Beginning...Again...in Joy

Nehemiah 8:1-12, Psalm 19, Luke 4:14-21

From the beginning, God has been the Creator, the Holy One who has taken the void, the chaos, nothingness and everything, and fashioned something new, something wonderful, something “good”.  Our creator God is still creating and recreating and remaking and refashioning life. This is the story of creation and redemption that continues to unfold even today as we read stories from long ago. We are invited into that story of renewal, of beginning again in joy.

Today’s lectionary reading invites us into Nehemiah’s story of the remaking, the rebuilding, the renewal of Jerusalem and the Temple near the end of the Babylonian Exile.  After centuries of famous and infamous kings in Israel and Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, taking all the leading citizens into captivity in Babylon which later became known as Persia.  During the next 200 years, there were groups of Jewish “captives” who returned bit by bit to rebuild the Temple and their lives. When Artaxerxes was King of Persia, Nehemiah was one of his administrative servants. Nehemiah prayed to God, and then asked King Artaxerxes for permission to return and rebuild Jerusalem’s city walls, a request that seemed likely to create a stir of concern - that a rebellious nation was rebuilding.  Artaxerxes complied with Nehemiah’s request, made him “Governor” of Judah, gave him permission to rebuild using the king’s own forest for timber and gave him papers for clearance from all opposition.  Nehemiah was aided in the restoration by Ezra, the priest and scribe, the who had returned earlier. After years of captivity, oppression, opposition, then reconstruction of their homes, city, and place worship, we come to the reading for today…

Listen for God’s word to us… (read Nehemiah 8:1-12, inserting Psalm 19:7-14 between verses 8&9 of Neh.)

Listen now to the gospel lesson from Luke 4, when similar but smaller group gathered together on a holy day, listening for the word from God.  (Read Luke 4:14-21)

From the beginning, at the dawn of Creation, in the stories of Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob, Leah and Rachel, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, the prophets, certainly in Jesus the Christ, through Paul and the early church, right up to the present moment, God has been remaking, reclaiming, redeeming, rebuilding, refashioning chaos into creation and wholeness.  This is good news of great joy.

Today is not so different from centuries ago.  People were struggling economically.  Roads and cities were falling apart. Communities were fragmented. Natural and unnatural disasters were happening.  People died.  There were wars and oppression.  People were determined to find a way.   Some gave up in despair.  Some turned to violence in their frustration.  Some put their lives on the line to offer hope.  Some, seeking God’s guidance, stepped out in trust to live into God’s beginning again.

Nehemiah and Ezra were some of those people.  Those who gathered and STOOD, listening to Ezra read God’s word ALL MORNING LONG (Neh 8:3) wept when they heard the words.  The words grabbed hold of them.  They were reminded to receive this new beginning as a holy, to rejoice, to share their goods and their joy with one another, to rest in God’s refashioning them…again.  “We have a second chance!!!  Or more correctly, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th chance.  God is a God of “Do-overs”.  God reclaims and rebuilds again!  We get to have another beginning!!!!” 

Likewise, those men and women gathered at the synagogue in Nazareth, on the Sabbath day when Jesus came home, were people who knew political, social, religious, and economic oppression.  Rome had them under their thumb.  Their own religious leaders imposed such guilt through legalistic piety there seemed to be little hope in any aspect of living well.  Feeling uncertain and beaten down, Jesus stands and reads from the prophet Isaiah, words of hope, possibility, wholeness.

Whether the hearers of these words are from Isaiah’s day, long before Nehemiah, or in Jesus’ time or today, who would not receive these as “GOOD NEWS”:  anointed to bring good new to the poor (whether poor in spirit or poor in hope or poor economically or a poverty of justice),  proclaiming release, freedom, to the captives, (whether held captive by oppression, addiction, fears, violence, systems or institutions, or one’s own self-hatred), recovery of sight to the blind (whether blinded by darkness within or around, blinded by ignorance or avoidance of truth,  enabled to see with new eyes, with God-vision), to let the oppressed go free (regardless of what enslaves one), to proclaim the Lord’s favor…And what exactly is that?! That God loves us still? with a love that will not let us go?  YES!...that no matter our head’s or heart’s or economic or social status,  we remain God’s favored ones…even like Mary…”Hail, favored one!” YES!   Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.  YEP!  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and you, through Christ, inviting us to participate in beginning again, to join the on-going story of God with us, in us, for us, so that we might seek God’s fullness.  This story of God’s creative and redemptive, beginning-again-grace is our story too.   

Can you name the broken down places or situations in your life that need renewal, rebuilding, God’s beginning again?  In the life of our communities, the church, our world, where are you longing for God’s initiative to begin again at remaking what is?  Following the words of the law of love, the words that Jesus announced in his home town, how might God be inviting you to be a restorer, sharing in God’s work, by the Spirit, through Christ?  Can you receive this with sure hope? As Good News?  With Joy?

