Jayne Slawson

Scripture Text: Nehemiah 8: 1-3,5-6,8-10
        Luke 4: 14-21

About 10 yrs ago, thanks to one of the Christian Development Adult Education courses, I and a number of others from this congregation got the chance to read through the "Whole" Bible together. For many of us it was for the first time. I know it was my first time. I had made a few attempts over the years but never got very far. In the end it did take 2 years! One year for the Hebrew Scriptures and one year for the Christian Scriptures.

Like many others who have opened the Bible up with that gungho intention of reading it, starting with the wonderful Genesis introduction, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." we get bogged down by the many laws, the "who begot whoms", and like Moses, who never gets to cross over to the Promised Land, we don't make it past Leviticus/ Numbers or Deuteronomy.

Yet as a determined group and with David instructing us, we got together and every two weeks we read through each book getting explainations about what we had read, what was going on at the time, and heard each others responses to what we had just read. Believe me there was alot of wailing and complaining going on, especially through those early books as we tackled the difficult periods of brutality, suffering, and the many pregiduces endured during a tumultuous time in our biblical history.

But there were also many beautiful passages, like "I have called you by your name, you are mine..." in Isaiah, or "Love is patient and kind,not jealous or boastful, love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things..." in 1^st Corinthians, and "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth..." in Revelations. What helped was being able to read the Bible as a group. Sort of like being a tourist and going on a tour of a different country, museum, or national landmark with an interpreter or guide showing you the way and telling their story.

In the reading from Nehemiah today we hear how the children of Isreal ask Ezra to read for them from the book of the law of Moses and the people were all ears and attentive to what they heard. You see the Isrealites had spent many years in bondage by the Babylonians and then by the Persians, separated from their homes in Judah and for many from hearing and practicing their faith. It had been years since they had gathered together and they were grieving the devastation of Jerusalem. When they finally get an opportunity to gather together again (men, women, children) and hear Ezra read the Torah and have the Levites interpret it for them, from early dawn until midday they are overcome with bittersweet emotions.

When was the last time you sat patiently six hours to just listen intently? As students we may sit and listen to a lecturer for one hour with out fidgeting, sit two hours through a movie, watch a sports game for three hours or maybe attend a good rock concert for fouyr hours... But six hours! The hearing of the Torah was like gold to the ears of the people. I think that the difference was that not only were they listening intently but they were listening eagerly. Hearing the readings, the people's very identity is aroused. The words touched a deep cord in the people and their desire to make that word their own was palpable.

We might reach that sense of awe when we get into a good book, or get chatting on the computer, going into deep meditation, something in which we lose all sense of time. Have you ever been to a great concert, closed your eyes and got lost in the music. Well the Isreali people must have felt like that — they had lost their way, lost hope and now they were hearing the Torah as if for the first time and it was sweeter than honey. God's Word, God's Wisdom, God's Spirit became real and was amongst them. When they came out of that euphoria they sensed their distance from God and weep.

I'm not sure that Ezra was prepared for this reaction and says to the people "it is time to stop weeping, it is time to move ahead." This is a time of new beginnings, of renewed intimacy with God, a tangible commitment to God and for growth in our relationship with God. Joy in God is the best antidote for grieving. No matter how bleak the tragic course of history, how unnerving our personal circumstances, or how pessimistic the forcast of cultural historians, with joy we can expect Gods love to blossom even in the dust and dirt of our lives.The English mystic, Juliana of Norwich, wrote "The greatest honor we can give Almighty God, is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love."

The people ask, if we are not to mourn or weep, "What should we do?" Nehemiah tells the people to celebrate for the joy of God is their strength. The demands of discipleship will soon enough sink in but for today, right now, this day... the Good News is that the word of God can be celebrated. It has come back to the people of God, with clearer meaning.

I believe that the reason we read this particular story from Nehemiah during the Epiphany season — a season of revelation: of making known of something which up till this time was hidden, unrevealed, a mystery or for the Isrealite people forgotten, was that they that day realized they were on a long road that leads to growth in the awareness and understanding that they were God's people and they were being called to continue a journey to justice, light, love and hope.

