The Third Sunday After the Epiphany - Year C  

January 24, 2010
The Reverend Monna Mayhall

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 / 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a / Luke 4:14-21

I don’t remember hearing about any movie producers clamoring to make movies based on the plots of our readings today. But if there have been any DVD’s made about them, I’d say that in the nearby neighborhood Blockbuster Store, they might be found somewhere between documentary and drama. 

At first glance Nehemiah’s Memoirs and Luke’s Gospel seem to start off a little on the slow side of things…maybe borderline boring. Who knows, while they were being read here, you might have been daydreaming initially, for they seem to be stories about nothing special at all. 

Let’s face it, there are plenty of interesting action-packed stories in the Bible that are just riveting…and yet neither one of these seems to be that way…at the onset. But as the readings continue, both of them give us a glimpse at more than just a story about someone reading something to some people.   

As in true Epiphany fashion – they both reveal something much deeper than what first appears. These readings are really drenched in drama, and we have the pleasure of witnessing it all as it unfolds. In both of the readings, the one from Nehemiah and the Gospel from Luke, we get a wonderful glance at how worship might have been in ancient days – they both depict liturgical settings.

Taking a closer look at Nehemiah in particular, it describes for us in detail, the celebration marking the last day of an annual Jewish observation. English translation of the celebration is “Rejoicing in the Torah.” And as the name suggests, it’s a festival all about celebrating that God has given the law to Israel. 

To understand the importance of this story being included in the book of Nehemiah, it might be helpful to know a little bit of background. Nehemiah is working for a king in another country when he receives the news that Jerusalem, his home town has been destroyed. He wants to go back to Jerusalem and help rebuild it, and the king allows Nehemiah to go. The book is Nehemiah’s own account of returning to Jerusalem and helping the Israelites, who are also returning to Jerusalem, but they are returning from being in exile.

Ezra is a scholar and a teacher in the community. Together with Nehemiah, he works to try to restore Judah as a worshipping community. They face plenty of challenges in this fragmented community, and its future is uncertain.  

They’ve been in captivity so long…they’ve forgotten the law, they’ve forgotten how to treat each other, and they’ve forgotten how to worship God together – they feel they’ve lost their identity and they struggle to gain it back. 

Nehemiah the builder, and Ezra the scribe try to help the people. But with all the different groups dividing up and breaking off, it’s difficult to have any continuity in the community… 

…As today’s reading picks up, rebuilding is taking place, and the people are beginning to settle in. All the people gather together into the square. The particular square in front of the Water Gate is a place where everyone could gather, even those considered ritually unclean. Ezra brings the book of the Law of Moses before the all people gathered…men, women, and children….ALL who could hear with understanding. 

“All the people” is used several times emphasizing the unity of God’s people, in that they all worshipped together…not as individuals. 

It’s been said that we can do lots of things on our own, but being a Christian is not one of them. It takes all of us to be the body of Christ with its many members, as Paul speaks of in his first letter to the Corinthians. “The body does not consist of one member, but of many. When one suffers – the whole body suffers. When one rejoices – the whole body rejoices.” 

Restoring community and worshipping together as God’s holy people is what Ezra is trying to help the people recall. He tells them not to be sad about what they have done or not done according to the law, but to rejoice, for the Lord is Great.

One theologian suggests that worship as Ezra encourages and that Nehemiah writes about could have resembled worship like author Annie Dillard describes. In her book Teaching a Stone to Talk, she writes: 

“Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?...It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

In essence, we should be prepared, because worshipping in a community as we do can be quite powerful.  

Dietrich Bonheoffer said that ministers should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.    

I, like I imagine many of you do, I continue to think about and pray for the people in Haiti…for relief from the unimaginable pain and suffering they are going through now, for the enormous challenges they face, and for their uncertain future and monstrous task of rebuilding.         

And in reading Nehemiah…a story about refugees and rebuilding…I can’t help but draw some analogies between Haiti and Jerusalem.  

Certainly, there are differences, but what seems similar is that they both face the struggles of coming back together as a community, reclaiming their identity, and trying to carry on, when there is a sense that there is nothing left – when things seem hopeless.

And yet all kinds of people from out of nowhere and from everywhere are stepping up and offering aid in whatever way they can. 

The community of people on the island nation looks different than it did 2 weeks ago…the community looks different than it did 1 week ago…it even looks different than yesterday – There are people moving to other places on the island and there are people evacuating the island. There are people dying, but there are people being healed. There is sadness with separation, but there is rejoicing with reunions.  

There is work…all kinds of work, continuing to be done by many, many people. They are making a difference and lives are being transformed in many ways.

The word “Liturgy” comes from the Greek word “Liturgia” which means, public work done by the people. I suggest that in Haiti, there is now and will be for a long time to come, a whole lot of liturgy going on.  

When we gather here together each week – it is liturgy…It is public work done by the people. We are God’s people…worshipping, praying, rejoicing and singing. We share a meal together, eating and drinking…and recalling why it is we even come together. 

Crash helmets, life preservers, and signal flares haven’t been used yet to my knowledge. But that’s not to say they aren’t needed, for worshipping as we do in the body of Christ can be quite powerful, and through it, we are equipped to the work we are called to do.       

You remember, I suggested that Nehemiah’s story was filled more with drama than with action…Well the rest of the story in Nehemiah that you don’t hear in the reading today, provides plenty of action. For the people, after hearing Ezra tell them to “Go on your way – eat and drink, and take food to those who don’t have any…” Well the people did take action – they went off to feast, eating and drinking and including the poor in a great celebration.

…As the Lord is our strength, may we be passionate people who embrace our call to action…in whatever way we discern, so that the work of Christ continues through us.