Jesus' inaugural address

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19).

These verses have held special significance for me ever since the spring of 2002, when I was a student in Dr. Wilton Bunch's Social Justice Ethics course at Beeson Divinity School. God used those words, spoken by Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth, to prepare me to become one of the "wild, praying women" who launched The Next Door, a transitional housing ministry for women coming out of incarceration. This passage is once again at the forefront of my mind in the wake of my experiences at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant regional gathering in Birmingham. 

As Emmanuel McCall prepared to read these verses from Luke's Gospel at the gathering at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Saturday, he noted that this passage has been called Jesus' inaugural address, since Jesus spoke these words as He prepared to launch His ministry in Galilee. Throughout the day, the assembled Baptists were challenged by various outstanding speakers - including Former President Jimmy Carter and Marian Wright Edelman - to consider how we can follow Christ's example and preach good news to the poor through our words and actions. So once again, I am prayerfully pondering exactly what those words mean to me. What is God calling me to do?

In a few minutes, my house is going to be filled with the high school seniors who gather here each week for a Monday Bible study. We've been focusing on a different spiritual discipline each week, and today we're going to talk about how to do in-depth Bible study. For their homework, I've decided to ask them to study Luke 4:18-19. I look forward to discovering what God teaches them about this passage, because I suspect He will teach me something in the process.