Attending... worshipping... serving: becoming the people of God

A reflection on Nehemiah 8: 1-10 and Luke 4: 14-21: Sunday, 21 January 2007

How many times have you been to church in your life? Is that a calculation you have ever made?

If I do some rough maths (and it is very rough maths), if I have averaged church thirty times a year (only thirty to allow for those teenage years when I was not quite the little angel I was earlier), thirty times a year for fifty-four years – that’s 1, 620 times I’ve sat in church! 1, 620 times I’ve heard the bible read. 1, 620 times I’ve joined in the singing of hymns. 1, 620 times I’ve been spell-bound by the minister’s preaching (well, perhaps not 1, 620 times; there has been the odd sermon which was somewhat less than spell-binding; perhaps even more than the odd sermon).

When you stop and think about it, it’s a lot of time spent in church, isn’t it? And that’s not counting the time devoted to youth groups and choir practices (before my voice broke), the hours given to home groups and committee meetings, to church camps and Sunday school picnics. It’s a lot of time, and I have to ask myself the big question: Has it made me any different?

Have all of those hours, those prayers, that reflection on the Word of God, has any of that changed me? Am I a better person because of it all?

Now, I know that there are other reasons for going to church other than self-improvement. I would actually argue that changing me is hardly the most important reason for turning up here on Sunday morning; worship is about God, about glorifying God, and changing me is low on the list of priorities, but I still have to ask that question.

And what prompts me to ask that question is what I find in today’s bible readings.

Both the Nehemiah reading with which we began this morning and the gospel reading are set in the context of worship. Both typify what going to church is all about. For example, in Nehemiah we have the bringing in of the Scripture, the people answering Amen; we have the people listening for the word of God, and the teaching of those given authority to interpret.

Now all of those things are typical of what happens here week by week.

Similarly, on the sabbath day in the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus “goes to church”. We’re not given a rundown on all the elements of synagogue worship but we can safely assume that it was business as usual.

However, there are two things highlighted in these readings which skewer me with that question about being changed.

Firstly, in the reading from Nehemiah we hear these words:

[A]ll the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

[A]ll the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

And I have to ask myself, “When was the last time that listening to the Word of God reduced me to tears?” When was the last time that what happened in worship was so potent that I was genuinely touched?

It has happened, of course. I do remember being in tears in church. There was even one memorable occasion when my whole family wept around me. It was a significant and powerful moment, and I can identify that as a time of considerable change for my family and for me.

Worship is supposed to touch us. We are meant to be moved and changed by what happens as we gather together in the presence of God. I don’t mean that every week we are expected to burst into tears when the bible is read. I don’t mean that every single one of us is meant to respond exactly the same way at exactly the same time. And I certainly don’t mean that the worship leader’s primary role is to whip the congregation into an emotional frenzy in order to facilitate the bringing on of tears. But we are supposed to be touched, influenced, changed by the process of worshipping our God.

Now change is an interesting thing. It can and does happen in many different ways, which is why I asked earlier, not just “Has worship made me any different?” but “Am I a better person?”

Those who gather in the square, those who hear the law read out, all respond by weeping. Hearing the word of God has reminded them of who God is and who they are. They are reminded that the completion of the rebuilding of the walls of the city is not the end, the highlight, the completion of their calling, but that their end is in fact to be the people of God. Why do they weep? Because they are confronted with the reality that they have had their priorities wrong. Wall-building is fine; but being the people of God is their greatest calling.

Anna Grant-Henderson, the Uniting Church minister and Old Testament scholar, comments:

The proclamation of the Law was a reminder to the people of the covenant relationship with God and what was required of them. It is part of a liturgical celebration which leads to the people responding in action.

What happens in worship leads to action, which is precisely what we find in Luke’s gospel. Today’s reading is just the first part of the story; the next part of the story tells us how those listening to Jesus responded to him, and that’s enlightening, but it’s far more important for us to identify what Jesus is driving at in taking the scroll of Isaiah and reading the section he chose.

Why did Jesus select that particular passage? What does it tell us about Jesus and the God of Jesus?

