“Jerusalem Jerusalem, that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it, how often I desired to gather your children together like a hen her brood under her wing, but you did not want it.” What a poignant moment this is for Jesus. He has just been warned by some Pharisees to flee from Herod. In response, Jesus says that he has work to do, and besides, it’s not imaginable for a prophet to die outside Jerusalem. His train of thought then travels to what Jerusalem has meant for prophets in the past and what it will inevitably mean for him.
It’s hard for us in this country to imagine what this was like for Jesus. We have no “Jerusalem.” We do not have a city that represents all of our hopes and dreams. (Mention “Washington” and people will scoff, although it has not always been that way.) Jerusalem first appears as Salem, the city of peace, home of the mysterious Melchizedek to whom Abraham gave a tenth of everything. It was the capital established by David, the idealized king. His son Solomon built the first Temple there, and from then on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion became the focal point of Jewish religious life and hope.
Yet the people of Jerusalem, like people everywhere and like us today, became too busy with their own lives to recognize how God wished them to live. They rejected the messengers God sent to them, year after year. They preferred to think that, because they were chosen by God, they could do whatever they liked and God would protect them.
Today there is a similar rejection of prophets who call us to account, who dare suggest that our way of life must change. There is little desire for civil discourse. The focus is on power, either getting it or throwing out those who are in power. Evan Bayh, the Indiana Senator who recently announced his retirement, laments the loss of collegiality that has gripped the nation, including Congress. “It’s difficult to work with members actively plotting your demise,” he wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed article.
But God is still willing to gather us like a hen gathers her brood under her wing. God is still waiting for us to turn our lives around, to serve God rather than ourselves, to live in ways that are just and sustainable. Lent gives us an opportunity to do that: to quiet down enough so that we can hear Jesus’ lament, and then reorient our lives while there is still time.
Lent 2: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35. The translation of Luke 13:34 is mine.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Stories
Every family has stories to tell. Some families have stories that only go back a generation or two; others have richly embellished stories stretching back through several generations. I work with a deacon who has lived in this area for many years. When someone’s name comes up, he can tell me who the parents and grandparents were, what they did for a living, how the family fared through the decades, and sometimes the histories of the spouses of that individual. It is truly remarkable.
“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor,” the people of Israel are supposed to recite when they reach the Promised Land. The reference is to Jacob, a nomad from many generations previous, the grandson of Abraham. What would the world be like if Christians had continued to use that early confession, reminding themselves that they, too, had an Abrahamic faith, like Jews and Muslims? Would Islam have been better known, so that it didn’t burst into consciousness only through its militant forms? All Jews were not considered terrorists when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Christians were not all equated with Scott Roeder, an anti-abortionist who killed an abortion-performing doctor in church. Why, then, are all Muslims considered potential terrorists by so many people?
“For there is no distinction between Jew or Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and generous to all who call on him,” Paul writes. I cannot say that all religions are different routes up the same mountain. It is clear that some take routes up very different mountains, with very different goals. At the same time, I cannot say that all religions except Christianity are devoid of truth. Even Paul did not say that. Yet he saw that the clearest route to God is through Jesus Christ, God’s greatest self-revelation of who God is. Paul said that to believe in Jesus Christ and confess him with the lips is to make oneself open to the saving grace that God intends for all of us.
On the first Sunday in Lent, we see just what kind of son Jesus chooses to be in the great story God has laid before him. Although the devil says, “If you are the Son of God…” the Greek could perhaps better be translated “Since you are the Son of God” – given that you’re God’s Son, just what kind of Son will you be? Will you be one that uses magic to feed yourself when you’re hungry? Will you, like Faust, believe that the devil can give you power and authority that is not his to give? Will you make God serve you instead of serving God? To all of these temptations Jesus replies by quoting the Bible, even parrying the devil’s misuse of a psalm.
What does it mean for us to be a child of God? How will we respond when temptations come upon us? How do we see ourselves in the story of our faith, in this long-lived and many-branched family we call Christianity? There is always the temptation to focus on weakness, on the inability to be all that God desires us to be. But Paul gives us this promise: “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” It is not what we do that gives life; it is what God has done for us. Through baptism, we have already been taken into the family. God already accepts us as children through the grace of Jesus Christ. We are already part of the story. What remains to be seen is what kind of children in that story we will be.
