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Preaching Mission for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany (January 26, 2025)

(Worship in the new Moravian Mission Province in Brazil)

Jesus’ Mission is Our Mission
by the Rt. Rev. Chris Giesler

Assigned Texts: I Corinthians 12:12-31 and Luke 4:14-21

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he laysChurchroundwork for his belief that the Church carries on the work of Jesus and is, in fact, the very body of Christ.  And in today’s Epistle lesson Paul helps us see that just as the human body has many parts, all of them must serve the common good for the body to be healthy.  In verse 12, Paul writes: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”   Paul was writing these words to a church in the middle of a huge fight about whose gift was the most important and, therefore, who got to call the shots.  Sound familiar?  In the 13th Chapter, Paul completes this important teaching with the famous “Love Chapter,” telling us that love is the greatest gift of all.

Since we most often read the Bible in snippits rather that the way we might read a novel, we can lose the overarching message that Paul is trying to get his conflicted church to see.  BecauseChurchis, I feel that we too narrowly define our spiritual gifts as something we do in isolation, whether it be teaching, hospitality, administration, or knowledge, as outlined in chapter 12. But our gift works best if it is used in concert with the gifts of others.  As such, the gift of love becomes the most important of all the gifts, for a gift expressed without love divides the Body of Christ.

Jesus himself ran into this problem as we read today’s Gospel text.  Here, Jesus, just beginning his public ministry with his newly assembled disciples, returns to Nazareth.  As would have been his custom, Jesus attends services at the synagogue on the Sabbath.  Here is how the Gospel of Luke tells the story.   “Jesus 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.’”

The text says that Jesus “found the place” in Isaiah to read.  There was nothing left for chance here -Jesus purposefully chose this text.  Here, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus chose these words to be his job description.  This is what he feels to be the will of God for his life, and we should not take this lightly.  While it is not a part of this week’s reading, Luke goes on to tell us that Jesus’ message was not well received by the hometown folks.  They were so upset that they ran Jesus out of town and  attempted to throw him off a cliff!  They did not appreciate Jesus’ chosen priorities. The people chose not to respect Jesus’ call to ministry and decided to remove him from the membership rolls of the synagogue by force.

How easy it is for us to draw the lines of separation rather than to see others through the eyes of love and seek reconciliation.  When we seek to divide, we try to defend our actions by saying that we are defending essential theological points.  But are we?  Paul tells us that our first motivation should always be love, and love calls us to reconciliation rather than division.  The trouble is that division and conflict reduces our ability to do the very thing that God most wants us to do.  We get ourselves wrapped up in managing the conflict while it reduces our ability to serve the community and world that desperately needs God’s love.

We live in a world where we are being taught that if you don’t get what you think you want or deserve, you dig in your heels, refuse to give in, fight, or walk away.  Paul is teaching us something very different.  The Body of Christ today is called upon to keep Jesus’ priorities as they are outlined in today’s Gospel lesson and indeed  in the rest of the Gospels.  Jesus’ mission is truly our mission.