Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21, Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

As far as inaugural speeches go, how I wish (wish ko lang, sana all) that every leader would take after Jesus and begin their term of service by making their own the mission of our Lord, the program of action he sets about to do in our world today.

His words are not even new. He quotes from Isaiah, the prophet of God to a people in exile. There is no self-referential mention of greatness, about Israel being great again, no self-ward references to prosperity or power or dominion. There are no almighty threats of revenge and striking fear in the hearts of enemies.

Instead, there are only these words to confirm what we have always known: that if the Lord were to be found in our world today, he would be present in those who would “bring glad tidings to the poor”. He would be awake to anyone proclaiming “liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind”. He would be with those suffering to “let the oppressed go free”. This is the mission of anyone anointed by the Spirit as Jesus was, as we all are who have been baptized Christian.

In our first reading today, when the priest Ezra reads from the book of the Law, he reads to a people returning from Babylonian captivity to a Jerusalem in ruins. As he reads, the people are in tears. They are weeping for all they had suffered and lost. The tears are of those who had been living in exile and are now coming home. 

Ezra hushes down their weeping and tells them to “go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared… for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!” In other words, Jerusalem their home may be in ruins, they may have lost everything, but they are to rejoice nonetheless because they never really lost their faith in God, and the Lord surely never forgot or lost sight of them.

Fast forward to our Gospel today. When Jesus unrolls the scroll to read from the prophet Isaiah, he declares that what Isaiah prophesied and promised then has now come to fulfillment in his person. It is an inaugural speech that begins well. The people marvel at his words and wonder where he comes from.

Babylon may be no more, but by making Isaiah’s words his own, Jesus brings us to realize that we are still poor, blind, and in captivity. The Jerusalem temple may have been rebuilt and is standing now in all its majesty, but true wealth, true vision, and true freedom continue to elude us. It is to our alienation from God and to our disconnection from one another that Jesus speaks. It is to all of us that he is sent.

These are powerful words to inaugurate mission. And yet, spoiler alert, this inaugural eventually takes a bad turn and ends in hostility. His words start to grate on us when he dares us to go beyond the confines of our religious worship. He unsettles us when he points us outside to open our doors to tend to the poor and hungry of the land. When he makes us realize that both captor and captive remain unfree, we are disturbed.

We want to throw him off the cliff and expel him from our lives because we find his radical gospel of God whose love is universal and inclusive too much for us. How is it that it taxes us now to seek common ground, to believe that we all belong to the Body of Christ as St Paul reminds us today? To belong to the one Body of Christ we need not nor should we be all the same, and yet we cannot help defining ourselves by what or who we exclude.

As far as inaugurations go, the way this one ends is enough to make us weep. If there will be tears, let these be for all of us who continue to be poor, blind, and mired in captivity. Let the tears rage against the hateful exclusion and intolerance which enchant so many in our world today. 

If we must weep, we will also heed Ezra’s words and not let ourselves be saddened to the point of bitterness and inaction. Our hearts may be broken, our dreams lying in ruins. But rejoicing in our Lord will always be our strength.

However far we may be from home, we will rejoice in Christ our Lord, trusting how he is never far from anyone who would “bring glad tidings to the poor, … liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind”. Jesus Christ here, now, and for always, alive and well in those who would accept his offer to surrender everything to “let the oppressed go free.”