Lent 1: Deuteronomy 16:1-11; Psalm 91; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13. I also need to acknowledge the ecumenical lectionary group I attend, and John L. Esposito’s lectures on Great World Religions: Islam.
“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor,” the people of Israel are supposed to recite when they reach the Promised Land. The reference is to Jacob, a nomad from many generations previous, the grandson of Abraham. What would the world be like if Christians had continued to use that early confession, reminding themselves that they, too, had an Abrahamic faith, like Jews and Muslims? Would Islam have been better known, so that it didn’t burst into consciousness only through its militant forms? All Jews were not considered terrorists when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Christians were not all equated with Scott Roeder, an anti-abortionist who killed an abortion-performing doctor in church. Why, then, are all Muslims considered potential terrorists by so many people?
“For there is no distinction between Jew or Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and generous to all who call on him,” Paul writes. I cannot say that all religions are different routes up the same mountain. It is clear that some take routes up very different mountains, with very different goals. At the same time, I cannot say that all religions except Christianity are devoid of truth. Even Paul did not say that. Yet he saw that the clearest route to God is through Jesus Christ, God’s greatest self-revelation of who God is. Paul said that to believe in Jesus Christ and confess him with the lips is to make oneself open to the saving grace that God intends for all of us.
On the first Sunday in Lent, we see just what kind of son Jesus chooses to be in the great story God has laid before him. Although the devil says, “If you are the Son of God…” the Greek could perhaps better be translated “Since you are the Son of God” – given that you’re God’s Son, just what kind of Son will you be? Will you be one that uses magic to feed yourself when you’re hungry? Will you, like Faust, believe that the devil can give you power and authority that is not his to give? Will you make God serve you instead of serving God? To all of these temptations Jesus replies by quoting the Bible, even parrying the devil’s misuse of a psalm.
What does it mean for us to be a child of God? How will we respond when temptations come upon us? How do we see ourselves in the story of our faith, in this long-lived and many-branched family we call Christianity? There is always the temptation to focus on weakness, on the inability to be all that God desires us to be. But Paul gives us this promise: “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” It is not what we do that gives life; it is what God has done for us. Through baptism, we have already been taken into the family. God already accepts us as children through the grace of Jesus Christ. We are already part of the story. What remains to be seen is what kind of children in that story we will be.
Lent 1: Deuteronomy 16:1-11; Psalm 91; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13. I also need to acknowledge the ecumenical lectionary group I attend, and John L. Esposito’s lectures on Great World Religions: Islam.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Glory of God
Through a friend, Raisin and I were introduced to a TV series called Joan of Arcadia. It is about a high school student named Joan Girardi, who keeps running into God in the form of various people. God tells her to do things, and she does them, often after much protest. In one episode God tells her what would have happened had she not followed orders, but the rest of the time we have to figure it out ourselves. Sometimes it’s pretty obscure.
God is portrayed in various ways: a child, a trash collector, a cafeteria worker. Scripture of any sort is never mentioned (unless you count Bob Dylan’s lyrics). It’s a remarkable portrayal of an American God: friendly, pushy in a good way, not favoring any religious tradition, never an obvious authority figure. God could be anyone.
Maybe that’s why it bothers me. For Joan, God is other, to be sure, but not wholly other, not so different from the rest of us that anyone passing by would notice. That does not fit the Judaeo-Christian conception of God, whose presence makes the face of Moses shine for days, who nearly blinds Paul for life, and whose glory manifested in Jesus Christ makes dozing disciples sit bolt upright and has Peter speaking gibberish. Had that God appeared to Joan of Arcadia, she wouldn’t be rolling her eyes.
God can become too other, of course. That’s the Deist trap, the watchmaker God who wound up the universe and then sat back, never to interact with it again. At the other extreme is the too immanent God, who is part of all of us and everything that is and no greater than The Force indwelling the universe. That’s pantheism, another favorite American religion, beloved of Hollywood (as in Star Wars and Avatar). I do believe that God is within us through the Holy Spirit, but all of creation does not equal all of God. God is both indwelling and other, and to deny one or the other is to deny the biblical witness.
