Order of Worship | Luke 4:14-21

“And Jesus stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place from which he would read.”

This is a moment of declaration. Of clarity. Of pronouncement. For Jesus.

He’s back home, amongst familiar people, with their set expectations of who he is and what he is about. They’ve known him since he was “yay big,” understand. They love to hear him read in the synagogue, and they’re murmuring with expectation as he strides to the front, unrolls the scroll, and reads, “Good news to the poor, release for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed.”

It’s a large scroll, understand. One of many available in the hometown synagogue. But Jesus asks for Isaiah. Once handed to him, he unrolls it. Every action is described here. It’s a meticulous account, all of these verbs creating suspense and drawing attention, Luke causing us all to lean in along with the hometown crowd until “he found the place from which he would read.”

It was my good friend, Rev. Darryl Aaron, who first pointed out to me this wonderful detail. Rev. Aaron, a friend and partner in ministry, a gifted preacher and interpreter of scripture, is pastor of Providence Baptist Church here in Greensboro. He often sees things I don’t, and some years ago discussing this passage, he said, “Don’t miss that, Reverend… Jesus found his place.”

Because when it comes to scripture, there are many places we can find ourselves. Part of why Rev. Aaron sees this before me, is because of the way that the Black Church in the United States has always seen this and had to know this — that Scripture, our sacred text, is full of various messages, at times conflicting, and that the same collection that holds words of justice and joy, life and abundance, can be used for violence, condemnation, exclusion and subjugation.

The African American mystic and theologian Howard Thurman, himself a teacher of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once described how he used to read the Bible to his grandmother, and one day he opened it to the letters of Paul, and his grandmother said sharply, “Do not read that part.” When he was curious, she described how she was born enslaved, how she sat through church services led by her enslavers and their preachers, and how they would frequently read from the letters of Paul. “And I told myself that if freedom ever came, and if I could ever read the Bible for myself, I would not read that part.”

There are many places we can find. “Slaves be subject to your masters.” It’s in the scroll. But, then, we can keep turning, keep unrolling, and we can also find our place where it reads, “In Christ, there is no longer slave nor free.”

That’s why it has been one of the gifts of the Black Church, to help us not only read the Bible, but to read it in a certain way, recognizing the great arc of God’s love and mercy and justice. Recognizing that no one — no matter their claims of how precious and valued scripture is — no one weights all parts equally. To read the Bible is to interpret it and to make choices. To read the Bible is to find your place, you see. We all do. We have to decide how to be faithful in doing so, and as Christians we are most faithful when we read and interpret by measuring all parts against the love of God that we meet in Jesus.

This was part the work of Dr. King, whom we remembered this week. He was a preacher first, don’t forget. His most famous writing, the Letter from Birmingham Jail was written, remember, to religious leaders — white faith leaders, 7 Christian ministers and 1 rabbi, who had composed what they called a “Call to Unity,” which included the urging that Dr. King stay away from Birmingham, refrain from bringing his disruptive message and demonstrations to their town, and let them handle it and bring about the incremental sustainable change they imagined.

And if you want to, you can find your place to this kind of unity. You can read and interpret a message that leads to calm and tranquility, serenity and status quo. But Dr. King said, in so many words, that they were in the wrong place. That they were misplaced and misguided in preferring order to freedom, in asking him to wait when people had waited so long, in advocating for a peace that was ultimately what he deemed a “negative peace” defined by the absence of conflict rather than the presence of justice.

Instead, he put himself on the line for justice. He found his place much where Jesus found his.

As Jesus found his place with his mother before him. What was it she used to sing? “God has turned things upside down,” Mary sang in the Magnificat. “God has scattered the proud. God has brought down rulers but lifted up the humble. God has sent the rich away but filled the hungry with good things.”

He found his place like the prophets even earlier. “Let justice roll down,” Amos had thundered. “What does the Lord require of you?” Micah asked already anticipating the answer, “To do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God.” Or in the words of Isaiah, “Bring good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, declaring the year of the Lord’s favor.”

