Sermon Archives

January 24, 2010
Pastor Jim Bangsund

"Good News to the Poor"
Luke 4:14-21

When we lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the eastern coast of Africa, just south of the equator, we were used to confusion at the post office. Letters were often put in the wrong box, and I remember countless times writing on the face of an envelope "Try Box 1500" or whatever when "Box 1500" or whatever was already clearly written there by the sender. The worst misdirection came one day when they had the box number right but the hemisphere wrong - our box number but in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and not Dar es Salaam. And I well remember writing "Try Haiti" at that point and dropping the letter in the outgoing mailbox.

Well, until 4:53 p.m. local time, on Tuesday, January 12, that was pretty much all I knew about Port-au-Prince. Today, of course, we all know a good deal more. A 7.0 earthquake centered just 16 miles west of a major city teaches you things you never wanted to know.

Now I'm not going to dive into the grimness since we've all watched the news for the past dozen days and anguished over the loss and perhaps shared in supporting the relief efforts. The pictures of the city, including the grand presidential palace before its fall, reminded me a good deal of Dar es Salaam and its grand State House. In some ways, there is a certain sameness shared by poor countries - but that sameness is not all negative and can be far from drab. Sometimes poor people seem more receptive to what God is doing and end up bringing good news to us. I'll come back to that. But first, let's take a look at our Gospel lesson.

We read, "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit." Returned from where? From down south, near Jerusalem; from his baptism by John; from his temptation by Satan in the wilderness, in other words, from the beginnings of his earthly ministry. Now he has returned home to the area around the Sea of Galilee and, we read, "news about him spread through the whole countryside." Sort of a case of local boy makes good, and now he has returned home.

Things start out well. He teaches in the synagogues around the area and his fame increases. He goes to synagogue in his home town, Nazareth, and when he appears they honor him by asking him to read the scripture lesson for the day - much like we do here each week. He is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and unrolls it to chapter 61. He then reads:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

And then he sat down. In those days, you stood to read, and you sat down to teach. And so, "the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him." He starts to teach, and the first words out of his mouth are: "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Now at this point, I was going to tell you why things suddenly go so badly with the people in the next verses after our Gospel lesson - how it has to do with Jesus purposely skipping their favorite verse about God's vengeance on the Gentiles, and what that skipping means for us. That's what I was thinking of doing two weeks ago, but then nature intervened with the events in Port-au-Prince. And as I, like you, watched the horrific pictures on television, I couldn't help but be struck by the seeming dissonance of Jesus' words, "The Spirit of the Lord ... has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." Where in all this, O God, is there good news for the poor?

And then, as I watched, I was brought once again to review a lesson I have learned several times before. A lesson westerners often learn when going overseas to teach and to help in poor countries. For by now the Gospel has been in places like Tanzania and Haiti for many years, and has taken root in ways that may catch us by surprise as we go to help.

I remember our early years in Tanzania where I was for the first time grasped by the profound depth of what Jesus said in John 8:32, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Those words are so well known that they often find their way into the secular mainstream - with different application, of course. But when you see people who previously lived in fear of the demonic world, or of streams or woods inhabited by spirits - people now living in freedom from such fear because they are gripped by a greater power: the power of God in Jesus Christ - you finally understand what Jesus meant. The Gospel - the good news of what God did in Christ - really does set free. And I soon realized that, although we had flown 10,000 miles to Tanzania to teach and to preach and to help, the Gospel had already been there 100 years before us. The people's lives had been changed, and now so would ours.

And then there is Haiti. Another desperately poor country, but this time one with a major disaster laid on top of the poverty. The theme of these past dozen days has been "What can we bring to Haiti?" Quite a lot, quite frankly; and I hope many of us have responded to the e-mail that the church office sent out or to the information in the bulletin and on our website. Judy and I have done so, and as of a few days ago $1.6 million had come in from Lutherans across the land. But then this: Haiti has also contributed to us. For, as I said, the Gospel also came to Haiti - almost five hundred years ago. In the midst of it all, what does Haiti bring to us? In some ways, we are not as rich as we may think; and in some ways, Haiti is not as hopeless and desolate as we might assume - though certainly in need of our help at this particular moment.

Monday's headline in the Mercury News read: "Small signs of hope in Haiti," but you had to dig all the way back to page A10 to find buried there another important story: a shortened version of Deborah Sontag's New York Times story of the power of faith at work in Haiti. Now admittedly the story headline, "Haitians turn to faith to rejuvenate spirit," sounded a bit too much like the old "Well, I guess there's nothing we can do now but pray" ... suggesting that faith and prayer are merely the last resort rather than the starting points and the foundation that doesn't crumble beneath us.

But the article was fairly good, as it told of Pastor Joseph Lejeune, "an evangelical pastor in a frayed polo shirt, his church crushed but his spirit vibrant." He gathered his congregation out in the open air and encouraged them to "Think of our new village here as the home of Jesus Christ, not the scene of a disaster."

The story went on to note how,

in varying versions, this scene repeated itself throughout the Haitian capital on Sunday. With many of their churches flattened and their priests and pastors killed, Haitians desperate for aid and comfort beseeched God to ease their grief.

Again, the Gospel has 500 years of roots deep in the soil of Haiti. Yet to outsiders like us, some of the people's reactions may seem counter-intuitive. For instance:

"It may seem like a strange moment to have faith," said Georges Verrier, 28, an unemployed computer expert,... "But you can't blame God [, he said]. I blame man. God gave us nature, and we Haitians, and our governments, abused the land. You cannot get away without consequences." Sounding a similar note, a self-appointed preacher ... proclaimed the earthquake [to be a] punishment for a long list of sins that he enumerated .... "We have to kneel down and ask forgiveness from God," he said.