Joan’s story never connects with a larger story, at least not a Judaeo-Christian one. I understand why a secular TV series could not do that. Yet that is precisely what we are called to do as Christians. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul links the story of Moses to the story of Christ to his own story and that of the Corinthians. It’s what preachers and prophets are supposed to do, but every Bible-reading Christian should be doing it, too. Few of us will see the full glory of God in this life, but all of us can be transformed by God. We can be so transformed that some of God’s glory shines through us to enlighten the world. And if God does happen to show up, don't roll your eyes.
Last Epiphany: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36.
God is portrayed in various ways: a child, a trash collector, a cafeteria worker. Scripture of any sort is never mentioned (unless you count Bob Dylan’s lyrics). It’s a remarkable portrayal of an American God: friendly, pushy in a good way, not favoring any religious tradition, never an obvious authority figure. God could be anyone.
Maybe that’s why it bothers me. For Joan, God is other, to be sure, but not wholly other, not so different from the rest of us that anyone passing by would notice. That does not fit the Judaeo-Christian conception of God, whose presence makes the face of Moses shine for days, who nearly blinds Paul for life, and whose glory manifested in Jesus Christ makes dozing disciples sit bolt upright and has Peter speaking gibberish. Had that God appeared to Joan of Arcadia, she wouldn’t be rolling her eyes.
God can become too other, of course. That’s the Deist trap, the watchmaker God who wound up the universe and then sat back, never to interact with it again. At the other extreme is the too immanent God, who is part of all of us and everything that is and no greater than The Force indwelling the universe. That’s pantheism, another favorite American religion, beloved of Hollywood (as in Star Wars and Avatar). I do believe that God is within us through the Holy Spirit, but all of creation does not equal all of God. God is both indwelling and other, and to deny one or the other is to deny the biblical witness.
Joan’s story never connects with a larger story, at least not a Judaeo-Christian one. I understand why a secular TV series could not do that. Yet that is precisely what we are called to do as Christians. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul links the story of Moses to the story of Christ to his own story and that of the Corinthians. It’s what preachers and prophets are supposed to do, but every Bible-reading Christian should be doing it, too. Few of us will see the full glory of God in this life, but all of us can be transformed by God. We can be so transformed that some of God’s glory shines through us to enlighten the world. And if God does happen to show up, don't roll your eyes.
Last Epiphany: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Blistered Lips and Sinking Ships
I’ve always loved the call of Isaiah. It has so much grandeur with God seated on his throne, so much detail with the hem of God’s robe filling the temple. When the seraphim glorify God with the resounding Sanctus (“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts”), incense fills the air and everything shakes like it’s all going to come roaring down.
Isaiah is scared out of his wits, of course. He knows he’s seen too much, and can only think about how unworthy he is to be there. He remembers when the evil thoughts of his heart became words in his mouth. He’s a man of unclean lips. Rather too helpfully, one of the seraphim picks up a live coal from the altar, so red-hot he has to carry it with tongs, and touches that unclean mouth. That’ll sear away those sins! So when God issues an invitation – “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” – Isaiah can now utter the classic words of humble submission, through blistered lips: “Here am I; send me!”
The apostle Paul never got his lips burned. Yet he never quite got over the fact that he had missed the boat for so many years. All of this Jesus stuff had happened while he was in Pharisee U, and by the time he got his diploma he was ready to haul every one of those Christian misfits off to prison. God had a different idea for him, however, and it took a voice from heaven and a few days of blindness for Paul to get the point. After that there were never enough days for all of the missionary work he wanted to do, so he thought of himself as one untimely born, the last of the last to whom the risen Jesus had appeared.
Simon Peter and his buddies got burned figuratively, toiling all night and coming up with nothing. All they had in their fishing nets was muck and seaweed, and now they had to put off sleep in order to wash those nets. While they were hard at work, the wandering preacher who had healed Simon’s mother-in-law showed up again. He commandeered the boats for a better view of his congregation from out on the water. So Simon wearily obliged and took him out.
