Luke 4:14-21
“Put To Good Use”
Preached Sunday, January 23, 2022
Full confession: I am absolutely obsessed with the latest Disney musical, “Encanto.” Seriously, can’t get over it. Watched it and have been listening to the soundtrack nonstop for over a week now. Who here has seen it?
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you watch it. It’s on Disney Plus - if you don’t have Disney Plus and you have kids and grandkids - see if you can’t borrow their passwords - or, better yet, enjoy the movie together. And here is the point where, in the past, I would have shown you a clip from the movie. Now that we are livestreaming I can’t do that due to copyright laws. The Facebook and Youtube algorithms would pick up on the video and sound we’re not allowed to use and either mute or take down our video. So give me a minute to explain the plot and then, after church, go watch the movie.
The movie is about, and I’m not telling you anything that’s not in the opening musical number, the movie is about a family, the family Madrigal, who underwent great trauma when the the family’s now-Grandma was forced to flee her home with her husband, newborn triplets, and the whole town as they were facing violence. While escaping they were chased and her husband, the father of her three children died. Somehow, magically, his sacrifice to help her, his kids, and the rest of the refugees get away, creates a miracle. Mountains grow out of nothing, creating a safe haven for the whole village. And the now widowed mother and her babies are given a magical gift: a candle that never dies and gifts each child in the family with a special, magical gift once they come of age.
By the time we meet the family in the musical they have grown, as have their gifts: controlling the weather, healing through food, seeing the future, super strength, making flowers grow, super hearing, shape shifting, talking to animals…the family has it all, each one blessed by the miracle with a gift. Well, all except one family member that is, the main character Mirabel was not granted a gift - thus setting up the premise for the movie - while Mirabel and all the gifted family members, learn truly what it means to be gifted - that we are to use what we are gifted for love of neighbor, that we are more than our individual gifts - we are a whole. A family as the writers of Encanto would put. Or, as Paul would put it in the 1st Corinthians, “the body of Christ.”
And the magical Madrigal family, gifted in many ways, uses their gits for the purpose of caring for, protecting, and loving their neighbors, their whole village.
Now you might be thinking: Gifts? Didn’t Pastor Allison preach on gifts last week? And yes, I did! Both last Sunday’s and today’s New Testament lesson is from the 12th chapter of Corinthians. Our lectionary splits them up over two weeks even though it’s the same chapter and Paul is talking about the same subject.
I read one commentary that said, “Preaching on 1 Corinthians 12…again? Just say “Ditto” or preach the same sermon again and see if anyone notices. And well, I do think most of you would notice that, so new sermon, same topic. And there is no harm in spending another week on spiritual gifts. It’s an important topic of our faith and living out our lives as disciples. By addresses the topic in a slightly different way, someone may hear something that resonates with them more, may make something click, may expand upon an important topic. Plus, that assuming everyone who is hearing my sermon this week heard last week’s or vis versa.
So a quick recap: last week we talked about how each and every one of us has a spiritual gift. God gives us each gifts, lovingly and uniquely designed for who we are as individuals. We each have one as God loves each of us. One gift is not better than another - something Paul emphasized a lot in this week’s reading - and again, something the movie Encanto does a great job at portraying. And, each of us is to use our gifts to help share the love of God in this world. In last week’s reading Paul wrote, “12:7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” In Encanto, it is sung as: “We swear to always help those around us and earn the miracle that somehow found us.”
And today, by turning to the Gospel, we are going to expand upon how we are called to put our gifts to good use, to honor the God who is Love who gave us these gifts out of love.
Jesus, in returning to Galilee is teaching in the synagogues and he takes the scrolls from Isaiah and reads the following out loud:
“"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.’”
After reading he sat down and declared “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In the Gospel of Luke this is the first public statement of Jesus’s ministry. Up until now Luke has told us about Jesus’s conception, birth, infancy, a story from childhood, his baptism and temptation. But in Jesus’s own words he has not yet told us what he is about, who he is, what he is setting out to do. And this is it, the first public declaration of Jesus’s ministry.
He is saying: I have come to bring good news to the poor. To proclaim release to the captives. Recovery of sight to the blind. To let the oppressed go free. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Now, we might not be so familiar with that last bit. That’s the Jubilee commandment that every 50 years it would be a year of setting things right. It’s outlined in Leviticus 25. All debts were to be forgiven. All slaves were to be set free. All property was supposed to be given back to its rightful owners. It was a year dedicated to rest with no harvest or sowing - eating what the land provided and what was stored. It was a year of setting things right and a whole year of Sabbath.
This is the work of Jesus. Jesus himself is claiming that this is what his lift and ministry will be about. And is still about today.
As disciples of Christ we are called to carry on Jesus’s ministry, to walk in his footsteps, to take up the cross and follow him. And it is for this purpose that we are were given spiritual gifts - to continue the work of Jesus.
Paul says we are given spiritual gifts for the common good. I’ve said we are given spiritual gifts for the work of love. So what does putting those gifts given to us to good use actually look like? What does the common good and God’s love in action look like? It looks like doing the good that Jesus set out to do. It looks like doing what the God of Love did while incarnate: Proclaiming good news to the poor, release to the captives, to be a force for healing, justice, forgiveness - to be the Good News to those who so desperately need it.
And before you think: Oh, that’s not me. Or, I’m not cut out to do that. Truly, I’ll say it again, each of you is called and equipped. In one way or another, God has gifted you so that YOU, together with the Body of Christ, could continue the work of Jesus in this world. Your gift may not be as obvious as others, (like in Encanto) - or maybe you just haven’t found a way for your gift to shine yet - but your gift is there. And for many of you, already being put to good use - I see many of you doing your best every day to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
So again this week I say, if you want help discerning your spiritual gift, I am open to talk about it. Or talk with a friend who may see a gift in you. Pray about it. Discern it. For this is much work to be done in following in Jesus’s footsteps. The Good News is, we have each other, each of us a member of the body, we have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we have the God of Love on our sides.
Together, let us put out gifts to good use.
Amen.
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