In the words of membership for the RCA we are asked:

Do you promise to exhibit the joy of new life in Christ;
to share fully in the life of the church;
to be faithful in worship and service; and
to offer your prayers and gifts?

How are you exhibiting the joy of life in Christ?

Nehemiah and Ezra said… ‘Do not weep or mourn…go your way, eat and drink, and share what you have with those who have none…FOR THE JOY OF THE LORD IS YOUR STRENGTH.’

The psalmist reminds us that the law, the way of God’s love, rejoices the heart…its better than gold and sweeter than honey.

Jesus, using Isaiah’s words, speaks of Good news and people received his words with praise and amazement.

Do we?  Do we hear the reminders of God’s invitation to begin again as a joy-filled reality?  Or is it just the same old thing?

 

From the beginning, God has been the Creator, the Holy One who has taken the void, the chaos, nothingness and everything, and fashioned something new, something wonderful, something “good”.   This is the unfolding story of creation and redemption that continues to unfold even today. Are you ready to enter story of renewal, of beginning again, in joy?

 

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts find favor in your grace, O God.

Listening for Voices

Epiphany
Psalm 29; Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:21-22

Voices are all around, calling out.   Which ones are chosen by us to be heard?  Which voices do we listen for and listen to in some sort of obedience or consent?  Which voices have authority for our living?

Voices abound, surround, bombard within and without.  Voices call us to buy, to do, to get going, to succeed; laden us with “shoulds”, “ought tos”, guilt.  Voices insist, condemn, urge, plead, command, tempt, ridicule, suggest in both loud and in subtly suggestive ways.  We hear them in our ears from the endless sound waves and we hear them in the noisy ramblings of our thoughts, and sometimes, if we listen carefully, we can hear a voice deep within our longing hearts.

Isn’t it interesting that parents, whether human or animal, can clearly pick out the voice of their child in the midst of multiple calling children.  We distinguish voices easily that call on the phone.  We recognize singers and actors by their unique sound.  With patience and time we can identify different bird songs or calls, but it takes practice, choosing to listen and hear.  How is it that we have lost the practice of hearing and distinguishing the voice of God?

Adam and Eve could hear the sound of God walking, in the garden, at the time of the evening breeze.  (Did they hear the breeze as well?)  Noah, Sarah, and Abraham heard God’s directions and promises.  Jacob heard God’s speak in his dreams and Moses heard God in a burning bush.  Samuel heard God calling in the night.  Elijah heard the voice of God in shear silence.  Jonah ran away from God’s voice.  Many prophets repeated the word of God that came to them.  Zechariah, Mary, Simeon all heard God speak through messengers of some sort.  Clear listening seemed to be present at the baptism of Jesus in which a voice from heaven was heard by by-standers identifying Jesus as a child, a son of God, the Beloved, with whom God was well pleased.

No, we are not neurotic in hearing voices.  Neuroses comes when we consistently chose unhelpful voices, or the imaged voices, the condemning and judgmental voices, failing to listen to the deeper inner voices often drowned out by the insistent negative voices.  Can we quiet our own internal chattering mental voices enough to hear God within remind us, call to us, tell us who we are and who we are to become?

Can we trust the deeper inner voice that stirs quietly in our hearts?  Can we hear God’s unbounded voice in all of life?   Can we listen as scripture invites us to hear God speaking to us in multiple avenues, reminding us of divine presence, encouragement, and security?

Listen for the Word of God.  Listen:

The voice of the Lord is over the waters (can you hear it?)
The voice of God thunders.
It is powerful and full of majesty.
The voice of God can break huge and ancient trees
            and can make immensity skip.
God’s voice can be seen, flashing like fire,
            or like and earthquake shaking the ground.
The voice of God is like a tornado, stripping , swirling.
The voice of the Lord causes listeners to shout, “Glory”.
                        (Psalm 29)

Can you hear and see God speak in the vastness and wonder of creation?  Is it possible that God’s voice might be heard in the blustery snow storms and in gentle sunsets?  In bird song and in silent blanketed forests?  In the wonder of a snowflake and the exuberant love of a Golden Retriever?  Are we listening enough to all things living, and even what we say is inanimate, to hear God speaking?

If we must listen only to human “words”, can we listen to those?  “Thus says the Lord”, speaks the prophet and writes the scribe.  Over and over again, if we will listen, sound the words, ‘thus says the Lord God’.