After Jesus was done preaching, he told Simon to drop the nets again. Simon protested. He was bone-weary, and didn’t want more muck on those clean nets. But then he remembered his mother-in-law, and did what he was told. This time when he pulled the nets in, there were so many fish in them that the nets began to break. Wide-eyed and fully awake now, he called James and John, his partners, to bring their boat. The fish filled both boats and then some, and they began to sink. Now Simon was scared out of his wits. He, too, knew of his sins. But instead of getting hot coals, Jesus gave him reassurance: “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” They were so impressed that when they got back to shore, they left their boats and nets and fish behind and followed Jesus.
Blistered lips, untimely births, sinking ships. Does it take something that spectacular for God to get our attention? Unfortunately, it sometimes does. God often shows up when least expected. And when God does show up in all of God’s glory, it is overwhelming. But for Isaiah, Paul, and Simon – and for us – glory is tempered with grace: grace that forgives sins, that builds faith, that gives purpose to life. And in response to that grace, our only faithful response is Isaiah’s: “Here am I; send me.”
Epiphany 5: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11.
Isaiah is scared out of his wits, of course. He knows he’s seen too much, and can only think about how unworthy he is to be there. He remembers when the evil thoughts of his heart became words in his mouth. He’s a man of unclean lips. Rather too helpfully, one of the seraphim picks up a live coal from the altar, so red-hot he has to carry it with tongs, and touches that unclean mouth. That’ll sear away those sins! So when God issues an invitation – “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” – Isaiah can now utter the classic words of humble submission, through blistered lips: “Here am I; send me!”
The apostle Paul never got his lips burned. Yet he never quite got over the fact that he had missed the boat for so many years. All of this Jesus stuff had happened while he was in Pharisee U, and by the time he got his diploma he was ready to haul every one of those Christian misfits off to prison. God had a different idea for him, however, and it took a voice from heaven and a few days of blindness for Paul to get the point. After that there were never enough days for all of the missionary work he wanted to do, so he thought of himself as one untimely born, the last of the last to whom the risen Jesus had appeared.
Simon Peter and his buddies got burned figuratively, toiling all night and coming up with nothing. All they had in their fishing nets was muck and seaweed, and now they had to put off sleep in order to wash those nets. While they were hard at work, the wandering preacher who had healed Simon’s mother-in-law showed up again. He commandeered the boats for a better view of his congregation from out on the water. So Simon wearily obliged and took him out.
After Jesus was done preaching, he told Simon to drop the nets again. Simon protested. He was bone-weary, and didn’t want more muck on those clean nets. But then he remembered his mother-in-law, and did what he was told. This time when he pulled the nets in, there were so many fish in them that the nets began to break. Wide-eyed and fully awake now, he called James and John, his partners, to bring their boat. The fish filled both boats and then some, and they began to sink. Now Simon was scared out of his wits. He, too, knew of his sins. But instead of getting hot coals, Jesus gave him reassurance: “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” They were so impressed that when they got back to shore, they left their boats and nets and fish behind and followed Jesus.
Blistered lips, untimely births, sinking ships. Does it take something that spectacular for God to get our attention? Unfortunately, it sometimes does. God often shows up when least expected. And when God does show up in all of God’s glory, it is overwhelming. But for Isaiah, Paul, and Simon – and for us – glory is tempered with grace: grace that forgives sins, that builds faith, that gives purpose to life. And in response to that grace, our only faithful response is Isaiah’s: “Here am I; send me.”
Epiphany 5: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 138; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Hearing Things
What would you do if someone came to you and said, “God spoke to me and said such-and-such”? No one has yet come to me with that statement, but I already know that I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand. I’d want to hear more. If he or she was truly hearing voices, or a Voice, it would be essential to determine whether the next step is a psychiatric evaluation or spiritual direction. Just because we live in a post-Enlightenment world doesn’t mean that God is now voiceless.
The prophet Jeremiah doesn’t come right out and say that he heard a Voice, but it’s clear that he has a conversation going with God. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” says the word of the Lord. It’s a commission to go out and be a prophet. Like Moses, Jeremiah objects; unlike Moses, he runs out of objections pretty quickly. I’m only a boy, he says. But God replies, don’t say that! I will send you, and you will speak whatever I command you. [Note to those in my parish: God makes no reference to frontal lobe development.] Action swiftly follows words, for God touches Jeremiah’s lips and puts the words in his mouth. He got off easier than Isaiah, who had a hot glowing coal put on his lips.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” God knows Jeremiah better and more thoroughly that the prophet knows himself. That’s a promise that God makes to all of us, whether we like it or not. If you can make it through the thirteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians without recalling every wedding at which you heard it read, without getting caught up in love, love, love, love, love, then you’ll hear those wonderful verses: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known.” This is the same state of being fully known that Jeremiah experienced, at the deepest and most intimate level. Most importantly, it is being accepted and loved at that level as well.
