Sermon for January 27th, 2013: "Fulfilling the Words"

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Luke 4:14-21

All quotations from scripture come from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, with the exception of the Psalms, which come from The Book of Common Prayer, 1979. Not all scripture passages from the lectionary may be quoted or referenced in a given Sunday's sermon. For more information on the lectionary used in The Episcopal Church, please visit http://www.lectionarypage.net/.

“Fulfilling the Words”

The Rev. Nicholas S. Szobota

January 27, 2013
Christ Church, West River, Maryland

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

The years and centuries following the age of exploration brought Christian missionaries from Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Americas. As Empires expanded, the European churches sent people to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the native populations of these other parts of the world. Of course, one can look back and realize that negativity and harm went hand in hand with imperial expansion and missionary efforts. At the same time, the missionaries’ own perspective would no doubt have been that they had a call from God to do some good for others. They endured hunger, long journeys, poverty, and separation from loved ones in order to share the news of God’s love with people who deserved to hear that message.

The impulse to share God’s message comes to Christianity from its Jewish roots. While Judaism does not actively seek conversion of outsiders, the prophets of the Hebrew Bible shared God’s message with their own people. Such an occasion occurs in today’s reading from Nehemiah. Ezra the priest, assisted by Nehemiah the governor and religious functionaries called Levites, reads the law of God to the Jewish people gathered in Jerusalem. These people had just been restored to the Promised Land by the Persians, who had conquered the Babylonians in the late 6^th century B.C. The Babylonians had sacked Judah and Jerusalem in 586 B.C., forcing most of the Jews into exile throughout the Babylonian Empire. With the restoration of the Jews to their land by the Persians, Ezra reads the law to the people as a sort of parallel to Moses and Joshua proclaiming God’s law when the Jews first entered the Promised Land after escaping Egypt and wandering in the wilderness.

The people needed to hear the law again, because they had been living in exile away from the land for which that law was meant. While various scribes and other leaders provided the exiled Jews with ways to keep the law in their exile, many of the commandments involved sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem. Without the temple and sacrifices, the Jews could not follow these laws as they had before their exile. This kind of interpretation forms the basis of the rabbinic Judaism that has marked Jewish religion from then until today. Note also that hearing the law has a communal element: Ezra and Nehemiah tell the people to provide food and drink for those who lack means, so that all the people will have some way to celebrate this renewal ceremony (Nehemiah 8:10). Upon hearing God’s law, the people act to support their neighbors in need.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus gives a similar reading of Hebrew scripture that provides people with a sense of God’s call to them and their need to respond with action. In the synagogue in Nazareth, he reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah:

            The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

This passage comes from Isaiah 61:1-3. The bulk of Isaiah comes from the 8^th century B.C., but the portion quoted here most likely represents some material added later. This text probably comes from the late 6^th century B.C., not long after the events described in today’s reading from Nehemiah (Anderson, Bernhard W. Understanding the Old Testament. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998. p. 449).  Those who heard Jesus in the synagogue would have understood that God uses this kind of language to talk about restoring God’s people to the land that God promised them. The proclamation of good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed would speak to them of possible freedom from the Roman Empire, who was dominating Israel in their time.

Jesus’ hearers may have been excited to hear him say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 14:21). Perhaps they believed that God would work through him to throw off the oppressive Roman Empire. In any event, they and we might question God about the fulfillment of the words from Isaiah. Today, two thousand years later, the world still grapples with problems of poverty, oppression, physical and spiritual blindness, and so on. How, if at all, have these scriptures been fulfilled?

I ponder how they have been fulfilled in my life. When I think about how God has touched my life, I recall the ways in which God has touched me through Christian people in the church. I’ve had the benefit of being a part of a church sense I was a toddler. The first people to teach me the stories of God’s love were my parents, who told me about Jesus and Mary and Noah even as I heard children’s stories about the three little pigs or Goldilocks and the three bears. At church, Sunday School teachers, youth leaders, and other mentors reinforced what I had started to learn at home. When I went to college, I was welcomed with open arms by the Episcopal Church located just off campus. I have found God’s promises fulfilled for me by the way God works through other people.

Each person here today might have a similar story. Who has been the fulfillment of God’s promises in your life? Once you think about that, think about how you might be that fulfillment for someone else: a neighbor or stranger in need, a member of your family, a friend. How might you proclaim God’s love for others? Often, that kind of thinking becomes just about how we might get more people into the pews. They are certainly welcome if they want to be a part of this church, but the proclamation of God’s love means more than just filling this church. The proclamation of God’s love means making a difference in people’s lives, and if people find the fulfillment of God’s promises in their lives that may very well lead them here.

Any piece of scripture, whether the laws read by Ezra or the prophecy of Isaiah read by Jesus, remains just words on a page without people to hear and respond. With no one to hear the laws of God’s love read by Ezra, the scriptures are just a text on a shelf. With no one to respond to the words of Isaiah, with no one to bring the word to fulfillment, it’s just a scroll. May God make us the fulfillment of these promises, as others have been for us. Amen.