Fresh from the Word. Purpose: To remind us of words of blessing and the blessing of God s Word.

Transcription

1 January 27, 2013 Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8 Luke 4:14:21 Pastor Rosanna McFadden Creekside COB Fresh from the Word Purpose: To remind us of words of blessing and the blessing of God s Word. Good morning. I need your help with something as we get started; I need you to complete a sentence for me. Just a little exercise to see if we re on the same page. Ready? Sticks and stones may break my bones But words will never... hurt me. Is that true? I can t speak from personal experience about the sticks and stones part -- but I can imagine that s pretty accurate -- but the part about words never hurting, totally not true. I won t ask you to share your own experiences with hurtful words, but I bet you have some. Thoughtless words that someone said without thinking about how they would affect you, or even worse, words that someone said on purpose that were meant to wound. Maybe they were written words -- a careless , a mean text message, a post on Facebook where everyone could see it. We use words as weapons all the time. The good news about this is that words can also be used to support and encourage, to heal and to bless. I have a calligraphy saying at home, a Jewish proverb which reads, Words are so powerful they should only be used to heal, to bless, to prosper. We can t always choose the words which we receive, but we do have a choice about what kind of words we offer to other people. I had a wonderful experience recently: so wonderful that I regretted putting it off for as long as I did, but I was waiting for a time when I could savor the moment. After my family returned from traveling over the Christmas holidays, I sat down with a stack of purple papers and

2 cards, and I read through the blessings you wrote for me on the occasion of my ordination. Not just my church family, but other friends and family sent beautiful words. It was a little like sitting down and eating a whole box of chocolates at one sitting (not that I ve ever done that). So many beautiful and meaningful and personal words; some of you used your own words, some of you borrowed blessings from others, and some of you shared words of scripture. I actually got to count my blessings -- there were 74. Each one is a gift which I will treasure. I want to talk this morning about words of blessing, and the blessing of God s Word. Both the Nehemiah and the Luke passages which Mary Lou read are from the lectionary texts for this Sunday. If you re like me, it may have been a while since you ve done a lot reading in the book of Nehemiah. Fifteen hundred years ago, scholars of the church began to develop a series of Bible readings for each Sunday of the year, called the lectionary. It has developed into a cycle of readings to insure that over a three-year period, Christians can hear from every part of the Bible. Maybe those early scholars suspected that if left to our own preferences, preachers like me might overlook books like Nehemiah and miss out on some really good stuff. Each Sunday has two readings from the Old Testament -- usually a psalm and one of the prophets, and two from the New Testament -- a gospel reading and a reading from the epistles. Often the lectionary readings fit together in interesting ways: putting Nehemiah and Luke together was an intriguing combination of two different kinds of things -- sort of like peanut butter and jelly. Here s a quick review of the Nehemiah story: The book of Nehemiah is one of the books of history in the Old Testament. A footnote here: Jewish historians had a thing for long lists of names. I chose to leave those names out of the verses which Mary Lou read. If you like reading lists of names, you should check out Nehemiah. It is the history of the Jewish return to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile in Bablyon, under the rule of the king of Persia. Nehemiah was a Jew who had risen to be an important official in the Persian administration, he carried the king s wine. Aside from the risk of poisoning, being the king s cupbearer was a pretty great job, and it gave Nehemiah enough clout to ask the king if he could be allowed to rebuild the city wall of Jerusalem. Nehemiah gets permission to