One of the works of Bernard of Clairvaux that I come back to again and again is “On Loving God” (De Diligendo Deo). In it he talks about the four degrees of love. The fourth degree, which few souls on this side of heaven attain, is loving oneself for the sake of God. It is to be totally immersed in God, to fully know as we are fully known. As Bernard says of such blessed people, “they are wholly immersed in that sea of eternal light and bright eternity.”
The danger in being so blessed – or in hearing voices – is that we can become transfixed on our vertical relationship with God. But that is not enough. We are called to love God and our neighbor. The relationship needs to be both vertical and horizontal. As Teresa of Ávila once wrote, no doubt thinking about her fractious convent, it’s a lot easier to tell if you’re growing in love of your neighbor than growing in love of God. It’s a lesson that’s hard to learn, and one that people don’t like to hear. Jeremiah was friendless because of his prophecies. Jesus was almost thrown over a cliff by the hometown crowd. Only that connection with God, that being fully known, kept them going. Sometimes it is only the promise of being full known, being fully loved, that will sustain us. “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
4 Epiphany: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30.
The prophet Jeremiah doesn’t come right out and say that he heard a Voice, but it’s clear that he has a conversation going with God. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” says the word of the Lord. It’s a commission to go out and be a prophet. Like Moses, Jeremiah objects; unlike Moses, he runs out of objections pretty quickly. I’m only a boy, he says. But God replies, don’t say that! I will send you, and you will speak whatever I command you. [Note to those in my parish: God makes no reference to frontal lobe development.] Action swiftly follows words, for God touches Jeremiah’s lips and puts the words in his mouth. He got off easier than Isaiah, who had a hot glowing coal put on his lips.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” God knows Jeremiah better and more thoroughly that the prophet knows himself. That’s a promise that God makes to all of us, whether we like it or not. If you can make it through the thirteenth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians without recalling every wedding at which you heard it read, without getting caught up in love, love, love, love, love, then you’ll hear those wonderful verses: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known.” This is the same state of being fully known that Jeremiah experienced, at the deepest and most intimate level. Most importantly, it is being accepted and loved at that level as well.
One of the works of Bernard of Clairvaux that I come back to again and again is “On Loving God” (De Diligendo Deo). In it he talks about the four degrees of love. The fourth degree, which few souls on this side of heaven attain, is loving oneself for the sake of God. It is to be totally immersed in God, to fully know as we are fully known. As Bernard says of such blessed people, “they are wholly immersed in that sea of eternal light and bright eternity.”
The danger in being so blessed – or in hearing voices – is that we can become transfixed on our vertical relationship with God. But that is not enough. We are called to love God and our neighbor. The relationship needs to be both vertical and horizontal. As Teresa of Ávila once wrote, no doubt thinking about her fractious convent, it’s a lot easier to tell if you’re growing in love of your neighbor than growing in love of God. It’s a lesson that’s hard to learn, and one that people don’t like to hear. Jeremiah was friendless because of his prophecies. Jesus was almost thrown over a cliff by the hometown crowd. Only that connection with God, that being fully known, kept them going. Sometimes it is only the promise of being full known, being fully loved, that will sustain us. “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
4 Epiphany: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Making Comments
If you want to comment on any of these blog entries, it's easy. At the bottom of the entry you'll see # comments. Click on this and a comment page shows up. Type in your comment and preview it if you like. You can sign your name or use Anonymous. Before you can post the comment, you'll have to type the wavy letters in the space provided (which proves that there's a real human being involved). That's all there is to it! You might start a conversation or discussion. And the author (me) will know that someone in cyberspace is reading. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say!
