Epiphany 3C, 23 January 2022.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10. Do not be grieved; the joy of the Lord is your strength.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
Luke 4:14-21. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

O God of Love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Before I address Luke’s signature story about the miraculous beginning of the ministry of Jesus, I want to make sure you noticed that two verses are omitted from our lectionary-appointed reading of Nehemiah this morning: verses 4 and 7. I hope you wondered what was missing when you looked at the citation. Maybe you even guessed that I would tell you? (I will!) The verses contain long lists of names. Verse 4 lists the names of the thirteen people who stood with Ezra as he read the Torah, on a wooden platform, which had been made for the purpose. He was standing with his leadership team. [1] And then in verse 7 is a list of thirteen other people, who were there to help the congregation to understand the sacred text. [2] Let’s not miss the idea that the scripture has always been challenging to understand, and that it’s best engaged in conversation, in community. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, has also left us a pep talk about what it means to be a part of a gathering – one body with many members with a variety of gifts, who have great need of one another. The passage we heard this morning tees up his treatise on love, which we will hear next Sunday.

So it’s through the lens of these two lessons, and some life lessons of my own, that I encounter our Gospel portion from Luke. I see this Gospel passage through the lens of understanding this community, gathered as Emmanuel Church (whether you’re joining us via livestream or you are physically present in this beautiful space). I see Emmanuel Church as a leadership team in the world. We all are called to help others understand the meaning of sacred texts by the way we live our lives. We all are called to suffer with one in misery and rejoice with one who is honored. We depend on one another to remember to celebrate and to share the stuff of our celebrations with those who do not have what they need. We need one another to remember that the joy of the Lord is our strength when other forms of strength fail or fade away. When I stand on this wooden platform made for this purpose, I might look like I am alone, but I am not. You all are here with me; and I believe we all are always better off when we all remember that!

The Gospel of Luke tells a miracle story about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It’s not John’s water-to-wine story, or Mark and Matthew’s call to repentance and trust. Luke’s story is about Jesus, filled with the power of the spirit, being praised by everyone because of his teaching in synagogues. I want to say something about synagogues in Jesus’ time. The word can mean assembly, congregation, and a building used for assembling. It’s much like our word church. Church can mean a building; it can mean a particular gathering of people – as in, we are a church with or without this beautiful building;  it can mean a denomination like the Episcopal Church, or even a religion — as in the Church, spanning the globe and the ages. One word means all those things. Synagogue is that kind of word.

In practical terms, in the first century before the Common Era and into Jesus’ time, some cities and towns had buildings for gatherings; and smaller villages would have just had gatherings without a particular building set aside. What was apparently distinctive and unique about synagogues – whether an assembly or a place – was that Jews would pause on the Sabbath every week and gather for singing, praying, hearing poetry and scripture, for teaching and learning in a community context. Jewish people at this time in their history were gathering regularly on the Sabbath for engagement with sacred narratives. [3] This well-developed practice became critical to surviving the crisis of the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, after Jesus’ death but before the Gospel of Luke was written.

It’s debatable whether a village like Nazareth would have been big enough or rich enough to have any community-center building (or any public architecture). Literacy there also seems highly unlikely according to anthropologists. In Jesus’ time, Nazareth was a small-time agricultural village of cave-dwellers, with no more than several hundred residents and a bad reputation. (Remember Nathaniel’s question, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”) So a synagogue in Nazareth was likely a gathering without a building, and most likely without scrolls or readers. Luke is telling a story to get at some truths about Jesus’ proclamations and the complicated relationship he had with his hometown.

The other thing to know about this story is that, although it reads as if Jesus is quoting a passage from Isaiah, what the writer of Luke has Jesus proclaiming is really a mash-up of Isaiah 61:1-2, Isaiah 58:6, with allusions to Isaiah 35:5 and 42:7, and ideas from Leviticus 25. It’s a great mash-up. The world is broken; things are not as they should be; and God’s restoration is underway. It’s happening now, Jesus is saying, citing prophetic proclamations from hundreds of years earlier. This is a miracle story. And I find it incredibly promising and comforting to hear proclamations of God’s desire for well-being among God’s people, whether the stories are from the Exodus, the Exile, or the colluding oppressions of the pandemic, racism, poverty, the effects of global warming, war, and the threats of war. I find it promising and comforting to hear proclamations of the love of God in every precarious and calamitous time.

