Mission Statement to Connect Faith to Life
Sunday’s liturgy juxtaposes the story of Jesus reading in the synagogue at Nazareth with the story of Ezra reading the law to people upon their return to Jerusalem from exile. The Babylonian exile of the Jews was a pivotal moment in Jewish history, marking a significant turning point in their religious and cultural development. This period began in 597 BCE when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem, resulting in the first wave of deportations. A second, more devastating deportation occurred in 587 BCE, when Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple were destroyed.
During their exile in Babylon, which lasted approximately 48 to 59 years, the Jewish people faced immense pressure to assimilate into Babylonian culture. Some of them gave up their faith and embraced foreign customs and worship of idols. However, a group of devout Jews, managed to maintain their religious traditions, continuing to pray, observe dietary restrictions, and follow their law. After fifty years or so of their captivity, Cyrus the Great, king of Persia (now Iran), came into possession of Babylon and he let the captives go. About 5000, made ready to return home and most of them had never even seen Jerusalem. There were great caravans. Ezra—priest, scribe and teacher—led one of them on the four-month journey across the desert. They arrived to find Jerusalem, a ruined city with widespread moral decay. While the arduous reconstruction went on, Ezra worked long and hard to bring back the ecclesiastical and civil fiber of Jerusalem and the nation. At last, a new temple was finished in 516 BC, and the ruined city walls were rebuilt. Now Ezra stood up on a high wooden platform built for the occasion, so he could be heard and seen, and he “read plainly” from the scroll that held “the book of the law.” He started reading at daybreak and continued until midday! Not only did they have their city again, but also, they now had heard the Word of God again. And finally, there was again a temple where they could worship. Their new era had begun!
Four centuries later, we find Jesus of Nazareth making a similar return. He is going back to Galilee, the region where He grew up. He has been baptized and has spent time in the wilderness where He was tempted. His trip is now “in the power of the Spirit,” Luke says, and it takes Him to His hometown of Nazareth. The scene in Luke is stunning. A well-known member of this small village (population, archeologists estimate, around 150), a craftsman, returns with a reputation for healing and acting like an old-time prophet. He shows up at the synagogue, opens the scroll of Isaiah to the place we call chapter 61, reads the first-person statement of a prophetic figure claiming to be anointed and sent by the Lord for a work of liberation and healing, and boldly applies that passage to Himself. A far greater new era has begun, and He sets the stage for the revolutionary message He would preach. This event remains a cornerstone in understanding Jesus' self-perception and the nature of His earthly work. His mission is to rebuild their hearts, not just their city, to return them to God, who is their real home. Would they accept this startling new epoch?
Will we? Perhaps our most constant failure as Christians is our reluctance to take our own Gospels seriously and entirely. We have an uncanny ability to block out those portions of scripture that challenge our prejudices and to magnify those that confirm our own advantage and justify our lackluster adherence to the call of holiness.
A question much ignored these days is whether our faith has anything to do with justice, economics, capitalism, poverty, or other sociopolitical issues. We have pried open a seemingly closed gap between the world of faith and the world of “real” issues. As a result, we never have to worry about changing our behavior or confronting our culture. We make Christ’s words real, we make our faith real, only if we allow it entry into our real world. That is the world of life and love, of people in society, of nations, of economies. Without that entry, Jesus’ ministry is enfeebled. Our faith becomes the lazy lap dog of acculturated tastes and seats of power. Unfortunately, our children become victims in this turmoil as they become radicalized in ideologies that only focus on monetary profit as their priority. But when we Christians oppose murder on death row or in hospital delivery rooms, when we Christians propose an economy of service rather than greed, it is not just a matter of human calculation or convenience. For us, it is a matter of faith. It is a matter of whether we really believe the words we have heard and the actions we have seen in Jesus Our Lord and Master, who represents most fully to us God’s will and our mission. Jesus' reading from Isaiah, which He declared fulfilled in the presence of His people emphasized the core elements of His proclamation: bringing good news to the poor, freedom to captives, healing to the blind, liberation to the oppressed, and announcing God's grace. Could we as individuals and families make a mission statement of our own?
Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O.