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Morning Devotion for the Season of Epiphany
February 21, 2025
Reading: Luke 4:16-21
Then Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went as usual to the synagogue. He stood up to read the scriptures and was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found that place where it is written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and sight for the blind,
To set free the oppressed, and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people.
Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. All the people in the synagogue had their eyes fixed on him, as he said to them, “This passage of scripture has come true today, as you heard it being read.
Meditation: Glenn Beamer
In 1995 I began my career teaching political science at the University of Virginia. During my first year, I found my students to be polite and earnest but reserved and reluctant to engage in the classroom. I decided that it was my responsibility to motivate classroom engagement. I began calling on specific students. When they disagreed with me, I’d ask them to say more. When they attempted to deflect me, I encouraged them to say what they thought or respond to another student’s prior contribution
Years later I asked a student what most impressed him from our class, expecting him to cite an erudite scholarly work. Instead the student said that his single memory from GFAP 344 was my weekly mantra at the end of every class, “Your contributions matter people.”
What Jesus demonstrated by example in Luke’s gospel is that the Jews’ contributions mattered in Nazareth two thousand years ago. He contributes to his community by reading from Isaiah and proclaims the prophecy fulfilled. The people in the synagogue may or may not have believed that the reading had brought liberty, sight, and good news to the poor. Doubtless though they were impressed that Jesus made this proclamation, and with it he had implicitly challenged them to make their own contributions that could move their communities toward liberty, healing, recovery, and good news.
What was true 2000 years ago, remains true today. Our contributions matter. Whether we seek justice, peace, liberty, or security, we have the opportunity to understand God’s call to us and act on it. We can’t proclaim that these worthy goals will be fulfilled by our actions, but we can be confident that they will not progress without contributions from us and our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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