Now, I'm always real hesitant to connect the dots with such assurance like that in the face of suffering and disaster. I think such things have more to do with Paul's profound observation, in Romans 8, that we live in a creation which is itself distorted and in need of liberation and redemption. I also don't know Haiti well enough to say anything about their need for national repentance, and, even if I did, I as an outsider would not have the right to make that judgment. What struck me, though, was the God-given - God-given - resilience of their faith, the sense that sin is an issue - for all of us - and the conviction that, whatever the cause of the tragedy, God had not deserted them and was there to hear them.

Then came the stories of singing. On the first day, our daughter Sharon sent us a short note asking for prayer for one of her friends - a college classmate from years past and later a fellow Bible camp counselor - who had been in Port-au-Prince and whose situation was unknown. A day later it became known, and by now you may have heard it, for her friend was Ben Larson, son of ELCA Bishop April Larson. He and his wife Renee and his cousin Jonathan, all three Wartburg Serminary students, had been working in Port-au-Prince at the St. Joseph Home for Boys when it collapsed. The news article goes on to say that

Jonathan and Renee were trapped for a short time, but managed to squeeze out onto the roof of the building and called for Ben .... [They] went back to the place where they had crawled out and called [for him] again .... Renee said she heard Ben's voice. He was singing, not unusual for Ben who loved music. "I told him I loved him, and that Jon and I were okay, and to keep singing," Renee said. But the singing stopped after he sang the words "God's peace to us we pray," ... "Ben spent his last breath singing," [she said].[1]

The second singing story has a different ending. You may have seen it on TV.[2] A woman named Jeanette was trapped for six days in the rubble of a fallen bank building where she worked, and her husband, holding vigil outside the ruins, was frantic. Then, as incongruous as it sounds, a crew from the Los Angeles Fire Department arrived with heavy duty equipment and they slowly pried a small opening. They stuck some communication gear in through the hole and you could hear the woman; she was singing a hymn with a clear strong voice. She was alive and apparently in relatively good health. Hearing her voice, her husband tried to tear at the massive pieces of shattered concrete with bare hands - a futile act of desperation. But the LAFD prevailed, and when they eventually, slowly, extricated her from a gap in the concrete, she came out still singing - a hymn proclaiming how she didn't fear death. Wow! As I said, the ending is different; but both are finally stories of victory.

Simple people? Ben Larson and this woman named Jeanette? My experience of people living at the fragile outer economic margins of life is that they have learned to deal with the harsh realities of the world in ways that few of us have, and often have instincts for survival that would far surpass ours. Simple faith, perhaps, but not simple people.

Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, and yet the Bible never records any poor person becoming financially wealthy because of meeting Jesus. Jesus came to proclaim freedom for prisoners, and yet the only prisoner whose life was directly affected was John the Baptist whose head ended up on a platter. The Bible seems to be thinking of something else - something far more able to get you through when heavy pieces are falling all around you.
In Haiti this weekend/morning, God's people are once again gathering for worship - as churches without walls. If the Hayward fault went 8.0 ballistic and St Tim's came crashing down, would we still come out the following Sunday? I believe we would. It's the people, after all, not the building that make up the church. You would come to church because - like the faithful in Haiti - you too, have heard the good news that in Christ, God has shown that he is for us, come what may; that in Christ, we have a hope for the future which in turn secures hope in the present; that in Christ, God surrounds us with this community of faith in which we are neither strangers nor alone.

Jesus came to preach good news to the poor. He also said that it's easier for a camel to pass through eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God - though, thanks be to God, he followed that up by saying that all things are possible with God. In God's eyes, we're defined neither by our poverty and its limitations nor our wealth and its transience. But can it be that the poor understand better than many of us do what it meant that one of their own, raised in a small village at the edge of the Sea of Galilee, freely gave his life on behalf of all of us? Perhaps the poor have better ears. This is certainly not to say that there is less coveting among the poor or any less desire than we have for the good things of life. And it's certainly not to say that poverty makes noble; poverty more frequently degrades. But perhaps some situations in life to lead to better ears.

Next week is our annual congregational meeting, and in my written report I refer to the Gospel as a counter-cultural message. And it is, you know - even for us. Perhaps especially for us, living in this exciting, cutting edge but very secular valley. In the midst of it all, God wants you to live with that same conviction and assurance as the woman pulled from the rubble had - not afraid of death, praising God for life - so that even if the worst happens you will stand firm.

People often ask us, "Do you miss Africa." That's a hard question to give a simple answer to. We don't miss the broken infrastructure: the misdirected letters, the chewed up roads and faltering water and electricity. But sometimes we miss the more open awareness of, and the straightforward trust in, God and his grace and salvation. Some of the stories coming out of Haiti have reminded us of that.

In recent days, I hope you have taken the opportunity to help the people of Haiti - again, perhaps by using the info in the bulletin. That's the kind of thing we followers of Jesus do to show our gratefulness for the good news that has even come to us. And I hope that, in the midst of all this, you also receive something from Haiti. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor. When you encounter the poor, be a part of God's provision for them - and then don't be surprised if you hear them, in many different ways, preaching good news to you in return. Amen.

1. http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Communication-Services/News/Releases.aspx?a=4403

2.http://www.sphere.com/world/article/miraculous-rescues-continue-in-haiti-but-for-how-long/19322744