Readings: Corinthians ch.12v.12-31 and Luke ch.4.v.14-21
Mercy
The dictionary definition is:
‘Compassion or forgiveness towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.’

If you have seen the recording of Bishop RT Rev Marrian Budd Bishop of Washington preaching at the inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral which stands opposite the White House, you may notice some parallels in today’s gospel and in our collect.

Rt Revd Budde the Bishop of Washington was speaking up for the oppressed in front of some of the most powerful people on the planet and Luke shows us Jesus speaking up in a synagogue in Galilee watched closely by those who held power locally in the synagogue and those who held that more personal power of knowing you since you were a toddler (that person who says, I have changed your nappy) and he states via his choice of reading that has been sent to “set the oppressed free and bring hope to the poor.”

This week, on Tuesday, to hear Bishop Marriane speak felt momentous, someone calling out the President of the United states, someone doing the theology.

2000 years ago in the synagogue in Nazareth, the local people are witnessing a moment that would change the world as Jesus proclaims the ‘year of the Lord’s favour’.

And about two decades later Paul proposes the idea of the church founded at that moment, in that synagogue in Nazareth, as a body, and Jesus as the one anointed to show us what that body looks like.

The Corinthian church existed in a context in which the concept of an organisation as a body was something that was written about very widely in, a model which was used to re-in force hierarchy, suggesting that some people were subservient to others, that there was a social ladder and that those at the bottom should stay at the bottom and serve and be grateful for the people above them in the pecking order.

What Paul does is use the very same image to turn these classical ideas on their head!

Paul tells the Corinthians that the church isn’t an organisation, but an organism! All members of the body are closely connected, interdependent on one another. He holds on to this tension that we are all unique yes, but we are all connected. This goes against the hierarchical model – because everyone is equally important! We all need one another!

In her sermon Bishop Marrian was pointing this out – we need each other, unity is about everyone and it is hard work because that means we have to find a way forward in spite of our differences.

And yet in spite of the hard work Jesus promises, as he replaces the scroll, a universal message, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour”. A message of pure joy, proclaiming to those who know the promises of scripture (Leviticus 25) a time of rest, restoration, liberation, and redemption.

‘If only’ many would have thought then, ‘if only’… we may think now.

So who has the ‘right’ interpretation of the Jesus and Paul message ?

Is it President Trump ?

Is it Bishop Marrian Budd?

Maybe we can work this out from the aftermath of the service …

Who has responded with grace?

Who has tried to draw together and look to the marginalised – not just the marginalised that we like but the ones we don’t like as well?

In the empire that would colonise Mars and the Moon the marginalised and poor are the left behinds as the tech bros pour money into space age security for their descendants leaving migrants to face poverty and violence at the Mexican border.

The oppressed could be the LGBTQ+ community demonised by Trump and trailer park red necks demonised by those who fail to walk in their shoes and imagine their lives.

The captive is both the Jan 6th insurrectionist and the man on death row…….and all those others captive to poverty, famine, drought, war.

These are not easy thoughts to have, being one body is hard work as the Bishop’s sermon emphasised but one thing is straightforward – the ‘unity’ nand ‘the day of the lords favour’ that Isaiah and Jesus proclaim is not rooted in power and wealth, in tech billionaires and AI. It is rooted in members having the same care for one another, in honouring one another in all our diversity. This is what God’s kingdom looks like and so when news from the nations of the world gets you down, remember Jesus didn’t lift up the powerful, he lifted up the humble, the ordinary and that is you and me and he gave us the holy spirit to stregthen us.

The same spirit that gave him the courage to pick up the scroll and read,
the same spirit that gave Bishop Marriane the courage to speak truth to power,
the same spirit that helped Paul endure prison and persecution,
the same spirit that inspired Martin Luther King

The list is endless and we are in that list because we are the church in 2025 many of us baptised and confirmed into that calling, receiving that spirit of the lord’s favour, accepting our interconnectedness.

BUT Interdependency brings vulnerability and that scares people, especially people whose modus operandi is transactional, whose solution to problems is through wealth and power and fear.

In these confusing and challenging times we must dig deep and pray for the Holy Spirit to come and transform us, empower and equip us. Through the Holy Spirit, God’s living presence with and in us, we have the immense privilege of being able to share our heart with God, and to hear God share his/her heart back to us.

We can rely on the power of God in us to transform our world one tiny step at a time, one well chosen word at a time; so let us give thanks this morning for those who how us the way through their courage, who continue in spite of all signs to the contrary to declare the year of the Lord’s favour and who seek to live as one body.

Amen