Year C

Luke 4:14-21

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Joy of the Lord Is Our Strength

The famed political speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream,” speaks to the texts today by implying that the Kingdom of God is at hand and that this has implications for getting rid of distinctions in society. Just as the dream King had that black and white, rich and poor belong together in America, Nehemiah, Paul and Jesus today refer to end time themes in reaching out to the poor and oppressed. New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann wrote that when you have an end-time, Kingdom of God point of view, your life becomes centered on God’s ways. Lives, based on the Word of God, the example being Jesus, are lives that cannot help but be changed and this difference in us, leads us to make a difference in God’s world.

Nehemiah, governor of Judah, one of the many Jews carried away into Babylonian exile, while working as a cupbearer for King Artaxerxes, receives news that the city Jerusalem is in ruins. He is overcome by such a strong sense of shame at the plight of his people that he cannot forget it. He is ashamed partly because he knows that his people, including himself, have sinned against God and forgotten the Law of Moses. And, on the other hand, he is also ashamed on God’s behalf, because what has happened to his people calls into question God’s faithfulness to God’s promises. So he goes to the king and gets permission to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city. Over the months that follow, Jerusalem is rebuilt, but now it’s time to rebuild a people fit to live in Jerusalem and to be God’s covenant people.

It is at this point in the story that today’s reading takes place.  Ezra the scribe stands in front of all the people and begins to read ‘from the book of the law of Moses, the first five books of the bible, which the Lord had given to Israel. Ezra knew that the people must once again learn about their God. And so great is their desire to remember and to be themselves again, that they stand from early morning until midday listening as Ezra reads. Among the crowd, are those making sure everyone understands what is being said to them and asked of them. As they listened, they wept because they begin to remember the past and how things used to be, and because of shame at how much they had forgotten. It is with “joy of the Lord” as their strength they are to go their way with changed lives, remembering to ‘feed the poor, and to worship God.’

God’s Word can help us do all this, because the scriptures give us a lens to look at this world and our lives through God’s eyes. What we discover is that following the Word of God is the way of joy and life. In this season of Epiphany, Ezra reminds us that we too are recipients of divine instruction, a people called to continual renewal and reinterpretations of God’s word among us. Down through the generations, the Word of God calls us to change and respond. Paul today in his first letter to the Corinthians, as Nehemiah and Ezra did, is all about trying to build a new people using one of the richest and most meaningful metaphors in all the scripture: the Church as the body of Christ.

Using what some may say is absurd humor, in which the various body parts argue amongst themselves as to whether or not they need each other, Paul communicates the important point that the church’s unity depends on each part of the body, on each one of us. He notes the different roles and gifts in the body of Christ, emphasizing that each one has a part to play. Hidden amidst the humor is an important principle for church life. That the more we read the scripture the more we come to understand that community is basic to any human attempt to understand God and the healthy community looks after the welfare of its weakest members, sharing the burden of suffering as well as the joy of celebration.  

This whole section is Paul pleading for the church to think in a completely new way. Instead of thinking always about themselves and their own individual needs and rights, instead of always battling to be the most important and gifted person in any gathering, Paul says, we need to learn to think of ourselves as one entity, one body, whose health and whose very life depends on co-operation and connection. This is about being a community that exists as the visible expression of the love of God. As part of the body, we share each other’s lives, in good times and in bad. As we do, we become a tangible expression of God’s care. 

Desmond Tutu in the book “The Book of Joy” says, “We are actually quite remarkable creatures…I am created in the image of God. I am a God carrier. It’s fantastic. I have to be growing in godliness, in caring for the other. I know that each time I have acted compassionately, I have experienced joy in me that I find in nothing else”. When we help others he says, we often experience what has been called the “helpers high,” as endorphins are released in our brain, leading to a euphoric state, and compassion is contagious. The incredible thing he says is that when we think of alleviating other people’s suffering, our own suffering is reduced….because we are God carriers”…and all this is made possible by the gifts of the God’s Holy Spirit.

Jesus “filled with the power of the Spirit…went to the synagogue and read from the prophet Isaiah a passage relating to his own commission from God. This is his mission statement as Messiah. When he reads this passage, he is declaring that in the Spirit, as Messiah of God, he has been called to be an agent of mercy to the downtrodden in this world: he will bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed and new beginnings for all who have failed. His declaration of intent is all about doing God’s justice, and creating God’s community….which was downright scandalous! The listeners that day were filled with wrath. They throw their own hometown boy, the carpenter’s son, out of the synagogue. He had not come to pamper: he had come for the sick, the poor, the blind and the afflicted. He had come to open their eyes and now ours to God’s ways.

The shock comes when we realize that his mission then is our mission now. Paul tells us, “You are the body of Christ. We, the church, are Christ in our world called to a new way of life as Christ’s body which is tough, it means we are to be much different than the world would like us to be, or even what we-who belong to the world-see ourselves to be. The Christian body that Paul is pleading for will be recognizable by the way it treats others. To be the body of Christ, we have to do as Jesus did. We belong to Christ and we belong to each other and in and through this body we participate in God’s work.

Like the people gathered around Ezra, shaken to their core at the reading of the law, the revelation of our own identity in the body of Christ should shake awake our consciousness. We are called to respond and corporate with the Spirit that continuously anoints and sends us as Christ’s own presence into our world. We are given to the world as Christ is given: salt, leaven, light, healing, instruction, and nurture. We are God carriers and down through the centuries, when the word of God is read, it calls God’s people to respond. And all those present celebrated with joy as they began to understand the word of the Lord. Rejoice greatly, for “the joy of the Lord is our strength!”