January 27, 2013
Epiphany 3
Nehemiah 8:1-10
Luke 4:14-21
(prayer)
You may have noticed that both of today’s scripture readings were about scripture reading.
Whoa! It’s like a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.
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For seventy years (that’s three and a half generations) the people of Judah had been forced to live in exile across the desert from their homeland. When the powers that be allowed for a return, only the very oldest of the Hebrew people returned to a land they had known (and then known only from when they were young children). For most of the people, Judah was a story: a memory that had been passed on from ages past.
They had heard about the time when Abraham and his family had settled in the land and how only two generations later, drought forced them to move to Egypt, where they prospered ... too much, apparently, because their descendants were eventually enslaved, until a great prophet of God, Moses, gained their freedom and led the people back to the land to which Abraham had journeyed. Along the way, they had discerned the laws of God (The Torah) that would govern them as a nation.
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They knew the story of how the people settled and controlled that land and grew from twelve nomadic great tribes into a mighty kingdom. They had heard how eventually that story saw the building of Jerusalem and a Temple of Stone where God was honoured and worshipped for centuries.
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They were in for a reality shock upon the return after exile. Jerusalem was a shadow of its former self and the once great temple stones lay in ruin and all of its riches and treasures were long gone. This was not the story they had heard.
Under the leadership of Nehemiah and Ezra (and others), the people were encouraged to reclaim important parts of their past. A new temple was being built, but as importantly, the faith and history of the people needed to be reclaimed.
So (as we read) Ezra held these daily Bible study sessions for the people. They would all give up their mornings to hear the Torah read out loud (what we call the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy): the Books of the Law were read. It must have taken weeks. Maybe months...
because it was not simply a straight reading of the texts – the priests and the scribes also offered interpretations and insights on what was being read. It was not just about hearing, but also about understanding.
And we can not ignore the significance of a fact mentioned in the book of Nehemiah: that both Men and Women took part in this study. That is remarkably inclusive, given the patriarchal nature of the culture of the day. This tells us that the desire was not simply to train scholars, but to create a people founded in their words of scripture. The women in that culture needed to know, because they would be the first ones to pass it on to the next generation. The whole of the people (of all ages and gendres and stations of life) were to be founded in their words of scripture.
As it said in the passage we heard today: the priests and scribes “gave a sense [of the readings], so that the people understood”.
The goal was consistent with what was said by the prophet Jeremiah in the months just before the exile had begun: “God says: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jer31:1). Ezra and the others wanted the words of God to become part of the people: to have it written on their hearts, so to speak.
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Fast forward to the first century of our era, when Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah in his local synagogue:
(Let’s set aside the unlikelihood that a labourer-peasant like Jesus could read or write, and just assume that (at the very least) he knew the passage well - words we label as Isaiah 61:1-2)
[sing – Strathdee]
The spirit of the lord is upon me
Because God has anointed me
To preach good news to the poor
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recover of sight to the blind
To set at liberty those who are oppress`ed
To proclaim the acceptable year of the lord.
[repeat – rap battle]
“Yo, ‘I’ make this true. To...day.”
[drop mic]
“That’s how I roll.”
What Jesus had to say sounded about as odd as a 49 year old preacher trying to rap.
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It was the role of the local rabbi (or one of the local elders) to offer the interpretation of the scriptures during the synagogue on a given Sabbath. Maybe Jesus was such an elder - As I noted two weeks ago, 30 was actually considered ‘old’.
I don’t want to walk all over next week’s service (when we will keep reading from this part of Luke), but I will say that Jesus’ interpretation seems to have caught some people by surprise: these words have been fulfilled as you hear them - what did that mean?
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It is a powerful message from our scripture-readings-about-scripture-readings that the role of ‘the faithful’ is not simply to hear the words, but also to understand their impact:
ÿ An impact in their original context (or as Dom Crossan said at the event I was at last weekend: their original matrix) - An impact in their original context; and,
ÿ An impact on our lives today.
Scripture is relevant Then and Now!
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Although, we bind the words of Scripture into books and read-only digital files, we are wise to be open to the possibility that the ‘Word of God’ is dynamic and ever evolving. This serves to remind us that God Word is relevant in our place and time as much as it was for the former exiles in Jerusalem and the people in the Nazareth synagogue.
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Maybe I could best say it this way:
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Think of Scripture as a Divine Art Form. And we have to admit that, at times, scripture is nothing short of ‘abstract art’ – a little hard to ‘get’.
One of the most wonderful things about abstract art is that it forces you to think and imagine what meaning might exist on that canvas.
All art (whether lifelike or abstract) is nothing without the interpretations of the viewer.
Consider the art of scripture: when you read or hear those ancient words of faith, how do they speak to you? Do you find yourself wondering about different interpretations over time and different interpretations between different people in this time?
Those are good things to wonder about. Scripture deserves attention.
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We are not merely ‘the keepers of the tradition’ (although that is part of who we are), we are also wonderful and wonder-filled people of God today. We believe that God did not just speak to people of ages past (only before Jesus, only through Jesus in his lifetime and again only to a few thousand people in the first decades after Jesus), but...
the Holy Mystery (we call God) is a living presence in our lives today.
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God is a living presence in our lives today!
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So, in the broadest sense of Jesus’ interpretation of Isaiah’s words: the Word of God is fulfilled in us... in our midst... all of the time! Now that’s a work of art!
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The call in Isaiah to respond to an embodiment of the Spirit, by proclaiming good news to those on the margins is not an action that is intended to end with Jesus. As Christians, we may believe that those words were fulfilled in Jesus, but that doesn’t mean they ended with Jesus - they are also living words for all of us.
We are called to feel the nudging of the Spirit to ensure that all people know the love and care of God in their lives. That no one is on the margins, because the margins are part of God’s canvas.
You have to imagine that God’s canvas is so vast that we can’t see the frame at the edge. Kind of like we might imagine that there is a leading edge to this expanding universe, but we will never be able to experience it. For all intents and purposes, we might as well call it infinite. The reach of God’s love and compassion (that we come to know in scripture) is like ‘that’ – infinite, eternal.
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Today, we proclaimed that we believe that God continues to be active in the lives of all – from the youngest... to the most mature – from smallest and innocent... to the greatest and wisest - and everyone in between. Good News! Gospel! Good News!
We made that promise to Troy and his family and... we made that promise to each other, God being our helper.
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So, when today’s ‘hearing of scripture’ and ‘my interpretations’ are ended, let us pledge that this is not the end - that ‘the evolving Word of God’ still has edges waiting to be discovered and wrestled with.
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The work of the person of faith is never ended.
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And that is a wonder and a beauty to behold.
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Let is pray...
We are thankful, Gracious God, that we are not alone in a changing world. We are accompanied by the words of ancient prophets and poets. And we are enveloped by the living Spirit of our Christ. Amen.
#343VU “I Love to Tell the Story”
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