To What Does God Call Us?

To What Does God Call Us?

January 26, 2025
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
Nehemiah 8:2-10; Ps.- #733, We Are Many Parts; Rev 5:1-5; Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
 
 Apparently Criminal Justice is still a very popular major in colleges these days. Many experts attribute this at least in part to the drama and romanticization of police work depicted on popular TV shows. According to Google, 20-30% switch majors before graduation, due to “…misconceptions about career paths, a lack of understanding about the field, or finding better fit for their interests and skills.” So the TV-show romance seems to wear off eventually for a substantial number.

I think when most of us think about the law in general, we think about it from an enforcement perspective. We think of the law forcing people to follow traffic rules, for example, or keeping them from cheating and stealing in business transactions. But the law is not just a penal code. Law can also be a great gift to us. Consider the Civil Rights legislation passed in the US in the 1960’s. It helped prevent people being devalued and discriminated against just because of the color of their skin. It integrated schools and other public institutions, and helped people get better education, housing, and jobs.

Our readings today focus on the gift to us of the law of God. Our Jewish ancestors asked God for a law they could live by. They were asking for an ethical code, but also for a law that would help protect the vulnerable, and help people live in harmony with one another and the Earth.
 
Our first reading describes the people of God standing and kneeling for hours as the law of God is read by Ezra, the prophet, and then explained by the Levites in the community. The reading is easier to understand with a little background. The people described had returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. For several generations, they had been separated from the Temple and observance of their religion. Consequently, they were cut off from their communal identity as the People of God, and from understanding of God’s love for them. So what the reading described is a re-education/recommitment ceremony. They were becoming reacquainted with the goodness of the Torah, God’s instructions for their life together. The fact that they wept is probably explained by the fact that Ezra’s interpretation of the law required Jews to divorce any Babylonian or other non-Jewish spouses and abandon the children of those marriages. As one expert I read said, “One can imagine many acts of civil disobedience.”
 
Our second reading is a dramatic scene from the Book of Revelation, thought to be coded literature written for early Christians enduring persecution. It describes a scroll, presumed to hold instruction from God, but which no one present is capable of opening. Eventually, we are told, a person who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, and the offspring of Bathsheba, all metaphors for the Messiah, opens the scroll. In other words, the symbolic representative of Jesus the Christ has opened the Law of God for us all.
 
Today’s Gospel describes Luke’s account of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. It tells us that Jesus went to the synagogue on the sabbath, as was his custom, and read aloud a passage from the prophet Isaiah. The passage proclaimed the Good News of a Jubilee Year, and of help for the poor, liberty to those held captive, recovery of sight for the blind, and release of those in prison. Jesus then proclaimed that the reading had been fulfilled that day in him.
 
So all three of these readings described episodes in which our ancestors in the faith learned a little more each time how God wanted them to live and to love one another. Through them, we hear God’s call to us: to live as God’s people, to liberate the marginalized, and to love others as God loves us.
 
We heard one more call this week, and it came from Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde as she preached at the National Cathedral. I would say she was definitely representing Jesus, speaking up for our LGBTQ and immigrant human family members, and advocating for mercy, compassion, and empathy, as well as human dignity, honesty, and humility. After her sermon, and all the reaction, she said she was focusing on all her usual responsibilities, not letting this episode stand in the way. “It’s not just the one sermon, she said. “We just need to continue to believe what we believe in and stand for the things we stand for—and that’s the work, right?” I agree, that’s the work God has outlined for us— caring for one another the very best we can, just as God cares for us.