Jesus said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled.” It’s almost 2000 years later. That’s lots of extra time, so why are there still oppressed people? Why do we often feel oppressed by life?
In recent months, an advertisement on TV has caught my attention. It shows a scrawny kid sitting at his school desk, about a 2nd or 3rd grader. We’ll call him Ralph. A much bulkier kid across the aisle passes him a note. It reads, “You and me 3:00.” There was no need to say anything about what was going to happen or where. Any kid in the school would know the answer to those questions. The camera showed a look of desperate resignation on Ralph’s face. It was his day. For whatever reason, the class bully picked him. He’d have to show up, because if he didn’t, he’d be the laughing stock of all his peers. He’d have to show up and just take the beating. The next scene shows Ralph walking down the hall after school, his eyes downcast like those of a convict going to the gallows. All of the sudden, a large hand reaches out and takes his. We don’t get to see just yet to whom the hand is connected, but we see Ralph’s face. It’s on the edge of joy and relief, but disbelief holds those emotions in check. We aren’t sure what to think. The next scene shows the class bully, holding court with his entourage in a dead-end play area with no escape. He turns to sneer as he hears Ralph approaching, but all of the sudden the chortles of his entourage are subdued and the bully’s face turns a hew of green. There, standing next to Ralph and holding his hand is the biggest, strongest, most fearsome Sumo Wrestler you can possibly imagine.
This ad beautifully presents the kind of salvation we often long for. We want a Sumo God to come to the scene and display power over all our adversaries. We want God to defeat all the bullies of the world and keep us safe. But it’s pretty darn clear from the Gospel of Luke that God has a different plan of salvation. Luke, more than any other Gospel-writer, takes great pains to tell us at length that the salvation of the world began with a crying, helpless baby. It’s his Gospel that we read most often at Christmas, because he’s the one who wants to talk about the manger and the shepherds and the crying, helpless baby. What kind of salvation is a crying, helpless baby? It is nothing less than a whole new world, a world entirely different from the one we live in.
In that world, Ralph’s salvation would come before he grasped the hand of an almighty Sumo wrestler. It would come moments after he received the bully’s note. It would come when he realized that he could ignore that note, that he didn’t have to show up and do battle, that peer esteem based on such showdowns is worthless. Ralph would know, because he heard it from Luke, that the power sustaining all life, the power that is greater than a trillion Sumo wrestlers, loved him enough to enter our human condition. Ralph would know that with that love around him, the esteem of peers is no more than a grain of sand. And Ralph wouldn’t be the only one saved from such a choice. The bully would have a kind of salvation too, though he might not know it right away. He’d be saved from being an oppressor, at least on that afternoon. And Ralph’s choice might catch on. Other kids might notice that you don’t have to show up when you get a note from the class bully. If everyone caught on, we would have a saved class and maybe then a saved school and …
Most of us aren’t kids anymore, so we aren’t literally faced with Ralph’s quandary. But we have a lot in common with him. Ralph was doing what his kid culture told him he had to do. We chase after what our culture tells us life should be and end up feeling very sad and oppressed when it isn’t like that. We let our happiness be driven by whether our body, our job, our income, our spouse, our kids, our health and any number of other things measure up to some image of the good life. There are many misconceptions in those images, like the misconception that by acquiring much more than we need, we can somehow acquire happiness. Just possibly, that misconception is the root cause of much oppression in the world, as groups compete for resources.
Do you remember that power bigger than a trillion Sumo wrestlers, the one that sustains all life, the one that loves us enough to enter our world and accept all our frailties, the one we call “God?” God doesn’t care whether we measure up to any image of the good life. Heaven’s only care is whether the eternal love offered to us through Jesus is flowing in us and through us. That can happen in any body, in any job, with any income, etc., etc., etc. Flowing love …, that is our salvation. We can partake of it in anything this life brings, including the things Norman Rockwell left out of his paintings, the infirmities and dependence of old age. Have you noticed that our society teaches the dependence of an infant is a wonderful blessing while being dependent in old age is a curse? Who says so? Not God. All dependence at any age creates the opportunity for love to flow through care-giving and care-receiving.
Jesus declared the year of the Lord’s favor. That year has not ended. The love Jesus brought into this world has not left it. As our Epistle lesson declares, it is in our communion. May our fellowship this day strengthen us to make known through word and deed that God’s love abounds.