It’s a message that disrupts and disturbs. Not simple unity. Not benign peace. Not the absence of conflict. But complete agitation.

So from this story comes the lesson that “Prophets are not welcome in their hometown.” Or as a professor once told our preaching class, “Prophets don’t have pensions.”

Some of you might know the name Vernon Tyson. Rev. Tyson was an iconic Methodist minister in our state, who served in Oxford in the height of racial injustice in the 60s and 70s and particularly after the 1970 killing of Henry Marrow and the riots that followed. Rev. Tyson worked across racial lines in an effort to bring justice, peace and reconciliation.

His son, Timothy Tyson, is a historian and professor at Duke, and has written a memoir about growing up in Oxford in the preacher’s home, and that memoir has been turned into a film. The book and film are entitled, Blood Done Sign My Name.

At the outset of the film, young Vernon drives a station wagon and Uhaul with his wife and 4 children into Oxford. After they settle in the parsonage, he’s seen walking into the church, sitting in a pew in the early evening light. Then standing in the back by the old black and white photographs of all the pastors that had preceded him there, where you can almost see him measuring himself and losing an inch of height with every moment.

From there, he makes a pastoral visit to an older member of the congregation, Mrs. Alwind.

“I heard you on the radio,” she says. “You have a beautiful voice. I don’t usually trust preachers with beautiful voices, they tend to think too highly of themselves.”

She asks about his wife, their children, and then she says, “I’ve been a member of our church for 87 years. I’ve seen 20…22 pastors stand in that pulpit. Some good. Some not so good. But they all fell into 2 groups. They were either priests or they were prophets. The priests told us the comforting things we wanted to hear. The prophets challenged us with the difficult things we needed to hear. Which one are you, Reverend?”

“Well,” he says, “I’d like to think I try to be a little bit of both.”

“Oh Reverend, in these times I think you’re going to find it very hard to be both.”

The time is urgent. For Jesus. “Today” he says. Not yesterday, as though the work is complete in everything they’ve known and done and rehearsed and revered in their tradition. Not in a vague, far-off someday, as though the change is one day in things out beyond their capacity to imagine and do. But today is a time for this truth to be told.

Scholars say this in some ways is Jesus’ entire message in miniature form. It’s the moment when he does what he can only do once, which is declare his priorities at the outset. It’s a defining moment. Might we even say it’s an inaugural moment.

We are in a season of leadership in the United States, including inauguration and the earliest moments of a new Presidency. Inaugurations are full of symbolic action, declaration of priorities and indications of direction. There is always a rash of executive orders, in this case many that overwhelm and can even paralyze those of us tuned in to the news. Amidst this, it’s so important to distinguish between what is being said and what is actually being done. But even so, there is much that overwhelms, and much that affects us specifically as a religious community, and as a church seeking to follow in the way of Jesus, especially as it relates to those who are vulnerable and marginalized.

Notice in our passage, Jesus rolls up the scroll, and beyond the general themes he has proclaimed, he becomes specific, speaking of God’s love for widows and those stricken with leprosy. He implies that the people of Nazareth had not treated them justly and that God’s call is always to enact mercy to those deemed outcasts.

This week’s actions and words do seem to isolate at least two groups of people who are among those marginalized still in our country. They were the focus of much throughout the presidential campaign and marketing: the immigrant community and persons who are trans.

And this matters to us, as we are finding our place in this moment as a community of God’s justice and mercy.

We see how the intensifying activity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — ICE — already is sending fear throughout communities, including right here in Greensboro. The early orders do not speak of compassionate and reasonable immigration reform, but a notion that undocumented immigrants are a threat.

As a congregation, we are active in ministry to immigrants and refugees, including those who are undocumented. We do this through our denominational partnerships with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, through local organizations like Faith Action International, New Arrivals Institute, Church World Service… all of whom are bracing for the best way to support. And we as a church must consider the same.

