The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, January 24th, 2010

The Rev. Dr. Katharine C. Black
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a
Luke 4: 14-21

This day is holy to the Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. AMEN.

"The Lord has anointed me."

Both Nehemiah and Luke describe a person reading in a synagogue, "reading from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation." The shape of each story is similar, but the mood is somewhat different at the end of each. They sound a little different, and neither directs us into action, so the lectionary includes part of Paul's letter to those in Corinth. I'll comment as we go.

Nehemiah was the Jerusalem governor who led the returning exiles in rebuilding the city. He and his scribe/priest Ezra realized that rebuilding was about more than the reconstruction of buildings, but also the restoration of a spiritual foundation of the city as well. Without understanding and commitment to Moses and the life he set out through the Commandments, Nehemiah was afraid that the same conditions, which led to the people's destruction, would recur. (Haven't you been reading that in editorials about the rebuilding of Haiti?) Therefore they resolved to set before the people-men and women- the revealed way of life that was God's intention for them. When Ezra began, people stood up in reverence, and said "Amen, Amen, Let it be; let it be so." Since the people had been in exile for three generations, many couldn't understand the language being read, but when they heard the words of the law, they wept. They wept at what had been lost and what found. The basics, the laws, they still knew and wept with joy at being safely under both the familiar words, and realities of their home rule of law, more than familiar, but just, right, and their own traditions. (It's the same kind of thing that however trendy and new a liturgy is for a big collection of church-goers, people like to go back to the familiar Lord's Prayer, because it's the way it was, and is outside meaning, but about being a group at home.)

Nehemiah and Ezra, though, didn't want people to be sad, or even nostalgic for what had been and what was lost, or even how sweet it was to be home. They wanted them to praise and thank God, to rejoice. They were to go home and eat and feed those who hadn't prepared food, and celebrate that their strength was the joy of the Lord. Note well, guilt, shame, self-effacement and analysis weren't part of their happiness. The law of the Lord was the source of their joy. That was their foundation and security, for which to rejoice.

Jesus goes to the synagogue in an echo of this story. He listens and comments. What he's reading is paraphrased Isaiah, and the practice was for anyone to comment along with the readings. He is beginning his public time, and Isaiah's lists of what to do shape his mission. He doesn't say what he is going to do, or which of that program he is going to take on. Instead, he observes, "This day the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." John's Gospel's understanding is that Jesus is the action of God's being God and putting God's self into thought, word, substance, to being human. Both say the word became flesh. Today Jesus announces that the prophet's words have become reality, flesh in him. He doesn't announce any action, just that he is the prophecy fulfilled- an apt Epiphany announcement.

Hear again Nehemiah. He reads and says that the reading, itself, has made the day holy to the Lord, and the joy of the Lord is the people's strength. He doesn't suggest what to do, how to fulfill what the reading says. Neither reading tells people what to do or how to live. Instead each reading says that in the reading, people are the word, the prophecy fulfilled as themselves, just as people.

For once the story is missing and the reading has no commandments or illustrative story. The word is made visible in people. God lives through word and understanding, but in specific real people. It's not much of a plan of action, and doesn't direct people's activities or their mission goals. What then?

The lectionary text setters understood that hearing these lessons wouldn't or won't guide our feet. "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it." Paul's long, slightly humorous, discourse on various parts of the body intended for specific purposes shows that each part is directed uniquely. Then he enlarges the image to show that each activity in the church is as unique. None of these three writers suggest what any of us is to do. However, all three are clear that every individual human is God's action, embodiment in the world, but a unique action. None of us, if we're created in the image of God to be an eye, can serve effectively as a foot. Notice, it's still not much guidance for what to do, but we trust that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

How then are we each, or are we all to know what it is we are to do to bring about the year of the Lord. What is each of us to do? The discernment process is pretty clear. We are to listen to the law of the Lord and follow it, but that is embodied uniquely for each of us. We listen together, in community and test out our vocations, our particular roles, hearing them in the context of our community, the Law, and our own sense of ourselves. The process of mission discernment is roughly the same individually as for communally.

