Luke 4:14-21 – Grits and Grains

A reflection on Psalm 1 and Luke 6:17-26 for two small congregations in a group of parishes in vacancy.
The 3rd Sunday before Lent – Year C

In last week’s gospel (Luke 5:1-11) crowds surrounded Jesus so much that to find space for himself Jesus needed to get into a boat on the lake as crowds gathered around Him to hear His teachings.

We have another crowd in today’s gospel (Luke 6:17-26). There’s a large crowd of his disciples (including the twelve he called “apostles”), and “a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon” who had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases.

In the context of safeguarding we need to note that Luke has underlined where Jesus was in relation to the crowd. He is not “high up”, over others.

In the boat on the lake he would have been lower than his hearers.

And in today’s gospel Luke paints a different picture to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Luke has them all on a level place – Jesus on the level with all the people.

In this, and so many other ways, Luke is wanting to show how Jesus stands in relation to others – never overbearing, never patronising, always side by side – as typified by walking incognito with disciples to Emmaus.

There is no distance between Jesus and the people. He was there with them, eye to eye, shoulder to shoulder, side by side, valuing relationship over hierarchy.

That’s the position you’re hoping to fill, isn’t it? You’re hoping for a priest who will ask your permission to come alongside, as your helper. It’s probably also the position we long to be ourselves, alongside others with others alongside us.

None of us are ever safe when people look down on us, and nobody is safe from us as long we look down on them. Jesus’ physical positioning in relation to others guarantees safety. He is the good shepherd.

That’s how Jesus positioned himself, alongside us, always on the side of those he blesses. What is our position? Where do we stand?

The psalmist points to those who take a very different position. They “walk in the counsel of the wicked”, “linger in the way of sinners” and join “the assembly of the scornful”. They’re condemned. They won’t stand the judgement of the law of the Lord or stand in the “congregation of the righteous”.

There is another way. That is the way of Jesus and all those who delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on his law day and night. They’re the ones blessed and the psalmist sees them like trees “planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season”.

There is a clear choice: the way of the wicked, or the way of the Lord. It’s either blessings or curse.

I had to go to a two column format to get our two readings on one sheet of paper. But in so doing I have shown the pairings:

Blessed are all you who are poor, but woe to you who are rich
Blessed are you who hunger now, but woe to you who are well fed now
Blessed are you who weep now, but woe to you who laugh now
Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you and insult you, and woe to you when everyone speaks well of you

This is the law of the Lord. This is Jesus’ teaching. This is the law of the Lord according to Luke who has already given us Mary’s song celebrating the ways of God in scattering the proud, toppling rulers from their thrones, raising the humble and humiliated, filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich empty away. This is the law of the Lord. (Luke 1:46-53).

This is the law of the Lord brought to us by Luke who has already told us how Jesus preached in the synagogue about the law of the Lord being good news for the poor: freedom for prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind and liberation for the oppressed. (Luke 4:18-19).

This is the law of the Lord our scriptures describe as blessed. This is the law that delights the blessed but which the wicked, the sinners and the scornful scorn. This is the law that those who are blessed think on day and night, according to Psalm 1.

They are like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither.

When I read that verse this week my mind went to a sculpture called The River of Life which runs down the main shopping street in Warrington. The sculpture was built by Warrington Council after two bombs were detonated by the IRA, killing 3 year old Johnathan Ball and 12 year old Tim Parry and injuring 56 others. It was the day before Mothering Sunday, March 20th, 1993.

The city council turned to a sculptor to discuss a memorial. Stephen Broadbent was the sculptor. He saw that the street was not just physically broken, but spiritually broken as well. He wanted to design something that would be “a symbol of renewal and faith in the power of the human spirit to triumph over adversity and to invest the future with hope.”

His inspiration was the image of the river of life in Revelation 22.
The angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are here for the healing of the nations.

And so it is. Now, flowing down that street is the River of Life he made and on either side of the streaming water are trees, one for each month, each bearing fruits of the Spirit for the healing of the nations, for all times and seasons.

