January 21, 2007 – Third Sunday after Epiphany
Nehemiah 8 and Luke 4:14-21/C
Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
I’m sure many of you have received those little refrigerator magnets in the mail that say, “Save the Date.” They are becoming more and more popular for weddings and events, but this week I got one in the mail for my 40th High School Reunion. The only strange thing is that they are asking me to save a date…in 2010! Now, I don’t know if this means they are really worried about getting the word out in time, or if they have had trouble raising a quorum in the past. So I started wondering about reunions.
I found out that there are two reasons why folks don’t attend their high school reunions: Reason #1 is that they don’t like who they are. They never turned out to be what they think everyone expected; are not as successful or well-known as they feel they should have been. The #2 reason is that folks are embarrassed about who they were in high school, and have no desire to go back in time to be embarrassed again. The one thing this seems to reveal is that sometimes our life experience teaches us that where we grew up is not our true “home” as much as the identity we have formed as we’ve matured, and the home we have made for ourselves. Even though Thomas Wolfe says, “You can’t go home again,” apparently many of us don’t want to!
Both our Old and New Testament lessons today talk about reunions, of a sort – or rather “homecomings.” I’d like to focus on the Old Testament lesson today, from the wonderful (and rarely read) book of Nehemiah. The Time: 500 years before Jesus’ birth. The Characters: first, the Children of Israel, captives of Nebuchadnezzer who had conquered the Promised Land and taken them into Exile in Babylon (which of course you know is modern-day Iraq.) Years later, Cyrus of Persia (modern-day Iran) conquers Babylon and frees the Israelites from their captivity. He and the Persian King Artaxerxes I, command them to return to their homeland and their ways, to observe the Law of Moses, and then they appoint Nehemiah the Governor to make sure this all happens. Under Nehemiah, the Temple which had been destroyed was rebuilt, and during the rebuilding, the scroll of the Law had been discovered in the ruins. Enter Ezra, the Priest
The place: Jerusalem, the capitol city of Judea (the southern kingdom,) in the square before the Water Gate. Now this is not the Watergate of our recent history, but a gate in the Temple wall, just to the east of the city (on the road to the Mt of Olives.) Because this square is outside the Temple walls, everyone can be there, even the ritually defiled, unclean could gather.
The action: Ezra unrolls the scrolls of the Law of Moses, the first 5 books of our Bible (the Pentateuch.) Then, at early morning, he begins to read to the people who hear their scriptures read aloud for the first time in almost four generations. People weep for joy at being reminded who they were, and who they had yearned to be again, who they were destined to be again: the People of the Book, the Chosen: ISRAEL. Sometimes people need to LEAVE home before they can truly appreciate what they always had - the power of God’s Word to restore - just as it always has, and always will. God’s Word that creates, defines, and gives us our true home.
Some 500 years later, a hometown boy named Jesus returns to his little village of Nazareth. He’s been preaching and teaching and in chapter 4, verses 1 and 14, we find that he is “filled with the power of the Holy Spirit,” who has led him as he wrangled with the devil in the wilderness, and now brings him on this day to worship.
As a guest, and somewhat of a celebrity, Jesus is asked to read and comment on the scripture. So he picks what might be some of his favorite verses from Isaiah chapters 61 and 58, and proclaims almost exactly what Mary sang in response to her pregnancy. But Jesus adds the proclamation of “the year of the Lord’s favor.” He is talking about JUBILEE! The celebration that happens every 50th year – when all debts are forgiven, and everyone gets a clean slate. “Rejoice! God’s reign is fulfilled,” he says, “Today! In this very room - in your hearing - you are restored!”
Problem is, none of them could admit they needed to be restored, and so they turned their anger toward Jesus and his claims. Not many of us would admit that we are in need of restoration. So do we turn our frustration and fear against God? Perhaps, or maybe we just “run away from home…”
“Faith comes from hearing,” says the Apostle Paul, and our Christian faith is passed on by ear. In fact, Luther spoke of the church as “a mouth house.” Even after all this time, we are still an “oral” society. Think about how we pass down information to our children. Imagine you have a little one in your lap and you are reading them a story. You turn a page and the child sees a picture of an animal they have never seen before. “Penguin,” you say, and point to the picture. You repeat it again on the next page until you turn the page again and the child proclaims, “Penguin!” “That’s right!” you say with a smile and a hug, and the child learns that words can create a new reality.
It’s how we teach you in worship. We speak the words of Scripture and we preach our commentary. The spoken word and the visible word of the bread and wine and water are all a part of our intention for your learning, and the word’s purpose is (as Professor Aune would say,) “to move the heart.” But sometimes, when that happens, even preachers are surprised! Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story in “The Unfettered Word” about a man in her congregation on a regular Sunday when she preached a regular sermon. After church he came through and grasped her hands, proclaiming that he had heard the voice of God during her sermon. “So tomorrow morning I plan to go in and quit my job, sell my car and completely change my life,” he said with wild excitement. To which Pastor Taylor exclaimed, “Good grief, it was only a sermon!” The power of the word can change a life, or restore a people.
But how does the Bible provide you your home? The story is told of Nazi soldiers tramping through a synagogue before destroying it. In the back study, they found a rabbi, sitting at his desk preparing his sermon for the coming Sabbath. They drag him into the synagogue, strip him naked and mock him, daring him to preach to them what he would preach to his own flock. Standing there with nothing on except the hat of a rabbi, the man told the story that defined him – whether it meant serving God’s people in this life, or being with God in eternity – he spoke God’s word: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” and the Nazis understood they had no power there, no power over God, and God’s people at home.
Now, perhaps you aren’t as good a Bible reader as you’d like to be. Perhaps you feel you’ve never been “restored” by God’s Word. But if you have ever felt your heart lifted by music in worship, or the comfort of a Psalm being read at a funeral; the quiet recognition of a familiar parable, or the answer to a fervent prayer; if your foolishness has ever been understood by a community of Christ, or if your love has ever been rekindled by a candlelit Xmas Eve; if your broken heart has been bound up, your hurts healed, your load shared, or your sins forgiven...THEN…you have been restored by God’s Word – and welcomed home – to this story that has incredible power - the story of God & you.
For YOU are People of the Book as well; and this Bible is where we all come home. Amen.
