Epiphany III                                               The Rev'd David C. Cobb Nehemiah 8:2-10,                                      January 21, 2007

Luke 4:14-21                                             Solemn Mass

 

There are two sermons in today's readings, Ezra and his colleagues take on a long task of expounding the law, and if that seems relentlessly dull, we don't understand the situation.  This is essentially the end of the beginning, a remnant has returned from exile and is beginning to reconstruct the city of Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple .  Dispersed and cut off from their land, their people and their religious heritage, the people are returning, or actually entering for the first time, these are the descendents of those who left Jerusalem .  The Law is a simple and direct word for the entire structure that organizes and gives meaning to their life as a people and their worship and responses to God. 

 

The second sermon is Jesus' address to the people in Nazareth .     I know there are more important ways in which we are to be imitators of Christ, but let me confess to a long-frustrated desire, to preach a one sentence sermon, though I suspect more than few would wish me well in that endeavor, its never quite come down to that crystallized and pin-point accurate a message.  This young man stands up and reads from the prophet-  words he'd heard and they had as well.  Words that probably rolled over their heads as they floats over ours- right, future promise of restoration .  How do you respond?  A slight hope that there is something farther out ahead that will look like the prophet's vision?  Frustration that things are so far from the Promise?  Boredom because its just more religious talk?  They probably felt pretty much the same.  The news comes through different media, but its remarkably the same across the ages.  The concerns of my heart, my children's future, my aged parent's health, the demands of work and the joys of home and friends, they are my concerns and more or less yours- and more or less the people Jesus faced across the lectern in Nazareth .  So too the larger concerns about economies and wars, rulers and religious strife, what they heard, and what we hear, and the situation in which we stand, is not that dissimilar. 

 

The difference is that when Jesus spoke, he made an audacious promise, beyond anything I'm likely to announce.  Today, these words are fulfilled in your hearing .  Today.  Really?  What blind man had been healed?  What poor woman was given funds to provide shelter and food?  The Roman solider still stood at the door keeping an eye on things.  Today? 

 

Throughout the Gospel we are being turned back from our sorrow laden past and our anxiety choked futures, from the past that haunts us and the future we dread.  Today.  With the living God standing in our midst, walking among us and touching us with a hand that feels familiar, Jesus is able to break this moment away from our past and future;  it stands forth, open and spacious enough for grace and truth, for healing and good news, for abundance and gratitude, the list could go on and would only take me farther from my desire for a one sentence sermon.  What Jesus wants them to see, wants us to see is this moment, this gathering, this bread and wine, these words.  Today. 

 

Go back to that first sermon, one less skillful, and thus like mine, longer.  It ends with a great consternation and grief.  The Law, which is God's own vision for the human community in brief, like the prophet's vision of Jubilee leaves us feeling even more distant.  The people hear what could be, what should be; and they weep.  Like we would if we thought about so much just beyond these walls, war, about which too many of us asked too few questions, the struggle to build a church that is as open and generous as it is grounded in depths of the tradition,  our own challenges, the things we do that are so hurtful, the hurts we endure, weep, indeed when we hear the Law, not the little rules, but the great vision that lies in God's hearts, we have reason to weep.  But no says Ezra, and no I will echo.  There is a time to mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and our complicity in it.  But Not Today. 

            This day is holy to the Lord your God, do not mourn or weep.  Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared.  For the joy of the Lord is your strength.  For the joy of the Lord is your strength. 

 

This brings us back to Jesus' own sermon, that if it weren't so direct  it would have the refrain: Today.  Joy opens this moment so that it can include what is to come and grasps the deep meanings in things.  Pleasure is the delight or comfort I take in the moment.  It is the excitement of happiness in hand, and it is fleeting; mind you happiness is not to be disdained, but it is fleeting.  It depends on circumstances, and so it is like anxiety and dread.  Joy, the kind that gives strength and confidence, that raises up the mourners and awakens our bored minds to promises beyond our grasp, joy takes in this moment and looks beyond.  Today, this has been fulfilled.  Still, there was a blind man sitting on the far side of the synagogue, the oppressed is set free, the Roman solider, likely a conscript himself, was still standing at the door.  Today it is fulfilled.  It's the same song that Mary sings, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts and lifted up the lowly.    It's the promise that the penitent thief hears on the cross, in the most extreme agony and shame, Today you will be with me in paradise .   Today , when Jesus speaks --is open and encompassing, gathering into this moment and this dull winter's day, the Day that God intended with the words “let there be light” and it encompasses the day when God's intentions are complete, and penitent thieves, newly lifted up lowly and even the proud with their imaginations re-formed are brought into God's kingdom.  Joy, like “today” reaches beyond itself to trust the seed for the full harvest, the first movement of God for the restoration of all things, the beginning of hope and faith and love for the full wonder of a human being resplendent in God's image.  Joy, is a beginning that while fully aware of how incomplete the moment, the promise is sure and trustworthy, the beginning is enough. 

 

In his autobiography Surprised By Joy CS Lewis describes joy as "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. . . I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world."

 

Those people who heard Ezra explain the law in careful exposition, the congregation in the synagogue that Sabbath day--- you and I.  Today, this day holds the promise.   Joy leads us to long for something that we know and remember even if it still far ahead of us.   Joy is strength, because it is hope and delight, hope does not, as the scriptures promise, disappoint.  Delight is the intention of God in calling us forth from dust.  Hope and delight, a yearning that is better than any possession we've collected.   This joy is God's strength in your life, and it is given so that you can live in the image of Nehemiah: build up the city walls and order its life in justice and righteousness.  Joy is given so you can speak and act to end oppression and open eyes and heal broken hearts.  Joy is given you, and it is nothing less than strength, because God too holds this unsatisfied desire, for the day when the Word is fulfilled in the hearing of all.  God holds this unsatisfied desire that you answer.  IF only for a few moments, stand in that joy, and relish what unfolds among us, a vision of the kingdom as if were stood at its center-God wants you there and already, more clearly than we can know, sees you there.  Today this scripture is fulfilled.  That is joy, and it is the very sound your words should echo, the path your feet should follow, the work your hands should do.  And so, on earth as in heaven, now as in that synagogue, The word is fulfilled; the joy of the Lord is your strength.