11-30-15 - Specificity

I’m so happy to be back in the Land of Luke in our Sunday lectionary gospel readings. I appreciate Luke’s emphases on healing, justice, the work of the Holy Spirit, on Jesus’ compassion and friendships with women and people marginalized by disease, ethnicity, poverty, wealth or sin. And maybe it’s the medical training (if indeed the author of this Gospel and Acts is Luke the physician mentioned in the latter work…), but Luke is also often the most precise in his reportage, telling the story as fully and accurately as possible.

So it is that, before he tells us about John the Baptist appearing in the wilderness, he gives us the who, what, when and where:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. (This week's gospel passage is here.)

Luke gives us the lay of the land, the context – exactly when this story took place, the locations that were germane, who were the political figures, and who were the spiritual leaders. He even tells us whose son John was, and where the word of God came to him.

This is more than attention to than historical detail, I think. Luke reminds us that this great story of God’s intervention in Gods own creation wasn’t just a general tale – it was specific. It happened to real people in real places, facing real challenges and circumstances. The Good News is always infinite and universal – and as specific as a unique person born to a particular family in a particular place and community. The power of Jesus’ story is for all people in all times and places. But Jesus was rooted in a specific time and place.

So are you. So am I. The infinite and universal Love of God has also shown up in your particular person and circumstances, family, networks, preoccupations and prejudices. You first encountered the Gospel in a particular setting and person and community, just as Christ-in-you is the best way that people around you will get to know God.

Where was it that you first encountered the Living God? When? Who was in authority, and who was important in your life? What was happening in the world around you? Take some time to recall the circumstances in which the revelation of God’s love first became real to you.

That’s your story within the Great Story. We can only effectively tell the Great Story if we begin with how God showed up for us - and that story is always very specific.