Lectionary Texts of the Week
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Third Sunday after the Epiphany—Epiphany, Year C
Overview
Jesus announces his ministry publicly by invoking the messianic prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58. Luke reminds frequently that same Spirit that inspired Isaiah is in Jesus (cf. Lk 4:1, 4:14), emphasizing the continuity of God’s words in the Old Testament scriptures with Jesus’ teaching ministry. This claiming of the messianic mantle was misinterpreted--both in Jesus’ day and in ours, as political liberation--as a statement of political liberation. But the jubilee promised by Jesus is not immediate liberation from temporal powers but from the power of death itself. However, the gospel does have immediate temporal consequences. “The poor” are not an abstraction here, and the preacher must not spiritualize the idea. The poor are those with unfulfilled physical needs. Jesus habitually reserves special
blessings for the poor, and it is to them that the gospel is primarily addressed. This does not restrict the good news from the comfortable and well off--since all are ultimately subject to the same corruption and death--but it does establish God’s focal point for his work on earth. If the message preached and ministry enacted by our churches is not good for the needy then it is good for nobody.
