Epiphany 3

 Let the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in you sight, my strength and salvation. Does that sound familiar? Have we heard it anywhere else during our service today? The prayer I usually use to bless the sermon is from the last verse of our psalm today… “14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. “ I encourage you to reflect on our service today to and try to notice how often we quote the bible or paraphrase it liturgy. The BCP begins with scripture, followed by a collect then the Ex 10:1-17 aka the commandments or more commonly we use deut 6:4-9 quoted by Christ in Matt 22:36…Hear O Israel.  This is followed by three scripture readings, and the creed.  Intro to the offeratory…all quotes from scripture.  Then we pray, confess, receive absolution and hear the comfortable words … again direct biblical quotes.  The communion is full of quotes and indirect biblical references, including the sanctus, holy holy holy from Is 6:3 and rev 4:8 and the peace again John 14:27… a little more and soon we end the service Philippians  4:7 the peace of the lord which passeth all understanding The point is that we are surrounded by scripture in liturgy, in the BCP one is immersed in it.  And as some have pointed out, as our liturgies have a very set format each week, so …as we hear certain scriptures over and again … they are embedded deeply in us.  They become a part of us, and in time we can say them without thought. I have always acquainted memorizing scripture with more evangelical traditions and If you were to ask me if I spend time memorizing scripture, I’d have to say not really.  I’d wager many of you don’t sit at home and memorize scripture either.  We may read it, but I for one have never been good at memorizing.  However, …as Anglicans I bet that you can quote a lot more scripture then you think!   Quiz time!! John 6:35 any one?  Ok I’ll give you a hint… “I am the bread of life,” says the Lord. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; whoever believes in me will never thirst.” John 1:29 “ Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” How about Numbers 6: 24-26 “The Lord bless you     and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face shine on you     and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn his face toward you     and give you peace.”   On top of this there are all the bits we went over in the earlier part of the sermon, around 20 odd scripture verses you likely have memorized.  We know many other pieces of scripture as well, Ps 23, parts of the Luke’s birth narrative, parts of Genesis, and many of the songs of scripture like Mary’s song of praise. It may come out rote when spoken in liturgy, but I bet that bits of scripture and liturgy pop into your mind at other points in your week as well.  The scriptures we learn are imbedded in our subconscious and form the backdrop against which we see our lives.  What we know, helps interpret what we see in life and how we respond.  Scripture forms us. Psalm 19 today tells us that the Law of the Lord, (which is of course, scripture) …brings relief to a soul in stress, brings wisdom to those who know little, brings joy to our heart and helps us to see more clearly.  Scripture is to be desired before either earthly wealth or pleasures and scriptures themselves bring their own share of wealth and pleasure.             The bible is a vast and varied collection of interwoven and interrelated books, letters, songs and poems, all written with a purpose.  To record the understanding, the history and experience of the people of God with God… to show how God has been at work in the lives and faith of the people of God since time before time.  Including many challenging times, and those scriptures include how people have interpreted and experienced scripture themselves…often in liturgy.             Today in our reading from Nehemiah we get to see the book of the law, the scriptures, being read out to the people returned from exile.  It was an exciting time, all the had people gathered, not in the temple where only those who were ritually clean could attend, but at one of the gates of the city.  A public place of gathering where all were welcome;  Men came, women came, children who were of an age to understand what was read came.  Clean and unclean, all were welcomed, and there on a pulpit above the people the priest read out the scriptures.             From early in the morning until mid day he read the bible…he read for hours.  And all the of people were attentive….! In essence it was a service of the word.  There was a blessing and thanksgiving offered, the people participated and worshiped and the scriptures were read…with interpretation. Interpretation that gave sense to the scriptures so that the people all understood what was being read.             That is what we hope will, in part, be experienced in our liturgy… that we will be able to interpret scripture together in a way that makes sense so that all people can understand.  And although the people who read scripture today will be grateful that the names were excluded from the lectionary, in the reading there is a list of names… a long list …of people who helped with that interpretation.  Which is also that case in our own lives.  We find that we hear a limited number of voices read the scriptures, and an even more limited number preach on Sunday mornings, but there are many who help us interpret what we’ve heard.             