The time for weeping and mourning was over. Their joy was in knowing that in God was their strength, guidance and encouragement. They could, and would, move ahead joyfully. Nehemiah asks one more thing from the people — that they share their feast, share this good news and celebration with those who have nothing. It is not enough to hear and rejoice in God's love but we need to go outside our gathering and live the human experience of God in our world.

A story is told of an adventurer who set out from a small village on an island in the Pacific Ocean. He paddled his solitary canoe over the horizon, and was not seen again for more than twenty years. His family had given up on him, long considering him dead. Then one day he startled them all by returning. His face was lined and dark with age, and his eyes deep and penetrating. After the welcoming feast, he sat with the other villagers around the fire and recounted some of the adventures of his travels. He spoke of far lands where people lived in high towers and wore clothes which covered most of their bodies. He told of great mountain ranges and lands so big that the sea could not be seen from even their highest point. He described the way he had navigated by the stars to find his way back to the island again.

The villagers were greatly excited, and wanted to hear his stories again and again. When he grew tired of entertaining them, they insisted that he draw them a map of the lands he had visited and the way to get there. This map was mounted on a pole in the center of the village, and became the object of a great deal of veneration. The people learned the names of the various towns depicted on it, and took pride in being able to explain how to navigate to the far places. Some of the older ones began to tell the stories of certain places as if they themselves had been the ones who had seem them. But one thing the villagers never did: they never took the trip themselves. (Mike Riddell, Sacred Journey) The villagers had the word of the adventurer, they had a map, they rehearsed the route, they invisioned having been there but they postponed going. Essentially they postponed living, they postponed the path leading to growth in the awareness and understanding we are called to journey to justice, light and love. They wept in the past and missed the opportunities and challenges of today.

In 1776, a then 33 year old Thomas Jefferson wrote these words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness... " (words from the Declaration of Independence.) In 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a then 34 year old Martin Luther King, Jr spoke: "When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children....black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants....will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last: God Almighty, we are free at last."......(from A Testiment of Hope.)

And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; he entered the synagogue, and stood and read from Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

All three are expressions of dreams for humanity by young men, in their physical and spiritual prime. Powerful visions of the kind of world that God intends and is about. Visions that make us hold our breath and instill hope. Visions that say this is possible right now, today, encouraging us to invest in the moment. God's voice is no less clear today than it was to Abraham or the people in Nehemiah's day.

If ever we wondered what Gods and Jesus' dream for humanity was we need only to read those words Jesus read from Isaiah and put them into practice today. As much as Jesus treasured the past, honored the teachings that had been passed down by his Jewish roots through many generations, had his soul fed from the sacred scrolls of Scripture, and cherished his Biblical heritage... what Jesus did that day in the synagogue was look into the present and future. What the prophets had hoped for... Jesus believed was available today. Jesus's proclamation was certainly not what the crowd expected in Nazareth that Sabbath morning. Jesus proclaims that the words of the prohet Isaiah are not about some distant future. The jubilee year, the good news for the poor, the release of captives, the recovered vision, liberation of the oppressed, these are proclaimed now, this day. The opportunity was now. The challenge of Jesus was and is for today. Now is the hour of grace. Now is the moment of opportunity. Now we chose between darkness and light. Jesus came to proclaim that he was the beginning of a new order; he was announcing to his own neighbours that the Jubilee Year of God had arrived in that very spot and on that very day, today fulfilled in their hearing.

The texts today were about calling and task. Today is our opportunity to look at how we treat one another... our attitudes, relationships, deeds. Caring for people today is Jesus' thing and it certainly is God's thing. Worship by itself as the prophets have stated many times is not enough, there needs to be a response to worship and God, which is lived out in our every day lives and we need to celebrate that good news.And how do we ultimately know that we are living the mission of Jesus?...the answer is simple... when the poor cross the street to tell us their good news. What gladdens God's heart comes in our working and living together in healthier ways today. May we with God move on together. That is the kindom of God and the journey Jesus asks us to travel with him. May we invest in this moment and in one another.

For this day is holy to our God. Amen