Epiphany 3A
Isaiah 9:1-4
Matthew 4:12-23

I recently started receiving a word of the day e-mail from dictionary.com. My roommates told me it is the best way to improve one’s vocabulary as a preparation for the GRE grammar section. While I really enjoying learning new words and their definitions, what I find most fascinating in these e-mails is that they include the etymology or origin of each of the words. Whether it is Latin, French, old or middle English, I begin to see how and why different words have become part of our lingo. For example, yesterday’s word was “caterwaul,” the word for loud noises or to make a harsh cry. Its origin comes from the Middle English caterwawen, “to cry as a cat.” Makes since right?

As I began preparing for today’s lesson, etymology was on my mind. My thoughts were pulled back to a time when I read about the practice of “liturgy” its word origin. Interestingly, the word liturgy has its origin in the Greek word leitourgia (λειτουργια ), which is translated to, or understood in that time as, – public work or duty – work of the people. When I first read this, I was struck at the implications it had for my participation in Christian worship. So often I want to relegate the sacred and the spiritual to a particular service, location, or activity, but as I am learning this year, God’s sacramental work extends beyond this.

When we look at the gospel reading for today, we see Jesus at the initial stages of his public ministry. He is beginning his “liturgy” or work of the people. It is not something Christ chooses to do alone, but is an act in which he invites or rather calls Peter, Andrew, James and John into. What is it that Jesus calls the disciples to? What was the liturgy he preformed?

In verse 17 the author of Matthew writes, “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” In verse 23 it is written that “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” Well…that all sounds nice and religious right. But really…what was the liturgy that Christ and his disciples were beginning to perform? Repentance? The kingdom of heaven? The good news of the kingdom? These too must have been words with an origin, with a tangible expression.

Lucky for us, the folks who put this particular lectionary reading together probably thought the same thing. As you may have noticed earlier, part of what we see referenced in the first part of the Gospel reading comes from the words of today’s OT reading out of Isaiah. In Isaiah we read words of hope and salvation to “those who were in aguish.” This passage was written during a time when Israel’s territories were occupied by a foreign and oppressive people group. It was written to God’s people who were experiencing great injustices, as well as falling into the same patterns as their oppressors. Isaiah shares of a coming light, a coming salvation in which the “yoke of their burden and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor” will be broken.

As we see in today’s Gospel, Matthew writes that Jesus is the fulfillment of what was “spoken through the prophet Isaiah.” Jesus is the “light [that] has dawned.” This is the “coming” that will break the yoke of their burden, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. This is the good news of the kingdom.

When Christ inaugurated his ministry as told in Luke, he read another passage from Isaiah, a passage proclaiming:

“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.”

Again…the good news of the kingdom, of Christ’s beloved community. This is what Jesus calls the disciples to. This is his liturgy.

John Howard Yoder explains in his book The Politics of Jesus, that “Jesus’ concept of the coming kingdom was borrowed extensively from the prophetic understanding of the jubilee year,” (a topic which we will delve into later this semester). Its basic premise is a redistribution of resources, a return to balance, or as expressed in Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000… “all ate and were satisfied.” It is through this act of liturgy that Christ moves in ways that present an alternative to the socio-political structures that are oppressing and starving the world. Through the life of Christ, God offers us a new paradigm of living and moving that counters the corrupted structures evolving from humanity’s disordered hunger. Yes we are a hungry people. We hunger for power, for prestige, for longevity, so often for a life that is not wrapped up in God’s love and reconciliation.

Such reconciliation had a place throughout the Old Testament in the commands of God and in the prophets. The proclaimed year of jubilee called for right relationship within the Israelite nation, so that all members of society found themselves provided for, as well as gave rest to the land. We see here that Christ does not call only for personal repentance, reconciliation and salvation but the entrance of a new community committed to living in the jubilee through a life of love and sacrifice to the other (the outcast, the marginalized, the lonely, the hungry, each of us on this planet). William Cavanaugh, in his book Torture and the Eucharist, writes that the church “can never be restricted to a sphere of the personal and the spiritual because human life is social and the religious lives of people are interwoven with the political, economic, and cultural processes of society.”

It is in this conversation, that I am beginning to see how our liturgical work on Sundays, the Eucharistic act we perform during each service, is a cyclical and expanding movement, one that goes beyond the confines of our Malibu Hall 120. In order for me to fully participate in the Eucharist, I must become the bread and the wine in my everyday encounters. It is that voice in Isaiah and in the gospels that proclaims the hope of salvation that God in Christ brings.

Every Sunday we are reminded of a table that is full. A table that is full of life, full of God’s grace, full of the body of Christ and full of the work of the church. It is not just that we have an abundant table before us, but that we are the abundant table. We too are the bread for the world, for we are the hands and feet of Christ. As the semester continues we will engage topics both overtly religious and not so religious. We will work together to try and understand what it means for us to be the church, followers of Christ, a people of the resurrection and coming kingdom of God. It is we who exist in the mystery of God’s presence on earth, for as we live as the church/as Christians, we know that we live in God’s grace and victory over the grave and can proclaim God’s Jubilee and reconciliation boldly.