And so it is in Psalm 1 where the blessed are like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season. I wonder that Stephen Broadbent himself is one of those trees, planted by the stream of tragedy and violence, leaving blessings of hope and healing through the season of trauma and grief.

I’ve seen photocards with these verses from Psalm 1. In them the stream is picturesque with sunlight reflecting from its gentle flow. The psalm doesn’t say the water is safe.

The stream may be dangerous, fast flowing floodwater, a tidal wave, or deep or toxic.

Or with a stretch of the imagination, the waters could be the waters that have to break for us to be born or baptised.

Or the stream and the metaphor may be a metaphor for life.

Does the law of the Lord raise up people who delight in the law that there should be people by all the rough waters of life, that there should be lifesavers of healing, hope and blessing bearing fruit for all seasons of difficulty and danger?

It’s worth visiting that sculpture in Warrington. It’s on Bridge Street. It was always Bridge Street. The street hasn’t been renamed because of the sculpture and its intention to bridge the awful violence that tore people’s lives apart.

And here we are. The Bridges Group of Parishes – so called because of the bridges of the villages that make up the group of parishes. And the bridges are there to bridge the waterways that cut through the landscape.

We’ve reflected on Jesus’ position in relation to the crowds that streamed to him. We’ve reflected on the Psalmist’s position on those who delight in the law of the Lord.
We’ve reflected on the sculptor’s position in relation to the trauma of a community.
What about our own position?

Are we bridge builders and lifesavers? Do we delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on his law day and night? Are we blessed as agents of blessing, healing and hope? Or are we a curse on the poor, the stranger, the refugee, and all those vulnerable to losing their life at sea because we take our cues from the scornful, lingering in the way of sinners, taking the counsel of sinners?

Where are we as the river of life flows through our lives? Are we bridgebuilders offering healing where there has been division, hope where there has been despair? Are we like trees that bear the fruits of God’s Spirit, the fruits of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (against which no other law can stand) (Galatians 5:22f)?

What is our position in relation to those Jesus blesses? Are we on their side, or are we on the side condemned by Jesus, with those who’ve grown rich at the expense of the poor, those who have stuffed themselves while so many go hungry, those who can afford to laugh while the rest of the world is in bits, those who walk the corridors of powers and still exclude, insult and reject others?

For as long as we delight in the law of the Lord, for as long as we seek to understand it, we will be on the side of those in the roughest of waters.

Reflecting on Paul’s call to order and Jesus’ manifesto in the readings for the day, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a and Luke 4:14-21 for the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany (C) for two small congregations in a lively/lovely group of parishes in rural Warwickshire. This post includes a video of Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde discussing her sermon that made headlines following President Trump’s inauguration service.

January 26th 2025

First of all, a note. I normally get round the problem of God’s pronoun by using the name of God instead of a pronoun. But, here, I am going to need a pronoun. There are many objections to using “he/him” because the name God is then linked with power, privilege and patriarchy – and the language we use about God needs to set God free from such associations, particularly in these days of right wing nationalism popularised by men such as Trump, Putin, Musk and Netanyahu. So, for this sermon, when I need to resort to God’s pronouns it will be she/her. I hope you will understand why.

In a world where God’s name is often associated with power, control, and patriarchy, using ‘she/her’ reminds us that God transcends these human limitations and works to free us from systems that seek to dehumanize and divide. It is not an attempt to redefine God’s essence but to challenge our projections of power. Forever God gathers the lost, gives strength to those who are weak, and honour to those who have been shamed and ashamed.

In the midst of controversy Paul has this to say to the troubled, disjointed community of Corinth. “We were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free”. Here was a community facing all sorts of problems with all sorts of differences. Paul reminds them what God does in the middle of such a community. She brings us together to form one body from the splinters and divisions. She gathers us from far and wide and makes of us one body whatever the differences between us.

