¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
¹⁹     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

                                                -Luke 4:18-19

Yesterday we looked at this as Jesus’s mission statement--his first recorded sermon.  And if we take the specifics of his mission seriously, we have a bit of a problem.

It doesn’t include most of us.

 Throughout Scripture, God is unapologetically biased towards the poor. We have some among us who would qualify as such. You bless us with your presence, the Lord looks favorably upon you.

 The rest of us don’t qualify.

 Freedom for the prisoners? Most of us don’t qualify. Sight for the blind? Again, not most of us.

 Oppressed? There are hundreds of ways that oppression has played out throughout the centuries and as a country we’re grappling with (and/or running from) the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that oppression has been a part of our past and our present.

 But the oppression that Isaiah and Jesus have in mind likely has more to do with being a conquered people under the political and military rule of a long-distance power. Again, not our situation.

 But the summary statement gathers us all together: “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 Isaiah (and Jesus) are going to start with the overlooked, the powerless, and those who don’t seem to be the recipients of God’s favor and work back towards the social, political, physical and economic “middle.”   

 The year of the Lord’s favor isn’t just for those who are powerless and overlooked, but they’re going to be named because they’re like New York, New York: if God’s favor can be worked out there, it can be worked out anywhere.

 What does it tell us about the character of the Lord that the blessings come to the people who are typically overlooked first? How might you grow in sharing in God’s character?