LUKE 4:14-30
  LK 4:14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

    LK 4:16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

  LK 4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to preach good news to the poor.
  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
  to release the oppressed,

    LK 4:19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

    LK 4:20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

    LK 4:22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

    LK 4:23 Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: `Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "

    LK 4:24 "I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian."

    LK 4:28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

 After firstly, his baptism in Jordan, and secondly his bruising in the wilderness temptations, Jesus returns to his hometown.
Luke 4 recounts his first public appearance in the synagogue in Nazareth. He was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and he knew just where to turn in it (chpt 61). The Spirit had anointed Isaiah for a mission: to bring good news to the poor, to heal the blind, to free the prisoners and the oppressed.
With the words "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," Jesus concluded his reading and launched his mission. It was a shrewd and stunning announcement of his purpose. Jesus doesn’t focus on the past: he claims this prophecy points, no longer to Isaiah, but now to himself! This is what the congregation finds so infuriating.
 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…..”

It is given that we might love the world as Jesus loved:
            to reach out to the fringe dwellers,
            to affirm and build up the timid,
            to stand with the poor and oppressed,
            to care for awkward or unattractive characters,
            to be aware of and compassionate towards weak and addicted ones,
to forgive those who hurt us and so liberate them (and ourselves) from the bondage
            of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

The magnificent gift of the gracious, healing presence of the Divine Presence has been treasured by the community of the church throughout the centuries. But the nature of the ‘Favour’ as gift is a constant challenge for those who claim to be embraced by it.

• LEADERS ARE FAR MORE THAN CARETAKERS

We tend to view candidates for church leadership as caretakers. We encourage them to think small, to promise us they won’t change anything. We imply that their role is to protect some sacred flame that is already burning the way it ought to burn. Honesty, we hint, can be dangerous, vision can imperil their chance of approval, thinking outside the box is to raise suspicion.

But think about it. Why would we want a teacher who cannot imagine a child needing to grow and being capable of growing? Why would we want a minister or an elder who didn’t see us as needing care? Why would we entrust our institutions to people who cannot imagine a future that is different from what we know?
Verifying a call, it seems to me, starts in seeing what there is to see, as Jesus did, and imagining a future

 Jesus says he comes to turn everything upside down, and confuse everyone's expectations of how things are supposed to be. Those who are captive find release, even when we still seek to hold them guilty. Those who are oppressed are freed, even when it means we must give up our role too often as oppressors. Those who are poor receive God's good news, even when it means we must share from our abundance, even when we want the good news all for ourselves. Jesus challenges us to a radical ministry that defies the normal order. Can we do it? Can we have this kind of ministry, right here?

• LEADERS NEED  OTHERS TO SHAPE THEIR LIFE

Ian MacPherson: ‘I beg of you, acknowledge that I don’t have all the gifts necessary for this community, the body of Christ in this place. Help me, discuss with me, build on the strengths, the graces, the gifts that the Spirit has given you. We are in this together.”
Eugene Peterson: Re clergy - "We need help in keeping our beliefs sharp and accurate and intact. We don't trust ourselves; our emotions seduce us into infidelities. We know we are launched on a difficult and dangerous act of faith, and there are strong influences intent on diluting or destroying it. We want you to give us help.
His elders to him (US Presbyterian church)"Be our pastor, a minister of Word and sacrament in the middle of this world's life. Minister with Word and sacrament in all the different parts and stages of our lives—in our work and play, with our children and our parents, at birth and death, in our celebrations and sorrows. This isn't the only task in the life of faith, but it is your task. We will find someone else to do the other important and essential ta: sks. This is yours: Word and sacrament.
"One more thing: We are going to induct you to this ministry, and we want your vow that you will stick to it. This is not a temporary job assignment but a way of life that we need lived out in our community. We know you are launched on the same difficult belief venture in the same dangerous world as we are. We know your emotions are as fickle as ours, and your mind is as tricky as ours. That is why we are going to induct you and why we are going to exact a vow from you. We know there will be days and months, maybe even years, when we won't feel like believing anything and won't want to hear it from you. And we know there will be days and weeks and maybe even years when you won't feel like saying it. It doesn't matter. Do it. You are ordained to this ministry, vowed to it.
"There may be times when we come to you as a committee or delegation and demand that you tell us something else than what we are telling you now. Promise right now that you won't give in to what we demand of you. You are not the minister of our changing desires, or our time-conditioned understanding of our needs, or our secularized hopes for something better. With these vows of ordination, we are lashing you fast to the mast of Word and sacrament so you will be unable to respond to the siren voices.
"There are many other things to be done in this wrecked world, and we are going to be doing at least some of them, but if we don't know the foundational realities with which we are dealing—God, kingdom, gospel—we are going to end up living futile, fantasy lives. Your task is to keep telling the basic story, representing the presence of the Spirit, insisting on the priority of God, speaking the biblical words of command and promise and invitation."

I dream of such a place. We can be such a place. Christ calls, even demands of us to become such a place. What is your vision? How will you work to make it a reality? The Spirit of God is upon you, and the year of God's favour has come to us.

Amen.

Tuggeranong Uniting Church, 7 February 2010, on the occasion of setting apart the Ministry Council; and a decsion regarding new ministry leadership for the congregation