Paul stands in the middle of the conflict and witnesses to what God does. He reminds the community of the abundance of God’s gifts and the value and diversity of each and every one of them for the purpose of community building and reconciliation, reminding the body around him that every member needs every other body to fully function.

Perhaps Paul remembered the prophecy in the valley of dry bones – a valley of untold war crimes from which the bones of those killed were left out in the scorching sun for the wild animals to pick the meat from. The sound from this valley overshadowed in death was the noise of a disjointed people overwhelmed by tragedy. “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost” is what they said. (Ezekiel 37:11). Those bones speak of a people abandoned, dehumanised and rendered invisible. In that valley Ezekiel was made to tell the truth about what God does, how she undoes the shame by breathing life into the very bones of a community destroyed, dismembered and left to rot.

This is what God does. Even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God brings us together. From the four corners of the world, Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, God brings us together in love in spite of differences between us. The Spirit that breathes life into the valley of dry bones is the same Spirit Paul saw at work amongst the Corinthians and is the same Spirit that unites us as the body of Christ, knitting us together from the corners of the world, and overcoming shame, division, and death itself.

You see, God remembers us. She remembers bodies that are broken, whether that be in the valley of dry bones, or the valley overshadowed by death, or communities torn asunder.

Remembering for God isn’t simply a case of casting her mind back, as we would usually remember. God’s remember is always a re-creation, a bringing back together of what’s become disjointed and scattered, and making whole what has become broken. God’s remembering is a literal re-membering of the body, the remaking of community through the gifts of her Spirit.

This is, if you like, another creation story – the coming together of a people through the creativity of God’s Spirit. The Spirit remembers us as one body – connecting toe bone to foot bone to ankle bone to leg bone to knee bone to thigh bone.

So Paul reminds the broken body around him that God has remembered them. God has remembered their broken body. “God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them” – just as she wanted them to be.

He goes on: “God has put the body together so that there should be no division in the body.” This is what God does and this is why God does it. God knits us together in love to be a strong body, a resilient body, a withstanding body, a body that can stand, even in the valley overshadowed by death.

This is what God does. She puts the body together.

And this is what she does as a rule. She gives “greater honour to the parts that lacked it”. The rule of God is always to put the last and the least first. Here we see that rule being followed again with greater honour given to the parts that lacked it so that those parts which seemed weaker become indispensable and those parts thought less honourable are treated with special honour. This is how God remembers her people. This is what God builds a body for.

This is not just a spiritual gathering; this is a body meant for action. To be bound together by the Spirit is to be called into the work of justice, to bring good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoners, sight to the blind and liberation to the oppressed. This is the body God is building: a body that stands in stark contrast to the systems of division, hatred and shame that continue to pull our bodies apart.

We are the body God is building – here today listening to the body God prepared for us, listening to Jesus as he finds the body’s purpose revealed through the prophet Isiaiah to read to his fellow villagers in their synagogue in Nazareth.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Mariann Budde is a member of the body of Christ, gifted to be Bishop of Washington, president within a community God has brought together. It was her responsibility to preach at the prayer service in her cathedral. She preached the only way she could appealing to President Trump for mercy for those afraid because of the policies of the incoming president – those who are gay, lesbian or trans, and immigrants being targeted for deportation. Trump should not have been surprised by her appeal. She was only embodying the very work of the body of Christ. In a time when power is often wielded by shame and divide, the body of Christ cries out on behalf of the oppressed, the disempowered and broken. This is the DNA of the body of Christ. This is all God brings us together for. This is what we are gifted for. We can do no other.

Closing prayer

God of unity, you breathe life into us and call us to be one body in Christ. We thank you for the gifts you’ve placed within each of us, and we ask that you strengthen us as a community, that we may bear witness to your love. We pray for healing where there is division, for hope where there is despair, and for courage to stand with the broken and the oppressed. May your Spirit unite us in justice, peace, and compassion. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Tag: Luke 4:14-21

The blessing of being alongsides

God’s work in broken community