Yesterday I went to a workshop on memoir-writing or creative non-fiction. It was an interesting experience. The place is called 826 and is part of a series of non-profits which help high school students and others learn to write better, so 826 has workshops and tutors anyone who wants that help. The workshop leader emphasized that writing always has to have the reader in the forefront of its thinking. He named three important qualities in such writing: sentences, tension, and honesty. These seemed to me possible guidelines for self-assessment or communal work of that kind. Working it out, the writing of any such work, needs to have good sentences. (In some ways it was the weakest of the leader's assertions, because perfect sentences might mean one thing or another given the kind of narrative.) Whatever he meant in writing terms, I think the form or the embodiment of the goals or ideas matters and needs to be congruent with its ideas. Perhaps Civil War memoirs can't be written as limericks, nor can a person's actions be limited to jumping rope for the kingdom.

The other two ingredients of writing projects were clearer. In telling a story, there has to be narrative drive and cohesion. Including an idea or sentence or doing a particular job as a person, must contribute to the thread of the story, the line and direction of the work. In writing or in choosing activities, it's necessary to keep on keeping on, trying out one avenue or another. Looking back, the doer can see or hear what interrupts the story. I might have called his word "tension" narrative drive, but in striving to be on mission, tension works as a guideline. Does the sentence or does the work or does the direction and service add to the direction intended? Does it wander?  Some wandering from the direct line adds experience, interest, and growth and makes the line of tension or the narrative fuller and more developed, while some just interrupts the mission. Evaluating the tension, working towards a clear mission goal is a constant back and forth process, eliminating diversions and digressions, but adding them to the thrust of the work when some of those become part of the story too.

Jesus knew the elements of year of the Lord. How was he to bring good news to the poor, and how are we to do that? Figuring out what good news to the poor would be is a digression, until it's clear either what my part in delivering it is or what it is that I can deliver. How do I proclaim release to the captives and recovery of the sight of the blind? How much of that is metaphorical, and how much actual? Jesus knew not to assign parts for himself or others. That's a long process of considering what our own parts are.

That's where the third element comes in: honesty. Each of us has to believe what we're saying and doing. The workshop leader made a clear distinction between us each believing what we're saying and having it be true. That's a whole other, virtually unknowable consideration, because it involves so many points of view and different approaches and time considerations. Nehemiah believed that reading the law was his task to help the people back into a right relationship with the God who'd promised to be theirs. Jesus was clear that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, but that didn't show him what to do, only that he was on his path.

In discussing the Business Plan written for how St. John's will proceed, the Bishop wanted us to be clear on our mission as well as what we are going to do. It is not clear to me. Maybe it'll be connected again with feeding, or with a long-term connection to Haiti, through the Sisters of Saint Margaret, or maybe we'll be part of the Bishop's own discernment about urban mission and ministry. It's a communal action of honing our prose, purpose, work, and identity, like shaping good sentences. We won't go right on a clear, sharply etched path, but will include digressions until they clarify our direction, or get dropped off to make that line of direction, taut and energized. We must hold ourselves to the honesty of our table fellowship. How are we being molded together to what purpose or direction? One day tells its tale to another, and one night imparts knowledge to another." It's frustrating not to know, not to be clear, but like those returning to Jerusalem, we'd gotten out of range of hearing the law of the Lord clearly. We're attentive, but it takes time and work together.

Each of us has a role, a part in this body of Christ. I don't mean everyone needs to be a chief-everyone cannot be the tongue or voice of the body, but we need us each and all. Again that doesn't specify what work each of us is to do, what voice to use: a prophetic voice, a financially realistic voice, a lyrical soprano voice, a plumber's voice, or your voice. What is clear is that we need to be listening both to our individual goals for ministry and for our shaping our part in St. John's ministry, and for the vision and mission of St. John's beyond our individual links to it. We'll leave some time at the Annual Meeting next week for thoughts, input, and directions in these three areas for St. John's: more people, more $'s, and a clear, viable sense of direction of our mission. Jesus declares that we've heard the scripture fulfilled. It accepts each of us as we are, but we need to develop and clarify who that is and how we each and together bring about the year of the Lord's favor. Jesus is with us; Jesus accepts and guides us: Good News.

© Katharine C. Black January 24. 2010