Mission Statement, Prophecy Fulfilled Luke 4:14-21; January 27, 2019 By: Rev. Susan L. Genge (in partnership with God!)

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1 1 Mission Statement, Prophecy Fulfilled Luke 4:14-21; January 27, 2019 By: Rev. Susan L. Genge (in partnership with God!) Prayer: Lord, hear our prayer of openness. In seeking we are expectant. In knocking we are hopeful. In asking we are readied by your Spirit for your leading. In Jesus name. Amen. There is no other scripture passage in my NRSV study Bible which is more marked up with my pen and pencil personal notes and reflections than this one. This scripture passage excites me and energizes me. It comes at the start of Jesus public ministry. If we were to describe the beginning of Jesus ministry in contemporary terms, this is what we might say: Jesus has completed the formal part of his theology studies. He has passed all his exams and essays in theology school. He has graduated summa cum laude, the top of the class. The dove-like hands of blessing have been laid upon him at his ordination service, which happened at the Jordan River with God s voice of approval at his baptism and the Holy Spirit s anointing of him. He has been spiritually tested and has overcome the temptation to use God s power for self-aggrandizement. And now, as today s scripture begins, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, has been teaching in the synagogues all over Galilee. He s made an amazing impression on people. An excellent report has been circulating about him throughout Galilee. Everyone likes what he is saying. Everyone. You teachers among us, to how many of your students did you give an A+? The people of Galilee gave Jesus an A+++. He was astounding. People were impressed with his wisdom, truth and intellect, his knowledge and grace. They approved of him because he honoured the Sabbath, because he read, knew, understood and interpreted the Hebrew scripture so well, and because he faithfully worshiped God as they did. When Jesus arrived in their town and entered their synagogues to read the scripture and preach, people sat up straight and listened. And they went home inspired, challenged and hopeful. What did he say to them that moved them so deeply?

2 2 When Jesus came to his hometown of Nazareth there were no empty seats. It was a sell-out crowd. The synagogue was full. The women were crowded at the back trying to see over people s heads. If you didn t get there early, you were out of luck. What a warm welcome back for their hometown boy, now grown to mature manhood! The synagogue leader handed Jesus the 700-year-old Isaiah scroll, giving him the freedom to read whatever he wanted to. What passage would he select? Everybody was quiet and all eyes were focussed on him. If you were given the opportunity to read any scripture passage from the Old or New Testament, what would you choose? Here s what Jesus chose. It was all good news! He read from Isaiah 61:1-2: God s Spirit is upon me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to announce that prisoners will be released, and that the blind will have their sight restored, and that the oppressed will be set free, and that this is the time when God will save the people. End of reading. Then Jesus said, Isaiah prophesied that these things will happen someday, and by the power of God s Spirit I m the one who s going to make them happen! We ve been waiting for centuries, and the good news is that now it s coming to pass! It was his mission statement. His life s purpose was to be God s good news ambassador. And the folks in the synagogue, when they heard this, were amazed and thrilled! Over the next three years, they and all of Galilee and Judea would see how wondrously Jesus accomplished his mission statement, God s mission for him- in every person whom he affirmed, healed and raised up, in every person whom he liberated from the burden of personal or societal bondage, in every person whose vision he restored, in every person who opened their heart, mind and soul to him, and through his ministry of teaching and preaching.

3 3 At Kingsview, we ve got a mission statement too. You know part of it because it appears at the top of every Sunday order of worship. And here s our mission statement in its entirety: Our purpose is to show God s love as revealed in Jesus Christ. We will endeavour to accomplish this as we: worship, celebrate, teach and nurture within a caring family of faith; share ourselves, resources and facilities with our local community; work together with the global community for the well-being of all creation. That resonates very well with Jesus mission statement. The five elements of Jesus mission statement reflect the reality of both his world and our world. The poor are still with us, and they need to hear and receive words of hope. The captives are still with us, needing liberation. There are still people needing healing from physical, mental, emotional or spiritual blindness. There are still people living in a state of oppression. There are still people needing to hear the Good News that they are loved by God, who is saving them. And Jesus told the crowd in the synagogue in Nazareth that day, that he had come to address those needs. In the Holy Spirit s strength and grace, he will change things for the better. As people who follow the Nazorean Rabbi Jesus, his mission is ours also. So where, in our communities and world are we seeing some of this good news and liberation happening? All of us have seen homeless people living on the streets. Some of them bundle themselves up and sleep on the sidewalks. Passers-by step around them as they go to their place of business. But I know someone who has a special place in her heart for the homeless, especially during the cold of winter. She delivers homemade care packages to them every week. She goes to the stores and buys about $35 worth of supplies and a few treats, including hats, mittens and socks,