Everyone who helps craft the liturgy, words, sound, music, Sunday school, and more have helped us interpret the words of scripture.  Our own lives and experience also helps us to interpret the scripture that we have heard, and those with whom we speak, pray and live contribute to our interpretation of scripture through our encounters with them.             In Nehemiah and in Kings after reading the Torah it was realized, that the people of God had fallen out of step with what God had commanded in the scriptures and in our reading today we see the response of the people to that realization.             After reading, listening and interpretation of the law… all the people wept.  They were moved to tears…tears of sorrow? Of repentance? Of relief?  We don’t know.  However, it seems that their interpretation of the scripture brought them to tears.  But it wasn’t the only interpretation.  Ezra the priest and the Levites who had taught the people brought another interpretation to the them.   “ do not mourn or weep”  rather rejoice…go on your way! feast and celebrate and share what you have with those who have nothing.              Go in peace to love and serve the lord!  Sounds familiar eh?. The appropriate reaction to reinterpreting your life through scripture is not wailing, weeping and wallowing in a sense of failure or fear of judgement, but rather to get up, repent…that is turn your life around, and go on your way…rejoicing in God’s grace and sharing your blessings with others.  It is the core of God’s teaching and Jesus taught the same thing, as we see in the gospel today. In our Gospel reading we also have a liturgy and the reading of scripture. A good 500 years has past since Nehemiah.   In that time the experience of liturgy as being focused around the reading and interpretation of scripture has become the normal form of worship for the Jewish community.   Each week they gather in the synagogue sharing in the reading and interpreting of scripture, and in our gospel we find Jesus taking his turn in the reading and the interpretation of scripture.             Jesus takes the scroll of Isaiah and reads from the prophet Isaiah.  Once again everyone is focused, all eyes are on Jesus as he reads Isaiah,  just as all ears were attentive to Ezra reading the Torah.             Jesus reads …”The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” then interprets it to the people to help them understand.  “today…Jesus says… this scripture has been fulfilled in you hearing”.   Rumours had abounded around Jesus preaching and teaching, he hadn’t done any miracles as of yet, with the exception of the miracle of the incarnation itself, but he taught with authority and had become quite well known.  His authority and his fame influenced the way his words were interpreted, and when he said that the words of the the prophet Isaiah were fulfilled…the people were excited.  The verses that follow our gospel reading tell us that all spoke well of Jesus and were amazed at the gracious words he spoke.             The people had interpreted Jesus words that …the Spirit was upon him and had anointed him to proclaim release to the captives, sight to the blind and freedom to the oppresses… as being for them..  However, Jesus interpreted it differently.  We read a little further on that the people expected Jesus to do in his own hometown the wonderful things he had done in other towns and cities.  So they interpreted the scripture Jesus spoke in that light.  However, Jesus spoke to them and interpreted for them so that they could understand…that God’s word and God’s favour was not just for Jesus and his family or hometown or his favourites.  He proclaimed that the scripture of Isaiah was being fulfilled for the foreigner, and the unclean, and the enemies of the people of Israel.  In short, for everyone, favoured or not.             And Jesus own people then drove him out of town and tried to hurl him off a cliff. No tears of joy or repentance after this scripture reading…only anger and indignation.  How we interpret the scriptures is always influenced by our own perceptions.  Jesus preached the same message to foreigners and outcasts and received a much different response.             How we see life, the context in which we read the scriptures and the way they are proclaimed all influence how scripture is interpreted.  Just as it is interpreted differently when we read alone…or in community, in study or in liturgy.             Our scriptures are a most wonderful gift, they are the way we gain wisdom, enlightenment and joy…as Psalms say… and they change our lives.  The reading of scripture changes how we see life and how we live.  It is a wonderful blessing to have a liturgy so imbued with the richness of scripture, to have a good chunk of scripture read from the old testament, from the psalms, from the Christian letter and the gospels each week.  Such a wide variety of experience and context rounds out our interpretation and allows us to see beyond our own lives interpretation to that of the wider church.             To have such a variety in our scriptural lives gives us the blessing of wholeness and community… it gives us more eyes with which to see God’s grace.  More ears with which to hear God’s word.  More hearts with which to feel God’s presence in the live of the church and it give a greater opportunity to see God at work in our lives, in the church and in the world.             God bless the reading of scripture in our midst, that we may be ever attentive and ready to respond in loving service.  amen