“Now thus says the LORD, who created you…who formed you
Do not be afraid.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
I will be with you…
I am the LORD you God, the Holy One, your savior.
You are precious in my sigh, honored,
            And I love you…
Do not fear, for I am with you…”
                        (Isaiah 43)

Do you hear that?  Are your ears pricked to listen?  Is the ear of your heart attuned to receive this sounding of God?  Can we receive and comprehend the meaning that we are precious, loved, not alone, called by name, belong to God, and need never to be afraid?  Can we silence all the other voices to hear that Holy voice speak?  What if we began each day with listening to that voice?  What if we recognized that voice speaking the same to everyone and everything around us – How might we regard one another?  Life?  If we listened to God’s voice of love present and abounding for all?

“You are my Beloved, with you I am well pleased” are the words of God’s voice that we say were laid upon Jesus at his baptism.  Jesus heard and embraced this voice of God.  On the heels of his baptism Jesus listens to voice of Spirit, the Holy Spirit within, leading him into the wild places, the inner places.  In that wilderness Jesus heard the taunting, tempting, demanding voices within the world, voices that would lead him away from his true self and true calling.  While Jesus could hear those seductive voices as well, he did not listen, did not follow their direction.  He kept the clear voice of 'the Beloved' as guide.   

"You are my Beloved"  is true of us as well.  These are not just words from God’s voice to Jesus alone.  The prophet, prophets remind us that these words of the voice from God are also upon us, precious and loved in God.  We are beloved of God.  Can you hear that voice speak?  Henri Nouwen writes, “the true voice of love is a very soft and gentle voice speaking to me in the most hidden places of my being.  It is not a boisterous voice, forcing itself on me and demanding attention…  It is the voice that can only be heard by those who allow themselves to be touched.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son)  Nouwen says that we leave our true home in God every time we lose faith in the voice that calls us ‘Beloved’, when we chose to follow other voices calling us and telling us how and who to be.

Do you listen for voices?  Which ones are you attuned to?  Which voices do you heed?  Can you hear God speak all around you?  In everything?  In everyone?  It takes practice in listening to the sound of God.  It takes practice to filter the distracting noises, to center on the one voice.  It takes practice quieting all the other obnoxious voices that demand attention.  Just like the practice of making a violin speak clearly, so is the practice of listening for the clarity of God’s voice in and all around us.

Listen.  God’s voice abounds.  What is it saying to you, Beloved?

Your voice, O God, shouting, thundering, full of power, awesome, and sometimes unnoticed, is everywhere.  It is over the water, in the heavens, among the trees, within your creatures, in the dawn and in the sunset, in the winter bird song and the stillness of the earth laden in snow. Everywhere your voice declares, “Glory”.  You call out, “You are my Beloved. Help me to hear.  Open my ears.  Shut out the voices that detract.  Let me hear clearly your song in me.  And hearing, may I heed your voice. Amen  (see 6.7.09)

 

Grace Upon Grace

Christmas II, 

John 1:10-18; Ephesians 1:3-14 (NRSV)

What a way to go from season to season, from year to year, with these words ringing in our ears.  Listen up:

 …power to become children of God
…the Word…lived among us, full of grace and truth
…we have all received grace upon grace
…the only Son, who is close to the heart of God
            has made God known.  (Jn 1)
 
…Blessed be God
…who has blessed us…with every spiritual blessing
…chosen us…to be holy and blameless
…destined us for adoption
…the good pleasure of God’s will,
            to the praise of God’s glorious grace...
…we have redemption….forgiveness
…the riches of God’s grace…lavished on us
…made known to us the mystery of God’s will
…to gather up all things into God,
            things in heaven and things on earth
…who accomplishes all things
…so that we…might live for the praise of God’s glory
…you…were marked with the seal of the promised
            Holy Spirit…as God’s own people…to the 
    praise of God’s glory  (Eph 1)

 

Looking behind to what was, looking ahead to what will be, what better reminder is there for us than the grace, the love, of God poured out toward us and upon us.  Christ, who is close to the heart of God makes God’s grace known.  We are empowered, blessed, chosen, destined, redeemed, forgiven, lavished with riches, ALL THINGS are gathering and connected to God who accomplishes ALL THINGS, so we might live, sealed with the Spirit.  What a great hope and promise to live into.

Who knows what this new year may bring to each one.  This I know, we have received grace upon grace upon grace upon grace of God from the fullness of God.  From the FULLNESS of God, not leftovers, not partial, not withholding from some, but from God’s fullness we receive grace after grace after grace.  Can we see it?  Do we recognize this grace?  Are we looking for it?  Are we living into it with the help of the Spirit?  Can we receive God’s grace in and through all things, even when they seem contrary to God?  Is there anything apart of God?  Nope.  God gathers everything in order to be revealed to us in all things. 

God want to be near.  God keeps pursuing us in love and grace.  Maybe this year, we will see it and receive it more fully. 

“I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to is, nor anything taken from it; God has done this so that all should stand in awe before God.  That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.”  (Ecc. 3:14-15)

 

Help us, grace giving God, to receive and know and reside in your steadfast love, through Christ and the Holy Spirit.