Home        Contact     Meetings     Map        Sermons     Messenger  

This sermon did not come easy… and you thought I subscribe to a weekly sermon series… actually I do. I think you deserve better, so I write these weekly homilies with you in mind.

I don’t know if it was the images of mass graves and body parts in Haiti, the crying children, the weather, or maybe my Republican friends taunting me via e-mail and others right out in public.

The texts for this week were no help.

Too much good stuff, like being at the Munich October Fest, or listening to the late Pavarotti sing an Aria.

All of the lessons are about God’s dealing with his own …

The OT reading took place when Ezra celebrated the completion of the wall around Jerusalem… analogues to beefing up homeland security. I Cor.12. is part of a much longer section of a letter that the Apostle Paul sent in response to a congregation in turmoil – over who has the most chutzpah... like my prayer is better than your prayer.

Not much has changed in 2000 years.

And finally in the Gospel, St. Luke gives us one of the few glimpses into the worship life of a first-century Synagogue, as Jesus addresses the hometown crowd and gives us his mission statement.

What struck me in these lessons is how much importance our Hebrew fathers placed on the reading and hearing of the Scriptures at their gathered assemblies.

Ezra read from the Word on the occasion of the completion of the building of the wall. Although Israel was no longer in captivity, they were still under the rule of a foreign King by the name of Artaxerxes… Persia.  So before starting on the building project, especially one that involved national security, they need his ok.

This is how they got permission Nehemiah (2.1-6). Read…

In Luke’s telling of Jesus' reading from Isaiah we learn that Jesus had come home to Nazareth…

            When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, He went to the             Synagogue, as was his custom.

What has happened to so many of our people in what we mistakenly call a Christian nation when it comes to Sunday morning?

What is our custom on the first day of the week?

Where are so many of our people?

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy is, the Third Commandment… p.1160

            We are to fear and love God, so that we do not despise the preaching of God’s             word, but instead keep the word holy and gladly hear and learn it.

The prayer of the day, or what we used to call the Collect, is another reminder.  Take it home, cut it out and put in on the doorpost of your porch, or the front of the Bible or on your refrigerator. Just don’t do like the 17 year-old Jewish boy on a US Airways flight that was forced to land in Philadelphia on Thursday, because he was praying using tefillin, a small set of boxes containing biblical passages that are strapped to the forehead, and arm, not a good thing these days.

Weekly worship – coming together should be the first priority for us all – if not here, then there.

Who are we, if we don’t meet Jesus in word and sacrament?

Like, we too have a mission statement…

How can we proclaim that which we don’t know?

How can we serve if we ourselves have not been fed?

At this point I was going to tell you a story about others before us and even now who have risked much to be able to worship weekly; to hear God’s word, to break bread and give of their income to the ongoing work of kingdom-building.

But if I did that I’d be telling you something you already are doing.

You are here… but there are those who you know who are not.

I ask only that you invite them, that you pray for them – you know who they are.

Because if what happens here is what we believe it is, we dare not take this moment for granted.  Listen again to Jesus’ short homily which is a mixed reference to Is. 61.1-2, and a part of Is. 58.6.

            He was speaking in the churches, and the people respected             him. But in Belle              Plain, where he had grown up, and as he was in the habit of doing, he went to             church on Sunday.

            They invited him to preach, so he got up and read the scripture and found the             place in the book of Isaiah where it says:

            “The Lord has ordained me to break the good news to the poor people.

            He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the oppressed,

            And sight for the blind,

            To help those who have been grievously insulted to find dignity;

            To proclaim the Lord’s new era.”

            Then he closed the Bible and handed it to the acolyte. The eyes of everybody in    the congregation were glued on him. He began saying, “This very Scripture   has become a reality in your presence.”  They all said Amen.

(Quoted from The Cotton Patch Versions of Luke and Acts, Clarence Jordan.)

The only thing that Jesus actually said, other than quoting from Isaiah, 

            “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

His popularity quickly waned… much like our president over the past 12 months.

The honeymoon was over by the time we get to vs. 29.

They ran him out of town… that’s where next Sunday’s Gospel picks up.

As I said, when I started this sermon, there is too much to unpack.

It is like Christmas morning and you are five again and the packages are piled high.

So what I’m going to do is to play for you a piece of music. From a composer whose initials are JSB one of his Cantata’s “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” better known as Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.

It was composed 325 years ago and performed for the first time on the occasion of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin. It is sometimes played at weddings – the German and the English are printed in the bulletin.  Those who read German will quickly notice that the English is not a translation. It is an Epiphany hymn and like all good music it transcends words and wraps us into the Holy Light of Jesus. Amen