When Jesus climbs to his feet and reads, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” he is telling us about what he believes his purpose in life is. If Jesus is touched by reading the word of God, his response is, “[God] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind”. If thirty years of attending worship in the synagogue has touched Jesus, it is to bring him to the point where he can proclaim that his whole mission is “to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Jesus’ response to his God is to turn towards others, because others are in need.

To quote Edward Markquart:

God's story is always related to human need. For example, if a woman is dying of cancer, the gospel is God's strong word of resurrection. If a person is permeated with guilt, the gospel is God's assurance of forgiveness. If people experience extreme suffering, the gospel is the prayer: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble." For the starving, the gospel may be bread. For a homeless refugee, the gospel may be freedom in a new homeland. For others, the gospel may be freedom from political tyranny. The gospel is always related to human need... The gospel is God's truth, God's message, God's action, God's word to a particular person, to a particular need, to a particular historical situation. You don't throw a drowning person a sandwich. However good the sandwich may be, it just doesn't meet that person's need. You throw a drowning person a life jacket or a lifeline, or you dive in for the rescue. So it is with the gospel. The gospel is God's truth, God's action, aimed at a particular human need.

Edward Markquart Witnesses for Christ:

Where does that leave us? How do we respond when we are touched by the gospel, the Word of God who is good news to the poor? Does the Spirit of Lord descend upon us to send us out to the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed. Do we recognise the needs of those around us, and do we recognise that we are sent be a part of the year of the Lord’s favour?

Already in the time I have been here I have seen numerous examples of people responding to the gospel because they see the needs of others. Sometimes those needs are the needs of other people within the life of the church, and it is good when we reach out to help one another at difficult times in our lives. That is what being community is about.

At other times, I have seen people responding to the needs of people they have never met and never will meet; through God-given opportunities such as the Christmas Bowl or the empty tree or Shellie’s work in Papua, we reach out to meet needs beyond our own community.

And, on occasions, we recognise the poor just outside, the captives in the streets nearby, the blind waiting for us close at hand, and the oppressed looking longing for our doors to open and for us to go out to be with them in their time of need.

Responding to God is not easy. Often there are tears – just ask all those who wept when they heard the words of the law; just ask Jesus when the mob turned against him. But we come to church, not to accumulate points which will get us into heaven, but to be reminded of who God is and who we are, the people of God. We come to hear that Christ has come to proclaim good news for others and to respond, “Amen. Amen.” So let it be. So let it be.

To each . . . for the common good

A reflection on John 2:1-11: Sunday, 14 January 2007

Over the years, Carol and I have been to the cinema on quite a number of occasions to see movies which are all about weddings.

There was My best friend’s wedding, and Four weddings and a funeral; there was the very Australian Muriel’s wedding, and the remake of an old favourite Father of the bride.

These movies are all comedies and the use of wedding breakfasts for comic possibilities is a tried and true formula. Even Greek theatre more than two thousand years ago was using the wedding feast as the setting for comedy.

Today’s gospel reading is another wedding breakfast, but is it comedy?

Well, let’s think about this for a moment. Can we recognise comic elements in the story, even if it doesn’t read like twenty-first century comedy to us?

Some comic possibilities:

1. The story is set among general drunkenness, after all of the other wine has run out, even the wine which is usually saved until after all the guests are drunk.

2. The Jewish mother tries, not once but twice, to organise her son into doing things her way.

3. To the amusement of the reader, the man supposedly in charge of the festivities, the chief steward, does not know what is going on.

4. And even more humorously, his servants, who are not supposed to know anything, know exactly what has happened!

But this is not a story told just for laughs.

The writer of John’s gospel sets the story in this fashion, not for the comedy, but so that we can fully appreciate the irony of what happens. The irony.

Here, at the beginning of the gospel, at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we are told the story which is usually reserved for the end.

We get the “happy ending” story at the beginning!

In My best friend’s wedding the reception is at the end, the story comes to its conclusion. So, too, with Father of the bride. And even with Four weddings and a funeral, where there is no wedding at the end, the final act is played out with the friends gathered around the kitchen table, drinking coffee, the almost wedding feast.