You’ll notice that this week’s orders change a longstanding practice that declared ICE would not pursue people in sensitive areas like schools, like hospitals, and like churches. That is no longer the case. And the willingness to so immediately undo what had been a widely held sense of humanity, decorum, sanctuary is for so many in our community of care and friendship a harrowing sign of what is to come.

Our school system is actively considering how to support families amidst these changes, including what can and can not happen in a public school building. And we as a church must do the same, having in place policies and practices that provide the safety and sanctuary of our God to those siblings of ours who are immigrants, recognizing, in the words of scripture, that “we were all once strangers.” Recognizing that another word for immigrant is “neighbor” or “child of God.” And remembering the God who calls us to bring freedom and good news, most especially to those at risk

Which includes this week those among us who are transgender. And that means beloved members of this church, among them young people who have grown up in this church and heard the love of God whispered and sung over them for the whole of their lives. And this week, they are experiencing messages and orders that say you can’t travel, you can’t identify, but that suggest something more broad, that is, that you can’t exist.

And this matters deeply to us, because trans persons have heard this message their whole lives. Among transgender adults, 44% reported recent ideation of death by suicide, and 7% reported recently attempting it. And according to the Trevor Project, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ youth, when anti-trans legislation has been proposed, an increase in suicide attempt rates among young people 13-24 rose by anywhere from 38% to 44%.

For decades, churches and church traditions have been declaring where they stand in relation to those who are LGBTQ+. For when there are particular cases of exclusion, Christian community has the chance to be just as particular with its inclusion and affirmation. Various denominations have done this, but as you know, among Baptists, it is a declaration for the local church to make. And it is one which our church has reflected on in a variety of ways over years. We have come to see why it is important to be clear, and to pronounce who we are. We have done this practically, like last year demonstrating that we will call to ministry people in the fullness of who they are, including people of all sexualities and gender identities. But our church wants to share that more fully and precisely.

In discerning how to do that, we felt best to come to our Deacons, those we acknowledge on this ordination day as servant leaders, interpreters of our life together, truth-tellers in our midst. On one hand, there was nothing specific to do — we are who we are, there are no policies to change, no bylaws to amend. But discerning the best way to be clear, we began a process of working on a statement of inclusion and affirmation that our church can rightly claim. This process started in the fall, with representatives from our Deacons working together with pastoral staff, sharing a draft with the larger Deacon body, editing and improving and discussing until just this month, voting on a statement for our church to claim. The vote was taken two weeks ago, and in the room full of Deacons the statement was unanimously affirmed. As one Deacon observed, it was remarkable to see such a vote without incident, almost as though it was an acknowledgment of what was already true. That is, as the statement reads: “We believe that our church is more faithful to God’s calling when we include and celebrate all people. We therefore affirm and welcome people of all sexualities and gender identities to participate fully in the life and leadership of our community of faith, including the sacred practices of baptism, communion, marriage, ministry and ordination.”

There is a time to declare who you are, and what you believe, and what you will be about. For Jesus, it was Nazareth. And if we leave Nazareth just a few verses later and follow Jesus around in the gospel of Luke, we can see he meant what he said when he talked about good news for the poor, release for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed. At every turn, he seems to find his way to them.

It’s all too much for the hometown crowd, of course. They rush Jesus out of town. They seem to want the message to remain hypothetical or fantastic, where it doesn’t disturb them. And they want Jesus to remain the carpenter’s son, who is easier on the ears, lighter on the conscience, and always so polite. The message is too much. And the people respond immediately. Their reflex is to push it off in the distance, and even to rush Jesus out of town until they nearly run him off a cliff. And while they fail on the hill outside Nazareth, there is a hill outside Jerusalem where the bold words and actions of Jesus would finally incite the rage not only of a town, but of an entire empire.

Make no mistake, it is risky. It is bold. The justice and mercy of God always are. But they are much more than we can ever find if we just stay in Nazareth.

So friends, may we take a breath. May we feel the strength of the Spirit that is with us. May we walk to the front. May we stand straight and tall. And may we find our place, where Jesus found his.