The other day during our Tuesday-morning Bible Study, someone noticed and wondered about a comma inserted after the word “blind,” and noted that without the comma, the line makes a different kind of sense – more sense. (I do love a good challenge to punctuation!) Removing the comma means, rather than a random insertion into the Isaiah 61 verse, we have a clarifying phrase: He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to let the oppressed go free. In other words, a proclamation to clear our vision (not the vision of our physical eyes, but the vision of our hearts) to understand the need to restore people who have been injured, overburdened, and demoralized to their full humanity, to live joyfully in community. Unless everyone’s humanity is restored, we are all diminished. It’s our hearts that need healing.

The thing is, God’s restoration IS underway when (and whenever) people with food, shelter, clothing, transportation, money, compassion, enthusiasm, well-being, or freedom share with others in the community who have insufficient provisions, who are stuck or captive, who lack vision, or who cannot perceive that the goodness of God is to be extended to those who are oppressed. The biblical declaration of Jubilee means debts are cancelled; loans are forgiven; indentured servants are freed; the land can rest from incessant productivity; and property is restored to its rightful owner (Who is God). Do you know what the Jubilee does? It rebalances the economy of the community. It causes complete economic chaos, and it prevents the otherwise unchecked accumulation of wealth.[4] Isaiah and Jesus both proclaimed it. Did it ever happen? Not yet; but just because it didn’t happen, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

So let’s think about this in the context of ourselves, individually and as a community. Let’s see if we can understand this sacred text. We’ll take it in small segments and start with this gathering. (That’s what it means to practice religion; we practice in here, so we can do it out there.) In this gathering, who is poor (lacking dignified shelter or adequate food or clothing)? What might be good news to those people? If you named yourself, think of what might be good news for you in this community. Now, in your mind, name someone who is captive, perhaps incarcerated, or perhaps locked up by illness or addiction. (If you don’t know the person’s name, just visualize the person. If you’re new to Emmanuel or just visiting, use your imagination!) Again, if you named yourself, think of what might be good news for you in this community. What do you imagine might get that person or part of you to get unstuck, released, forgiven? Now, in your mind, name someone who seems unperceptive or who lacks the vision to understand that heavy burdens must be lifted in order to more fully perceive the goodness of God? If you named yourself, think of what might help you see more clearly a way forward for the part of you that is put down or put out and needs to be forgiven and set free.

What, in this gathering right now, would lift that heavy burden? Is it prayer? Is it smiling eyes or a nod or a bow? Is it singing and listening to music? Is it the sheer beauty of this place? How can we remember that we have abundant resources when we each contribute what we are able, which might just be showing up? What part of Emmanuel is capable of forgiveness? What part of us sees clearly what is good and true and holy? What part of us sets captives free?

As a congregation and as individuals, we are in need of restoration. And when we come together, we are each gifted enough to bring about restoration together. We are all made by love, for love; we are each made in the image of the Holy One. We have work to do so “that the whole world may perceive the glory of God’s marvelous works,” as our collect for today says. I want to end with my colleague Brian Baker’s blessing that came across my screen this past week:

The world now is too dangerous
and too beautiful for anything but love.
May your eyes be so blessed you see God in everyone,
your ears, so you hear the cry of the poor.
May your hands be so blessed
that everything you touch is a sacrament,
your lips, so you speak nothing but the truth with love.
May your feet be so blessed you run
to those who need you.
And may your heart[s] be so opened,
so set on fire, that your love,
your love, changes everything. [5]

[1] Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand.

[2] Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah.

[3] Lee I. Levine, “The Synagogue,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (New York: Oxford Press, 2011), pp. 519-521.

[4] Sharon Ringe, Luke (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), pp. 68-70.

[5] The Very Rev. Brian Baker wrote this for Burning Man, 2015:  https://www.deanbaker.org/burning-man.html.