4 4 personal care items and chocolate bars, and she fills zip-lock plastic bags with these items. Then she goes to downtown Oshawa and hands out these care packages to the needy on the streets and outside the Tribute Centre. The recipients welcome and receive the gifts with open arms, expressing their gratitude to her. That s a good way of bringing God s good news to the poor. Many of us have seen hate propaganda spray-painted on the sides of buildings, or circulated by and social media. It s a reality in all parts of the world. But our country is ardently tackling the problem. In Canada an anti-hate law exists under section of Canada s Criminal Code. You may have noticed in the news on Friday that two Canadian men, a newspaper editor and publisher, have just been convicted for willfully inciting hatred against women and Jews in their newspaper. Their free newspaper was distributed to over 300,000 households in southwestern Ontario and in Toronto s east end. But not anymore. Canada Post is now forbidden to deliver it. Judge Richard Blouin, after having examined all 22 issues of these two men s newspaper, said, There is an overreaching and unrelenting depth of hate in the publication s content. You both wholly intended to promote hate. I find you both guilty. In applauding the judge s convictions of these men, another man said, This decision tells haters of all kinds that you will be accounted for, that there is justice here. Our Canadian laws against hate crimes and our justice system, are an important way of liberating the oppressed. And have you read Nadia Murad s autobiography, entitled The Last Girl? It s subtitled, My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State. Nadia is a Yazidi woman from a farming and shepherding family, who lived peacefully among her Yazidi people in north western Iraq until August, 2014, when ISIS captured their city, and conducted a calculated genocide of the Yazidi people. Most of her brothers, her mother, the other male villagers and the middle-aged

5 5 and elderly Yazidi women were shot to death. The boys were kidnapped, brainwashed and forced to become ISIS fighters. The girls and young women ended up in the human trafficking underworld. They were kidnapped, sold as sex slaves to ISIS militants, forced to convert to Islam, married off, isolated, discarded after a week s worth of abuse, then sold and abused and sold and abused again and again and again, then tortured and threatened with death if they tried to escape. Nadia Murad s book is a difficult read about what she was forced to endure as a sex slave in ISIS-occupied Mosul, Iraq in And I kept saying to myself, Keep reading her story. You owe it to her and to all the other girls and women around the world who have suffered in human trafficking and sex slavery. Keep reading, because she s alive. She s written this book. You know that she s going to be freed from her prison of abuse, terror and despair. And she was. One time a guard left a door unlocked in the house where she was imprisoned. She escaped from the house, climbed over a wall, hid until nightfall, then wandered alone in the dark in an unfamiliar city, not knowing where to go, what to do or if there was anyone she could trust. She was hungry, sick and exhausted. She decided to take a chance and knock on a neighbour s door. But something stopped her just as she was about to knock. She fled from the house and kept wandering around in the dark. Finally, in desperation, she knocked on a door. When a man opened the door, she walked straight inside and begged for help. Fortunately for her, this man and his family were anti-isis citizens. The rest of the book is Nadia s story about how this family risked their lives in smuggling her to safety and helping her reunite with her surviving siblings. When reunited, Nadia and her family lived in poverty in a refugee camp in Kurdistan, until she was accepted into Germany as a refugee. And now Nadia Murad is a human rights activist. She is a widely-soughtafter speaker, has won many awards, and is the UN s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

6 6 She is currently working to bring the Islamic State before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. She is also the founder of Nadia s Initiative, a program dedicated to helping survivors of genocide and human trafficking to heal and rebuild their communities. As I read her book I kept wondering, how did she come up with the title, The Last Girl? And I found my answer in the final sentence of her book, when she said, More than anything else, I want to be the last girl in the world with a story like mine. And Jesus said, God s Spirit is upon me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to announce that prisoners will be released, and that the blind will have their sight restored, and that the oppressed will be set free, and that this is the time when God will save the people. Friends, let us keep living out Jesus mission statement. We are Christ s hands and feet, heart, mind and voice in the world. The world desperately needs our care, our energy our persistence and our love. The teenage Jew Anne Frank, from her hiding place during World War 2 gently said, How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Writer Og Mandino said, I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth I will repeat these words each hour, each day, every day, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. I will act now for now is all I have. And author William Penn wrote, I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or abilities that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. Amen.

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