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, 3rd, 4th, 5th 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment