The Family Business

Daily Reading: Genesis 9; Luke 4

The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” 

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Luke 4:17-21

In a sense you could say that Jesus had just graduated and was launching out in his career. He had spent somewhere around 30 years preparing for this moment. He had just come out of his final exams with the Devil questioning him on his basic theology, and here he was, diploma in hand (or heart––the filling of the Holy Spirit), vision in place, goals set. Israel had been waiting for hundreds of years for the promised Messiah and on this Sabbath they found before themselves the carpenter’s son, Jesus, declaring that he was the chosen one. He was the one to bring the Good News and to set the captives free. I think I can understand the people getting upset and thinking that Jesus had gone stark crazy mad! Isn't that our normal response to some local boy who begins to dream big? Who does he think he is? 

But Jesus wasn’t mad, Jesus wasn’t some crazy man, Jesus was God, fully incarnate God/Man. Furthermore, Jesus’ mission was not what the people thought the Messiah’s mission would be. He did not come to conquer the Roman Empire, but he came to conquer a world––starting in the hearts of each woman and man that his movement passed. His movement is still going on and His mission is still alive. The mission that started with Christ’s declaration in a synagogue on a Saturday morning is perpetuated day-after-day, week-after-week by Christ’s Church. We are now the mission, we are called to be the Good News and to see the captives released, the blind to see, and the oppressed set free. 

While in Italy recently I was amazed to find businesses which have been held within the same family not for decades but for centuries. It was amazing to enter a fabric store that is almost 300 years old and has been owned and operated but the same family for all of its existence. That is exactly what we are called to be a part of. We are family members of the greatest business the world has ever know, the Church! Our mission is not to make money but to make disciples. Am I an active part of the family business? Am I faithfully working our mission or am I playing the part of a trust fund baby––living off of the labor of my family members who have gone before me?  

Lord, help me to be a faithful contributor to the family business. Amen.