Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading comes from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. Here Ezra the priest gathered “all of the men, women and children old enough to understand.” There he read to them the first 5 books of the Old Testament and all listened. Ezra then interpreted what he had read. At this everyone bowed down before the book of the law. He and Nehemiah told those gathered to rejoice “for today is holy to our Lord. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!” Luke’s Gospel recounts Jesus in Nazareth, where he had grown up. In the synagogue he was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read a passage: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Jesus then rolled up the scroll and said: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
When I read accounts of events in Scripture I often imagine what it would have been like to have been present and this is particularly true with today’s Gospel. To put this in context, this is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Luke’s Gospel. He was an adult now and back in his home town. That means he spoke to people who have known him his entire life. They knew him as an awkward teenager, and they also probably wondered why he, likely in his 30s, hadn’t married yet. Our reading stops here but the Gospel goes on to tell us that the reaction of the congregation was mixed at best, with some marveling at his “appealing discourse” but others scoffed that he was nothing more than Joe’s kid.
What’s funny about this is that it began with Jesus reading a passage they were all familiar with (spoiler alert, it’s Isaiah 61:1-2). When Jesus was reading I imagine that many of those gathered were half listening or even dozing. Much like the standard safety protocols we hear on planes just before takeoff.
And that’s what I think about when I read these readings. When I speak with someone who “used to go to the Catholic church” he often talks about how mass was so boring and repetitive. And the readings can get that way also. It’s easy to hear the first few lines of the reading and immediately recognize it. We know the stories of the Gospels and oftentimes we garner the same meaning time after time, year after year, decade after decade. It’s also true with much of the Old Testament. We know the stories of the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, etc. Much of the rest of it appears not to have much to do with our lives, rules about cows and crops, which foods are allowed and which aren’t.
On the other side of this I’m always a little amused when someone tells me he is going to “read the Bible” because it’s normally an attempt to read the Bible like a novel, from beginning to end. The reader can get through Genesis and Exodus but bog down in Leviticus and Numbers; it’s a rare person who can get through Deuteronomy. Scripture is nothing more (or less) than the story of our lived experience as children of God. It’s history, poetry, prophecy, revelation, and much more. We read and reread these passages because while the readings don’t change, we do. We read and reread these the stories of our lived experience that has not ended but continues with us.
Our first reading recounts Ezra reading the first 5 books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) to everyone. I hope those gathered listened for something new, something in their lives that changes how we read these books. I’ve been publishing these homilies since 2013 and Sunday readings on are on a 3 year cycle; that means I’ve read the same readings in 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022 and this year. Every time I read these readings I look for something new. A new insight, a new understanding, a way to tie these readings into my life (and hopefully yours). And I have to say that Scripture has never failed me.
The books in Scripture are at least 2,000 years old but they are written anew in our reading. It requires us to slow down and listen carefully but it also requires us to expand our imagination. Let me give an example: part of what Jesus read in the synagogue talked about the liberation of captives. It was originally written to people who were captives in Babylonia who feared their story was over. In 19th Century America it was heard by enslaved people who feared that slavery would never end, even to their not yet born descendants.
But today we’re not under Babylonian captivity and slavery is illegal. Virtually all of us live in democracies where we choose our leaders and our fundamental rights are protected. Do today’s readings even matter to us?
Of course they do. We believe that salvation is not just something that happens at the end of this life, it’s something that we strive to live right now. We are called to proclaim liberation when we see captivity. Allowing women to vote and participate in democracy was a right that came late to many nations, and here in the United States women weren’t even guaranteed to right to own credit cards until 1974. It wasn’t until 2015 that gay couples were allowed to marry. Were they captives before that?
I think they were and it took imagination to end it. It took men looking at women as equals to understand them as “credit worth” and straight couples looking at gay couples and wishing the same joy and stability in marriage that we’ve always been able to assume.
The role of unlocking these readings today is the role of the preacher. But frankly I started this project in large measure because the preaching I heard wasn’t doing this. But it isn’t just the role of the preacher; it’s the role of all of us whether we’re listening, discussing or teaching. There was a common phrase in the 1960s that we should hold the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
And as for the audience in today’s Gospel, let us always make room for surprise in what we hear.