3 rebuild the wall in Chapter 2, organizes the work in Chapter 3, deals with hostile plots, plans of intrigue, and thrilling skirmishes with enemies in chapters 4, 5, and 6, and by the end of chapter 6, the wall is completed. Hurrah! The city is finally safe for the exiles return. Chapter 7 is a long list of names, and Chapter 8 is the Big Event. All the people who have returned to Jerusalem from exile gather in the square of the city, and the scribe Ezra is given the book of the law of Moses, and he opens it and begins reading to the people. And he reads, and reads, and reads. From dawn until midday he reads, and the priests explain the words to the people so they can understand. And this day is so wonderful, such a blessing, that it is declared a holy day. These people who have all been born in a foreign land under a foreign king are finally allowed to come home. And to celebrate, and mark the blessing of being home, they get to hear and understand the word of the Lord (OK, some eating and drinking goes on in the evening.) The people make booths to stay in through the celebration, and the festival goes on for seven days until the Law of Moses has been read out loud to the people from beginning to end. Modern Jews still celebrate the Festival of the Booths. Luke 4 tells about a more modest homecoming. Mary s boy, Jesus, had left home and been gone for a while; he spent some time in the wilderness and has since been making a name for himself in the area as a rabbi, or teacher of the law. He was home in Nazareth and came to synagogue with his family, just like old times. The Jews also had a lectionary, or order of readings, of sorts. Of course, there was no New Testament, and scrolls aren t very easy to flip back and forth within, so you basically read the books in order through a rotation. Today the reading was from Isaiah, and out of deference to Jesus being back, he was given the scroll and asked if he would read. I m sure it warmed Mary and Joseph s hearts to see their son reading in the synagogue, but it was just an ordinary Sabbath day. Imagine, if you can, a young person who grew up in this congregation coming home and coming back to church some Sunday. Let s say Mark Arnold is back from New Jersey for a weekend. We ve heard he s doing well, people are happy to see him and greet him and catch up, and Hey, maybe he could read scripture for us in the morning service. Mark agrees. It s a familiar passage, one we all know and

4 love, from Isaiah 61. It s a text of blessing and promise, about the messiah who will bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord s favor. It s a wonderful text, and Mark reads it perfectly: no stumbling over words, and with just the right amount of emotion. We re all feeling pretty happy and proud of him for being one of our own. And then it gets a little weird. He says, I am these words in the flesh. I am the messiah who is bringing blessing. Oh, really? Do his parents know about this? I wonder how they feel about the whole messiah thing; Mark s a good kid and all, but we re really not getting it. And here s the kicker, he says: we are not getting it. All those blessings -- freedom, release, new sight, the Lord s favor -- they re not for us. They re for the homeless people, the undocumented immigrants, the folks with AIDS. We didn t believe when we had the chance, and now we re cut out of the deal. This is essentially what Jesus says to his home church, and boy are they mad. They re so mad they try to kill him. See, that s a tricky thing about words of blessing, and especially the blessing of God s word. It s only good news if you accept it, if you believe it, if you re willing to live by it. It reminds me of the guy who is feeling so terrible he goes to see his doctor and says, Doc, I feel terrible. Is there anything can I do? The doctor tells him, I have some good news. You can feel a lot better, but you re going to have to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop overeating, and start exercising. And the man says, OK, I know what I need to do. I need to find new doctor. Blessing begins with God. It begins with the blessing of creation which is a blessing for the whole world. It continues with the blessing of God s law, God s Word which is intended to be good news which frees and releases us into more abundant life. It is the blessing of Jesus who embodied God s Word and showed us the way to life which has meaning and purpose. It s great to have these blessings, but they don t simply happen to us while we are doing something else. As a response to God s blessing, we are called to bless God. We bless God when we respond to God s blessing with praise and thanksgiving; we bless God when we declare how great God is, and has been, and will be. We bless God when we hear and read and study God s Word and wrestle with how to apply it to our lives. We

5 bless God when we follow the example of Jesus and try to live as his disciples. When we bless God, we can t help but spread that blessing to others. It will ooze out of our lives, like rich, creamy peanut butter and sweet jelly from the edge of a sandwich that is overflowing with goodness. We have been created for PB&J. The Westminster Shorter Catechism was written around 1644 for use in the English and Scottish Presbyterian Church. It s a series of 107 questions and answers about humanity, about God, and about the church. The first question is the best known. It doesn t exactly mention PB&J specifically, but I think you ll be able to hear that it s in there. Here s the first question: What is the chief end of man? or today we might ask, What is humanity s primary purpose? Answer: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. 1 Isn t that terrific? Our primary reason for being is to glorify and enjoy God; that means we have PB&J right in our DNA. God is great! Let s spread the good news. Or, to quote Nehemiah 9:5, Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Amen! 1 Westminister Shorter Catechism, c