My friend Margo often told the story of when she and her husband first discovered God’s Word. It was in the late 1970s . They had been to a charismatic meeting—I think in Louisville. They came home with a sense of urgency: Open up your Bible; discover God’s Word!
Though Vatican II had encouraged Catholics to read Scripture, it was not common in those days for lay Catholics to sit down together to read the Bible. A whole community formed of people who were spellbound by what they learned as they did. “We had prayer meetings in our living room two or three nights a week,” Margo said. “People couldn’t fit in the door. We were all spellbound as we read and studied Scripture. We knew our Catholic faith and the catechism, but this was God talking directly to us in His Word. It wasn’t just Catholics. It was everybody. We all wanted to hear what God had to say. As we read, prayed, and believed, our lives changed. Our faith wasn’t our religion. It was how we walked and talked and lived in relationship with God.”
Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
Today’s first reading tells of a similar experience when scrolls of the Torah were read by Ezra, the priest, to the Jewish people who had been left behind in Judah when most of the Jewish people had been exiled in Babylon.
In Babylon there had been no temple, but the Law (the Torah) had been carried with the exiles. The time of exile was actually a good time for the development of Hebrew scriptures. Since the people could not offer sacrifice of animals in the Jerusalem temple, they met in houses, which they called synagogues, to read and study the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) and the prophets. During this time scribes organized these scriptures into consistent forms. They compiled others, such as the Psalms and the historical books. They wrote still others, such as Ecclesiastes and Daniel.
But the people left in Judah, mostly uneducated farmers and tradesmen, had not had access to the Law or other Hebrew Scriptures for 70 years. Nor had they had a temple in which to offer sacrifice. There was resistance to these now “foreigners” coming in and telling them what to do. Underlying the stories in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra you can see the resistance. They did not know what they were missing!
Ezra, a priest, had not come with the first wave of returnees. When he did come back to Judah, it was with a firm purpose to establish ALL the people in firm adherence to traditional Jewish Law, worship, and culture.
The day came when the people gathered to hear the Law they had probably not ever heard. They stood in front of one of the temple gates. Ezra read and explained the first five books of the Bible from 6 am until noon—that’s a six hour homily!
As spread out as the people had been in Babylon, it may well have been that the returnees also had not heard the whole Law. All were spellbound by what they heard.
How could that be? Would we listen to a six hour homily? Put yourself in the setting and remember that the Law was not just the “Thou shalls” and the “Thou shall nots” of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. It was the people’s whole story of how they belonged to the Living God. It was the story of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, the time in Egypt, and the sojourn in the desert. It was the story of who they were as a people.
So, of course, they were spellbound! Then metanoia (turning back to God and repentance) came into their hearts. They were distressed and began to cry. They compared how they had been living with what God asked of them, and they were sorry for the difference.
Ezra, speaking for God, told them not to cry, but to rejoice. The recovery of understanding that came with truly hearing God’s Word meant they were returning to God and God’s way. That was cause for joy, because God had been seeking them and waiting for their return to Him.
Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21
The setting in the Gospel is Nazareth. Jesus has been baptized by John. He has spent 40 days in the desert defeating Satan’s temptations. He has turned water to wine at Cana. What happens next varies from Gospel to Gospel. The incident described in today’s Gospel is included in Matthew (Matt 13: 54-58), Mark (Mk 6: 1-6a) and Luke (Luke 4:14-21). The other two Gospels have this event happen later in Jesus’ ministry. In Luke it comes in the beginning.
The selection from Isaiah that Jesus reads comes from the concluding chapters of Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1-2). It is often described today as “Jesus’ Mission Statement.” While it comes from a part of Isaiah that the people of Jesus’ time took to mean there would be a triumphant, political Messiah, we know the words meant something very different when Jesus said, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” They meant the Kingdom of God is about God’s outreach, mercy, and inclusivity. It is about the Word of God, now present in Jesus, a human and divine person, come to earth to save His people from the evils of sin, then extend that saving to all the world.
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.
Perhaps Jesus had been spellbound by the Word of God when he stayed behind in the temple when he was twelve. As a Jewish young man he had been well educated in the Scriptures. Today’s reading says Jesus “went according to his custom” to the synagogue. “He stood up and was handed a scroll.” This is not an unusual thing for Jesus to do. It is a natural development of having been held spellbound by Scripture in the thirty years before.
But today is different. Today Jesus moves from spellbound to “Defined.” Those words from Isaiah he now begins to live out: preaching on the hillsides and in the synagogues where rich and poor, elite and estranged can hear him, freeing captives of the power of sin and social customs that bind them, healing the sick and giving sight to the blind. He becomes what he reads, what he has been reading spellbound for years.
I Corinthians 12:12-30 or 12:12-14, 27
The second reading from 1 Corinthians continues Paul’s description of what it means to live in the Kingdom of God that Jesus defined and proclaimed.
Each person is now a part of Christ’s body, remaining incarnate on earth through Christian communities. Building on what Paul said in last Sunday’s reading about gifts, he now says in effect, “Your gift is not the only gift. Your gift, whatever it is, is important in the context of the whole community.”
You could say, in Paul’s usage, that the Word of God gently holds each and every member of a Christian community within its merciful, healing grasp.
Word of God Sunday
Today is Word of God Sunday, a day for us to reflect on what Scripture means to us. Does reading it hold you spellbound? Have you read and studied enough that Scripture now defines you?
Or is the Word of God, for now, simply holding you within the Church. Yes, it’s a part of Mass. Yes, it’s guidance for living. But, no, it is not the object of your hunger for God nor a description of the core of your being. You are one part of many members. You are reading this reflection on Scripture, so there is a real connection. You are plugged in. That’s enough for you for today.
My friend Margo went home to be with God three years ago. I called another friend this morning who was also part of when “the Holy Spirit swept through Frankfort” in the 1970s. I wanted to make sure I was telling the story accurately.
She verified the history, then said, “And today, I’m still hungry for the Word of God. I still want to meet and talk with others about what God’s Word speaks into my life.”
What is God saying to you today about the importance of His Word to you?
Prayer:
Come, Word of God, to me today. Come and tell me what you want me to hear. Open my ears, my mind, and my heart to what You want me to know today, Lord. Hold me spellbound until Your Word defines me and my life. Encourage me as a member of Your Body, the Church, to share Your Word in strong or gentle ways that continue to build Your Kingdom.
