“Here’s what we’re gonna do. ....Here’s what we’re gonna do.”
Everybody is saying that to us these days. Governor Schwarznegger,
earlier in the month, had his inauguration celebration and, in his
speech, he said, “Here’s what we are gonna do.” He talked about
universal health care for the citizens and all the people of
California. And most people seem to think that’s a good idea,
although there are different ideas of the best way to go about it.
Later this week, President Bush will give his State of the Union
message. He’s going to say, “Here’s what we are gonna do.” And all
the reports say that he is going to escalate the number of troops in
Iraq. And most Americans think that’s wrong, but that’s his “Here’s
what we are gonna do.”

Today, in the Gospel, we hear Jesus give his mission statement, his
plan, his inauguration speech, his state of the union message, his
saying “Here’s what we are gonna do.” It must have been a remarkable
scene. You know, it was in a little synagogue in a little town. They
had no professionals. So they took turns letting one or the other get
up, read the scripture and then comment on it. And, what they
expected as a comment was not anything new or any sermon or homily,
but rather that they repeat what they had been taught in “catechism”
really, as children. So they are waiting and watching Jesus get up.
Will he read it right and will he remember what he was taught when he
was growing up? And the passage begins with “The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me. He has anointed me.....” .... He has anointed me. The
word “anointed” is the word “messiah.” In Greek, it’s the word
“Christos.” It means, “I am the Christ.” So he reads that prediction
of the future and he says, “I am the one. Now is the time and here’s
what we are gonna do.” People are amazed and, very shortly, they form
a lynch mob and run him out of town.

When we say the word, “Christ,” this Christ who says to us again and
again, “Here’s what we are gonna do...,” when we use the word Christ,
we really refer to three different realities. One is the young man
who got up in the synagogue that day, Jesus of Nazareth, that
historical figure, who lived about thirty years and then got himself
executed. When we say “Christ,” that’s who we are talking about. The
second reality, when we say “Christ,” we are talking about Christ in
the Eucharist. We are talking about the Risen Christ, the risen and
ascended Christ who personally comes into our lives, touches our
lives and makes such a difference when we celebrate Eucharist, when
we gather in his name, when we hear his word, when we praise God
together “in him, with him and through him,” when we come to
communion and meet the Risen Jesus in communion, and when he
challenges us to change our lives and to make a difference. That’s
the second reality when we say “Christ.” The third is the one St.
Paul talked about in that second short reading, when he says, “You
are the Body of Christ, member for member.” When we say “Christ,” we
also mean ourselves. When we say “Christ,” we mean the Body of
Christ. Sometimes it’s called “The Mystical Body of Christ.” (That
sounds a little spooky to me.) Sometimes we say “The Church.”
Sometimes we say “the People of God.” I like to say “The Jesus
Movement.” But we are Christ today, with Christ as our head. And that
Christ says today, “I’m the one. Now is the time, January 2007, and
here’s what we are gonna do.”

What’s the Christ agenda? What’s his “Here’s what we’re gonna do?”
Well, I love it because the first thing is we’re to bring glad
tidings, good news to our world. That’s great . We’re to be cheerful.
We’re to be joyful. We’re to be a people who smile, a people who
sing. You know a lot of people go to church and they are rightly
described as “God’s frozen people.” And they are not talking about
the air temperature when they say that about church-goers. We are not
to be God’s frozen people. We are to bring glad tidings whereever we
go. And we are to care about and change things, for the poor, the
captive and the oppressed and, somehow, we are to bring sight to the
blind. The poor.... plenty of poor around, unemployed, uninsured,
unorganized. At least fully a third of the people on this planet go
to bed hungry every night, and I mean really hungry. People in Haiti,
people in Africa, people in Contra Costa County and in our own
neighborhoods, the poor. And the captive and the oppressed... We can
think of a lot of people who are captive and oppressed today. I think
of the people in Iraq. Their situation holds them oppressed and
captive, and I don’t know what the solution will ever be. We’re
proposing making a democracy out of Iraq. You know something? You
can’t have a democracy without a middle class. And the middle class
is leaving. The middle class, by the millions, are becoming refugees
in other countries. People are held captive and oppressed by violence
in our own city streets, captive and oppressed in many ways. We don’t
have slavery as such today but we still have sweatshops. We still
have torture chambers, some of them designed by our own government.
We certainly have “captive and oppressed.”

And the Christ agenda also says, “Help the blind to see,” especially
if you are blind yourself. We are called to see the hurting with
compassion, to see the needy with wisdom and imagination, to see
those who are really hurting with courage and hope and, once we see,
then to do something about it. Well..... that’s a big order. Maybe
that explains why they gathered a lynch mob and tried to run Jesus
out of town. I can just hear them saying to this young man from their
town, “When you come to our synagogue, fella, just shut up and say
your prayers.” People don’t like being changed. The dark side of us
says to ourselves, “If you come to church, bow your head, shut your
eyes, and don’t change a thing. Most of all, don’t change us.” I knew
a Baptist pastor in Moraga, Fred Beech, great guy. And he had been
in several parishes, and he said to me, “You know, if you want to
start a fight in a local parish church, when you walk in, all you
have to do is move one piece of furniture. People don’t like change.
Just move one piece of furniture.” Well, what about moving and
changing not furniture, but people, and moving and changing not
furniture, but ourselves. I think Martin Luther King got it right,
and it’s really a gospel message, when he said, “Any religion that
professes to be concerned about the souls of men and not concerned
about the city government that damns the soul, the economic
conditions that corrupt the soul, the slum conditions and social
evils that criple the soul, is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in
need of new blood.

May Jesus, each and every day, continue to give us new blood, and
continue to teach us to smile, to bring glad tidings to each other
and, most of all, remind us again and again “Here’s what we are going
to do.” Amen.