I could, I know, talk about how Jesus was tempted. There was some anticipation there, though I think that the anticipation was mostly on Jesus’ part.

I want to skip that, however, and move on to the first recorded sermon. Actually, what is more significant is the reading before the sermon.

There really wasn’t a sermon. A rabbi, or teacher, would read part of the old testament (although, to be honest, that’s not what it was called, since there was no new testament yet) and then would spend some time talking about it. Jesus took the scroll and opened it to some words from Isaiah, a prophet.

THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR.

In a little while, after reading this, Jesus is going to say that this prophecy came true in him. What that means is that something about what he says is good news for poor people.

The usual questions come to mind: does he mean financial poor or poor in spirit? Is the good news that the checks are on the way or that checks won’t matter? Is the good news that God doesn’t think better of people who have money? Is the good news that the poor may be closer to understanding God than the rich? Is the good news that the messiah was pretty poor himself? And homeless? And unemployed?

The good news, at least in part, is that the poor could use some good news, and Jesus is saying that God-in-flesh is paying attention to poor people, whatever their poverty: financial, social, spiritual. Whatever the deficit, he’s willing to talk and care and love. And that is good news.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the US, food is plentiful and hunger scarce. At least that’s what many people talk about as they complain of weight gain and holiday parties. However, anyone with connections to food banks and helping agencies is aware that gas bills often eat better than their owners.

People who live at the margins know hunger.

The margins starve souls, too. One review of Jewish history describes their time in wilderness between Egypt and Israel: “They were hungry and thirsty. Their soul fainted within them.”* They weren’t just without food, they were without hope.

When Mary recited a poem she had composed,  that history came to mind, the part of it where the writer says,

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.

Mary said, “He has filled the hungry with good things.”

When we have plenty to eat, whether for body or soul, we have little need to anticipate anything. Food is expected, and we debate whether we like our choices, and we watch choices multiply: whole, 2%, skim, half and half, sugar, sweetener (pink), sweetener (yellow), sweetener (blue).

When our souls are starving, empty, craving, then we cry out for food: “More. Please, sir, can I have some more?” And if we find the Provider–like Israel, like Mary, like crowds in a meadow, like disciples around a table or on a beach, like a woman by a well craving relationship–we find that “He has filled the hungry with good things.”

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Subscribe for free by clicking here*Psalm 107

Humble.

When it describes a building or a job, it means small, menial, inferior.

When it describes a person, it means not full of yourself.

In the first case, it approaches insult. In the latter, compliment.

We don’t want to live in humble abodes or do menial work, but we would love to be known as humble. In fact, we would be quite proud to be known as humble.

Mary recites a poem she wrote which says that God noticed her humble (menial) state. She says that God knocks down the proud and raises up the humble (un-self-filled).

There are people in menial jobs who are quite proud (in the bad sense). There are people in fabulous positions who are quite humble.

And then there are Marys. People who are in humble circumstances who are quite humble, contented with how they are, fully aware and confident that God speaks to them and understands them.

After all, who is poorer than a poor, humble, homeless, fugitive, socially-reviled woman?

Her son.

The collection of books we know as the Old Testament ends with a very wistful image.

“He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers,” Malachi writes about a prophet that will come. And then when Zacharias is told what his son John will be doing, he is told that “he will turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children.”

Imagine the sense of lostness that a child abandoned by his or her father feels. Or maybe you don’t have to imagine that sense. Whether the father actually leaves the family or merely allows his attention to be consumed by activity is pretty irrelevant. The child with her nose pressed against the window or clinging to the promise to fly a kite or go for Hawaiian ice has a deep sense of longing.

And the voice right before Jesus, the voice of John, is going to be tapping fathers on their shoulders and pointing to those broken-hearted children, those children who understand what it is supposed to be like to care, and saying, “that’s where repentance starts.”

God says, “Go take care of your kids. Go raise them. Go love them. And then they will understand what a father’s love is like and maybe it will help them understand Me.”

It’s an interesting thing. For people who have found church irrelevant or unsatisfactory, the time when they are most like to reconsider is when they have children. Their attention turns to values, to trying to figure out how to raise kids that live for significance.  The prophecy has an glimmer of fulfillment.

The challenge is that their own experiences with church leave a tension; “I know it’s the thing to do, but if it’s like it was when I was young, it’s the very thing not to do.”

And so we live, noses pressed to the window, wondering. If we could find the church where Jesus would go to church, would it be any different?

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