm 146 and Isaiah 58, Jesus appears to mesh with Isaiah 61, which is about God’s commission of his servant, in the power of the Spirit, to bring good news to the poor and oppressed, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty for the captives, and proclaiming the year of the LORD’s favour…
Delivered
All of this is like Jesus’ manifesto. As he says, when he’s finished the reading, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing…” (Luke 4:21).
Jesus is saying that it’s all come true. First of all, the Spirit of the Lord is upon him – he’s God’s anointed (which is what the Greek ‘Christ’ and Hebrew ‘Messiah’ mean). But there’s a specific angle to that: he’s sent to preach good news to the poor. If we look at the life of Jesus, he didn’t spend all his time in palaces, or even in synagogues. A lot of it was spent among the poor, the sick, those who were out of the loop. The little people. He brought them good news, in word and deed. Many of the crowds who listened to Jesus were made up of these little people. And Jesus, by spending time with them, sharing meals with them, healing them, transforming their circumstances, brought them good news.
In fact, if we look at these manifesto pledges, we see that Jesus fulfils them all. Good news to the poor. Release to the captives (like the demon-possessed, for example). Recovery of sight for the blind. The oppressed go free – for instance, look at Jesus’ controversial attitude and actions towards women, certainly an oppressed group then. He included women in his social group. He allowed them to resource his ministry (Luke 8:1-3).
And that final line, about the year of the Lord’s favour, that was a reference to God doing something extraordinary, the dawn of His kingdom on earth, when heaven and earth would come together… And Jesus says that today it is fulfilled. Because in Jesus, heaven and earth come together. God’s kingdom arrives wherever Jesus is.
The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away
We’ve thought a little bit about what Jesus has added to Isaiah 61:1 and 2. But what about what he’s left out. He cuts the reading short. It should say: “to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn…” Jesus has left out the part about vengeance. For some of his audience, that was probably the best bit. For them, the coming of God’s kingdom meant vengeance. Vengeance on their enemies. God was going to sort things out, and deal with those who were opposed to him, or who weren’t part of his people Israel, or whoever it may be. But there was definitely going to be vengeance. It’s only fair, right?
Yet, Jesus leaves vengeance out. There’s not going to be any of that, he says. That’s not how this works. Vengeance means enemies. And no one is God’s enemy. He excludes no one. That’s what Jesus is saying here. No one is to be cut out of this picture. Everyone should get the chance to take their place in God’s kingdom, in what he is doing.
Salvation
There was a movement that sprung up in the 1960s called Liberation Theology. It started in South America, in the atmosphere of the Second Vatican Council, and perhaps figure-headed by a Catholic priest called Gustavo Gutiérrez, among others. Gutiérrez was from Peru and he ministered there. But he found that the Western, European theological education he received didn’t work in his context. He was living and working among some of the poorest people in the world, and a lot of the religious ideas that make sense in a fairly comfortable, educated, healthy European world, are nonsense there. After all, Western Europe had been the masters of history, the conquistadores. Most South Americans were oppressed, politically, economically, and in any number of other ways. He saw that a new way of understanding God and the church and the world was needed. He came to see God as the God of the Exodus, who is in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. And this is not as controversial as it is often made out to be. Let’s bear in mind that the Exodus story, so formative in the life of the Hebrews, was the story of an oppressed people being set free by a God who revealed Himself to them – God discloses the Divine Name, YHWH, to Moses – and enters into, or renews, a deep covenant relationship with them. They were slaves. They were what Gutiérrez and company would call ‘non-persons’, on the underside of history.
As an aside, to an extent, all poverty is oppression. We live in a world where for anyone to be wealthy, someone else must be poor. God has provided enough for all of us, but we’re not always great at sharing. Gutiérrez recognised that God was very much concerned with the affairs of this world and this life.
And Gutiérrez spoke of the “preferential option for the poor…” . Now, a lot of people have a problem with that. How can God, or the church, have a preference for the poor? After all, haven’t we noted that Jesus has said there is no vengeance in God’s kingdom. No enemies.
But that’s just it. God has a bias to the poor. It doesn’t mean he’s against or excludes anyone else. The fact of the matter is, Jesus was on the side of the poor because no one else was. As he said so often, the last shall be first. God’s kingdom is about redressing the balance.
It’s the same today as it was then. Jesus is still on the side of the poor and marginalised. Those who are not in the mainstream of society. The disadvantaged. The exploited. The little people. He’s on their side because society isn’t. For instance, even though many people in poverty receive benefits, and so forth, they’re not being looked after by society. Rather, they’re just in another form of oppression. People need a hand up, not just hand outs. Jesus took immediate action to help those in need – whatever need they had. He also challenged society to change. Both are important. In other words, he pursued both social action and social justice. One without the other was ineffectual. To just keep meeting need changes nothing in the long run. To only campaign for social justice may have long term results, but the immediate need goes unmet.
There’s a famous adage: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” What is perhaps missing from the saying is that, for the man to be able to fish, we sometimes have to campaign for the ‘no fishing’ sign to be removed.
What’s also important is that for Jesus there was no distinction between the spiritual and the social. He met people in their entirety, and they were changed. He preached good news to the poor, at one and the same time as releasing them from captivity, and restoring their sight, and feeding them, and healing them… This is about salvation. Restoration. Life in all its fullness. That’s what Jesus came to bring, to everyone, especially to the little people. The most broken. The last, the lost and the least.
Some might criticise this approach, this concern for the here-and-now, everyday needs of our fellow humans, as a ‘social gospel’. Here’s how Desmond Tutu rebuts that claim:
“I don’t preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, ‘Now is that political or social?’ He said, ‘I feed you.’ Because the goodnews to a hungry person is bread.”
This is our heritage as The Salvation Army. We believe in this same God of the poor, the oppressed, the excluded, themarginalised. As William Booth said in his final public address:
“While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight. While little children go hungry as they do now, I’ll fight. While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight. While there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the street, while there yet remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight. I’ll fight to the very end…”
Today, we live in a UK with a massive rate of recidivism,men (and women?) do go to prison, in and out, in and out.
We live in a world where little children go hungry. Even in Britain, as the large uptake of help from Foodbanks will show.
We live in a world where alcohol continues to cause health, economic, and social problems.
We live in a world where prostitution and sex trafficking is still rife. Sadly, it tends to originate in poorer countries than our own (in South Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia), but the end user is often in countries like our own.
Women continue to weep. And many dark souls, rich and poor, oppressed and oppressor, remain without the light of God. So we must fight. Fight for justice. Fight for equality. Fight for God’s kingdom. Fight at the political level. Fight with our economic choices. Fight with our attitudes. Fight on our knees. These are our weapons. We are a Salvation Army – The Salvation Army. We fight for the salvation of all, especially the little people.
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