He sent me to preach good news to the poor
A Reflection on 1 Corinthians 12:12ff and Luke 4: 14 â 21
âGod so composed the bodyâŚthat the members may have the same care for one another.â
If you could imagine yourself as part of a body, what would you be?
An ear, listening to others? A big heart? Helping hands? Broad shoulders to carry people?
I see myself like a little red blood cell visiting different parts of the body carrying the oxygen of Christâs love. Over time the oxygen is depleted, and I have to return to the centre again to receive more of Godâs love. A depleted red blood cell returns to the heart which sends it back to the lungs to be filled up again. It is then sent back to the heart and pumped around the body again. I see the BCP liturgy as a bit like the heart and lung circuit. We say sorry to prepare ourselves to receive Holy Communion, then we ask for Godâs continued mercy before we are sent back out into the world.
In todayâs Gospel Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah.
âThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me
To proclaim good news to the poor.â
Jesus is becoming well-known and respected for his ministry around Galilee. All spoke well of himâŚuntil he pointed out that God also cares for those who are outcasts, widows and foreigners. The congregation become enraged and try to stone him.
We as baptised Christians are called to continue Jesusâ work on Earth, as the Body of Christ, in our own ways. At the very least we are called to treat others as we would like to be treated, with kindness, mercy and respect. Or, as Thomas Merton put it,
âOur job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.â
This week the Anglican Communion has hit the headlines again in the US as Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde asked President Trump to show mercy towards the least powerful in the land. She said that to work towards the Common Good we need to listen to different perspectives.
Sadly, the response she has received from the President has been one of outrage. He called her ânastyâ, âungraciousâ and âa radical Left hard lineâ.
I am struggling to understand how a humble plea to respect the innate dignity and worth of all human beings, including the most marginalised and oppressed is ânastyâ or as some have said, âwokeâ. This is not dissimilar to how Jesusâ own hometown reacted to him, with hatred.
But by linking the quote from Isaiah to foreigners and outcasts, Jesus wasnât ruling anybody out. He was ruling people in. St. Paul continued with the same theme of inclusivity in his letter to the Corinthians. He said,
âWe were all baptised in one body â Jews and Greeks, slaves and freeâ. Furthermore, the parts of the body that seem weaker or âuncleanâ do very important jobs. We need to take even greater care of these parts otherwise the whole body will suffer.
Whatever our views on Trump, LGBT+ people and immigration, we are all interconnected and live on this planet as corporeal beings. Unless we listen to one another and act humbly, justly and with compassion to all people we will destroy ourselves as a species and the rest of the world well before the natural lifespan of life upon the planet is due to end.
There is another way. Jesus came to bring Good News to everyone, especially the poor. Mahatma Gandhi said, âthe true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.â The pandemic showed how extensive that vulnerability is. If we act with justice and mercy each day of our lives, then each day we will see that âthe scriptures are being fulfilled.â