Wedding feasts signal the end. The comedy is resolved, the time of peace and stability has arrived.

But the wedding feast at Cana comes at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

What ending is there here?

The clue to the answer to this question lies in the symbolism of the six stone water jars which, we are told, were used “for the Jewish rites of purification”.

This wedding breakfast is the end.

It is the end of inadequate ways of making people clean.

In the same way that the wine ran out for those gathered for the wedding, so had the rituals of Judaism come to the end of their usefulness for salvation.

Jesus, with the new wine, is the end of one way of doing things and the start of a new way..

The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is the beginning of a new way to salvation.

This story points to the end of an era and to a new revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

Within this story, however, there are other clues as to why it is positioned here, and to the significance of this story within the overall context of John’s gospel.

There are only two places in the entire gospel of John where Mary, the mother of Christ, is mentioned. Only two:

Here, at the beginning, she speaks to Jesus and he replies,

“Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?
My hour has not yet come.”

The only other place where Mary is mentioned is at the crucifixion of Jesus, at the end, where her son speaks to her from the cross, again calling her “Woman”.

Why is this so?

I believe the answer lies with Jesus’ next words to Mary at the wedding feast:

“My hour has not yet come.”

Jesus’ “hour” is when the glory of God will be revealed and that hour will not arrive until he is hung on a cross, and the salvation of humanity is not fulfilled until Jesus is revealed to be the Son of God.

Jesus understands that his glory is not to be revealed casually through some cheap miracle.

But Jesus is revealed.

Despite his protests, Mary goes over his head to the servants.

Jesus is revealed and the disciples believe in him because of this, the “first of his signs”.

There is something here for us –- something reassuring, something encouraging.

Yes, this is a miracle, and because of this miracle the disciples believe.

But what kind of miracle is this?

It’s a quiet one, an unassuming one.
Jesus goes to great lengths not to make a fuss, not to draw attention to himself.

In fact, this miracle goes almost unnoticed.

If it weren’t for his mother, the disciples and the servants, this whole episode would have gone quite unremarked.

Jesus takes that most ordinary of substances, water, and turns it into something only marginally more remarkable, wine.

There is no nature miracle, no stilling of a storm or something like it, to mark the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

There is no miraculous healing to draw the crowds to this new-found saviour.

There is no divine voice booming from heaven to command the recognition of this Jewish peasant as the heavenly Messiah.

We are drawn to belief in Christ through this very ordinary miracle –- the changing of a few litres of water into wine.

And why does Jesus perform this common miracle?

Is it too much to suggest that he does it for the “common good”?

Who benefits when Jesus turns water into wine?

Those at the party were not all disciples/believers.

It was not just the righteous sons of Israel, not just the holy, not just the deserving.

All those present were given this simple gift of wine.

They all benefited, they were all given the best that Jesus had to offer.

And so we find the theme of gifts for the common good.

The gifts of Jesus are gifts for all.

This is what Paul is driving at in the reading from Corinthians where he says: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To each . . . for the common good.

Epiphany – is the season in which we reflect on how God is revealed.

God is revealed in Jesus through this miracle and his disciples begin to believe.

God is not completely revealed: that will not happen until Jesus is crucified and then rises again.

God is revealed for a purpose: that is, for the common good, for all people.

For us, this story points to God’s involvement in the very ordinary and everyday business of life. God’s desire is to be part of our ordinary and everyday lives, and that we, too, might believe in him. Jesus is Emmanuel –- God-with-us - revealed in the ordinary: water for washing, wine for drinking, friends for loving, and even comedy for laughing. Amen.

Things to come...

First of all, apologies to anyone who has been looking for new material in the last few weeks. For a variety of reasons, I haven't managed to post anything since December. However, normal transmission looks set to resume in the near future.

Please note that at the bottom of each post, there is an icon for comments. I would love to have feedback on anything that appears here on this blogspot, so please feel free...

2007 is shaping up to be an interesting year! Lots of things to explore and discover on the journey of faith. May you feel the closeness of the incarnate God with you each step of the way.