It would be a truly terrible idea, to open up the Biblical canon for another book or two, but if we did, I would nominate Martin Luther King’s 1963 Epistle written inside a Birmingham jail. It is widely quoted, about the length of First and Second Corinthians, and deeply Christian.  Dr King like Paul was “an ambassador in chains”  And like Paul and all the prophets Rev. King was not a perfect person. Inspiration does not require perfection or we would exclude every Psalm written by David. Letter From A Birmingham Jail has laid bare my heart, convicted me of sin and lifted my eyes towards justice, love, and hope. Dr King’s letter has “revealed the Word of God” to me many times. (EUB Confession of Faith on the Bible)  

King wrote in response to eight prominent more progressive white clergymen, who had published an op-ed calling for the King and the civil rights leaders to end their non-violent resistance because of the potential for civil disruption. KIng is writing to churches like ours. 

King writes: I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at her beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlay of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over again I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who is their God?  Where were their voices when the lips of the Governor (or the president)  dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when…?  Where were their voices of support when…?

These questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment, I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church; I love her sacred walls. How could I do otherwise?… Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and fear of being nonconformists.” 

King asks us? Who worships here? Who is our God?  Where are our voices?  Where is our support? 

There is a popular brand of Christianity alive and well in America today that foolishly drinks the poison cup of racism and Christian Nationalism.  It hoodwinks its adherents into believing that God only cares about a narrow range of personal beliefs and practices. It has forgotten that we can measure the love of God within us by our love for our neighbor. (1 John 3-4 or James)  It is easy to preach against others, to list their sins and feel pretty good about ourselves, but that may only build higher dividing walls, fostering deeper alienation, anger and despair. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Rev. King wept over the southern church.  Judging others keeps our souls from wrestling with God and asking who is my God, where is my voice, who knows my support?”  

Our passage from Luke 4 is Jesus’ first sermon in Luke. This opening sermon frames Jesus’ message, mission and Kin-domcoalition.  When we read the Bible, we need to remember that writing on the one usable side of a leather scroll, the writers did not quote every word Jesus said that day, just the main points. Luke notes “Jesus was teaching them”  and does not explain how Jesus wove Isaiah 58 and 61 together into one message. So maybe something unquoted hit so close to home that the hometown congregation “rose up and ran Jesus out of town. They led him to the crest of the hill on which their town had been built so that they could throw Jesus off the cliff. But Jesus passed through the crowd and went on his way”. 

Jesus stood right there before them, asking them: Who is your God?  We can just flip over a few chapters to more comforting stories like Jesus calming the sea or God welcoming the prodigal child home!  

Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been raised. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue as he normally did and stood up to read.  The synagogue assistant gave Jesus the scroll from the prophet Isaiah. Jesus unrolled the scroll and found the place in Isaiah 61 and 58 where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.
God has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
    to proclaim release to the prisoners  and recovery of sight to the blind,
    to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

(The scroll would lay across a table with the reader standing behind the sacred text reading it) Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the synagogue assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the synagogue was fixed on him. Jesus began to explain to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.”

Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it. But how will it be fulfilled?  Who will bring good news to people trapped in poverty- not just comforting words about eternal rewards in heaven, but good news about living wages, enough to eat right, and affordable housing  right now on earth as in heaven? Who will blow the trumpet and declare a Jubilee Year when all oppressive rents, leases, and contracts dissolve and the poor get back their share of land and houses? (Leviticus 25)  Who will thunder with Isaiah “your princes are the companions of thieves” (Isaiah 1) Who will flip over tables with Jesus?  Who will fight for access to affordable or free healthcare? Free healthcare seems to be what Jesus was always offering! Who will stand with women afraid of losing control over their very bodies?  Who will stand in solidarity with the immigrants and refugees? Yesterday, as I helped lead a funeral for one of our Burmese members, I remembered how the Bible begins with God commanding Abraham and Sara to leave their homeland and to go to a land that God would show them. I recalled this immigrant story: Moses, the Promised Land, the Exile, the Holy Family’s Flight to Egypt, and the Good Samaritan.  Will we remember that the Ten Commandments prescribe Sabbath for all employees because of the reader’s past bondage?  Who will say enough of this senseless gun violence? Who will be peacemakers revealing to us all how to live as children of God?

Luke 4 and Dr King remind us of our baptismal promises to “renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin,” and while “accepting the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”  But, in rejecting and resisting, how do we remember our identity as beloved children of God called to love our neighbors, strangers and even enemies as ourselves? How do we keep from drinking from the cup of bitterness, cynicism and recrimination? How do we break the cycle of dehumanization?  

In 1956, Doctor King preached an epistle entitled “Facing the Challenge of a New Age”  Dr King asserts that one of the “challenges that stands before us”  is to enter a “new age with understanding good will. This simply means that the Christian virtues of love, mercy and forgiveness should stand at the center of our lives. There is the danger that those who have lived so long under the yoke of oppression… injustice and indignities of entering a new age with hate and bitterness. If we retaliate with hate and bitterness, the new age will be nothing but a duplication of the old age. …  How do we break the dehumanizing cycle of recrimination? 

If you read much of Dr. King’s you know that his solution was to stick to love. It is a bold, faithful and courageous decision that cost him his life.  King cautioned “There is the danger that our talk about love will merely be empty words devoid of any practical and true meaning. But when I say love those who oppose you I am not speaking of love in a sentimental or affectionate sense. It would be nonsense to urge people to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. When I refer to love at this point I mean understanding good will. Agape means nothing sentimental or basically affectionate. It means understanding, redeeming goodwill for all people. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. It is the love of God working in the lives of people. When we rise to love on the agape level we love people not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but because God loves us.”  

It seems today, we need to deeply reclaim a redemptive narrative for ourselves and our communities. Redemption is not about punishing one’s opponents but restoring all people to their deepest humanity- their belovedness. We need to foster understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all people.  ( In Love, Law and Civil Disobedience King adds the word “creative” to his definition of love) 

We might notice that seventy years after Doctor King spoke of a new age, it has not entirely arrived. Maybe the beloved community will not arrive until Jesus appears in the clouds.  But who we will be, who we will stand with, and who our God is- is not rooted in externals but in the freedom and power God gives us to keep resisting and rising. We can rise to love.  We can rise to be people trying to understand the systems that dehumanize us or others. We can rise and teach redemption songs.  We rise with creative strategies to woo wayward folks back to peace and their God-given human dignity. We can rise by seeking the common good: goodwill for all people everywhere. We can rise to God, who is love, by acts of love: by understanding, creative, redemptive, good works for all people. Love sends us to bring Good news to the poor, release to the prisoners, sight to closed minds,  liberty for the oppressed, and the Year of Jubilee and Justice (Lev. 25) .

When our neighbors ask about our amazing edifice on the corner of 21st and Acklen I hope they don’t ask “are you across from Jenny’s Icecream?”. I hope they have heard that God welcomes all people. I hope they have heard our voices speaking up at the capital, marching with them to end gun violence, decriminalize homelessness, and to protect everyone’s human rights. I hope they have shared a free meal with us.  I hope they have seen in us our God who calls us into understanding-creative-redemptive-goodwill for all people. Amen.