Monday, January 18, 2010
We Are All One Body
Three views of the unity of people of faith are given to us this week. In Nehemiah all those who have returned to Jerusalem from exile are standing in the rebuilt city as Ezra reads the book of the law to them. It’s a book they no longer understand, so a group of translators with unpronounceable names interpret as Ezra reads. The law they hear is one of promise but also judgment, and they weep.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul compares the church, the Body of Christ, to a human body. Just as no part of a human can go it on its own, or ignore the other parts, so the Body of Christ is made up of interdependent members. The Corinthians were a notoriously fractious group, and Paul is anxious to convince them that they really need one another. Immediately after Sunday’s passage comes the wonderful paean to love in chapter 13, which we’ll get to hear next week.
Finally, Jesus returns to his home and is invited to speak at the synagogue on the Sabbath. This won’t turn out too well, as we’ll also see next week, but for now everything is going smoothly. “Hometown Boy Makes Good,” the Nazareth Hawk Eye editor might be thinking.
Three views of people of faith, all of which interlock with one another. Unity is the common denominator in Nehemiah. All the people gathered together in the square. The ears of all the people were attentive as Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people. They all stood up, they all said “amen, amen,” they all wept. The writer is stressing the corporate character of what went on. Is this hyperbole? Perhaps – although if you’ve seen images of Middle Eastern men bowing in unison in mosques, it may not be far from the mark.
Even in unity there is diversity, however, and where people are different, some will inevitably think that they are better and more indispensable than others. That’s the battle Paul was fighting in Corinth. By using the human body as a metaphor, he created an easily understood appeal for interdependence. In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks writes about a neurological condition where parts of the body are no longer recognized as “self.” One man kept falling out of bed because he tried to throw his “alien” leg on the floor. I’m really glad that I’m not at a church that works that way!
The most wonderful verse in this week’s Gospel is, “The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on [Jesus].” That completes the view of people of Christian faith: eyes fixed on Jesus. With eyes fixed on Jesus, we truly see the Body of Christ. We see the Scripture being fulfilled in our hearing. We see how God has appointed apostles, prophets, teachers in the church, gifts of healing, forms of leadership, forms of assistance, and the like. We see each part of the church as self rather than aliens. We don’t all bow in unison – at least not Episcopalians! – yet the union and unity we share in Christ remains. In this month of parish annual meetings, that is something to celebrate.
Third Sunday after Epiphany: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul compares the church, the Body of Christ, to a human body. Just as no part of a human can go it on its own, or ignore the other parts, so the Body of Christ is made up of interdependent members. The Corinthians were a notoriously fractious group, and Paul is anxious to convince them that they really need one another. Immediately after Sunday’s passage comes the wonderful paean to love in chapter 13, which we’ll get to hear next week.
Finally, Jesus returns to his home and is invited to speak at the synagogue on the Sabbath. This won’t turn out too well, as we’ll also see next week, but for now everything is going smoothly. “Hometown Boy Makes Good,” the Nazareth Hawk Eye editor might be thinking.
Three views of people of faith, all of which interlock with one another. Unity is the common denominator in Nehemiah. All the people gathered together in the square. The ears of all the people were attentive as Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people. They all stood up, they all said “amen, amen,” they all wept. The writer is stressing the corporate character of what went on. Is this hyperbole? Perhaps – although if you’ve seen images of Middle Eastern men bowing in unison in mosques, it may not be far from the mark.
Even in unity there is diversity, however, and where people are different, some will inevitably think that they are better and more indispensable than others. That’s the battle Paul was fighting in Corinth. By using the human body as a metaphor, he created an easily understood appeal for interdependence. In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks writes about a neurological condition where parts of the body are no longer recognized as “self.” One man kept falling out of bed because he tried to throw his “alien” leg on the floor. I’m really glad that I’m not at a church that works that way!
The most wonderful verse in this week’s Gospel is, “The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on [Jesus].” That completes the view of people of Christian faith: eyes fixed on Jesus. With eyes fixed on Jesus, we truly see the Body of Christ. We see the Scripture being fulfilled in our hearing. We see how God has appointed apostles, prophets, teachers in the church, gifts of healing, forms of leadership, forms of assistance, and the like. We see each part of the church as self rather than aliens. We don’t all bow in unison – at least not Episcopalians! – yet the union and unity we share in Christ remains. In this month of parish annual meetings, that is something to celebrate.
Third Sunday after Epiphany: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21.
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