Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 1

Advent through Transfiguration

David L. Bartlett, Barbara Brown Taylor

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781611641196
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Ministère chrétien

With this new lectionary commentary series, Westminster John Knox offers the most extensive resource for preaching on the market today. When complete, the twelve volumes of the series will cover all the Sundays in the three-year lectionary cycle, along with movable occasions, such as Christmas Day, Epiphany, Holy Week, and All Saints' Day.

For each lectionary text, preachers will find four brief essays--one each on the theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical challenges of the text. This gives preachers sixteen different approaches to the proclaimation of the Word on any given occasion.

The editors and contributors to this series are world-class scholars, pastors, and writers representing a variety of denominations and traditions. And while the twelve volumes of the series will follow the pattern of the Revised Common Lectionary, each volume will contain an index of biblical passages so that nonlectionary preachers, as well as teachers and students, may make use of its contents.

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

Nehemiah 8:1–3, 5–6, 8–10

¹All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had given to Israel. ²Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. ³He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law ⁵And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶Then Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground⁸ So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

⁹And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰ Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our LORD; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Theological Perspective

Jewish people mark the last day of the observation of Sukkot, or Feast of Booths, with the celebration known as Simchat Torah—Rejoicing in the Torah. That day ends the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah in the synagogue, and the people read the opening of the book of Genesis to begin the process again. As the name of the festival suggests, the events reflect great joy that God has given the law to Israel.¹Some Christians may find that an odd practice, given the traditional idea in Christianity that the gospel supersedes the law, but perhaps a more positive view of the law is in order. This story of the reading of the law upon the return of the people from the Babylonian exile may help Christians recapture an appreciation for the law and remind them that the law is a gift from God.

The church has long recognized the importance of a natural law that all people know through the conscience. Among the many reasons to acknowledge the presence of that law, one of the most compelling for Christians is Paul’s observation in Romans 2:15 that “what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness” Clearly, a sense of right and wrong is important to human beings as they live together in community. Most people can agree on that, and such natural law was never the meaning of “law” that the church—not even those Reformation giants Martin Luther and John Calvin—rejected.

What they rejected is called the “moral law,” that is, the Torah given to Israel or any other set of works designed to make a person righteous. The problem with the moral law is that the human bent to self-reliance may lead one to think that she can achieve salvation through observing it. The reformers charged the church with teaching such a doctrine, and so wrote vehemently against the moral law. Even so, they did not embrace a completely negative understanding of the law, for it retained helpful purposes.

Both Luther and Calvin held that the Word of God is partially made known in the law, for it contains God’s eternal will for creation and is a gift of love. As such, the law serves a dual role. First, the law restrains evil in the world and preserves order (this especially applied to the social realm through the rule of government). That is, the law serves as a deterrent to wrongdoing and, failing that, punishes the transgressor through its application by proper authorities. Second, the law exposes sin in the world and the life of the believer. This is how the law becomes perceived as the wrath of God. So wrote Paul: “Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.…. [A]nd I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me” (Rom. 7:7, 10). One might call these two purposes of the law negative; that is, they show our weakness and improper relationship with God and neighbor but do not correct them.²

John Calvin had a third, positive use of the law that may help Christians identify more closely with the reading from Nehemiah. In Book 2.7.11 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin referred to the law as a “tutor,” commenting on Galatians 3:24, in which Paul calls the law paidagōgos (custodian, or guide, the term used for an adult assigned to assist a child into adulthood in Greek society). The law is a teacher, preparing believers to understand God’s will once we receive saving grace in Christ Jesus—the “best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord’s will to which they aspire, and to confirm them in the understanding of it.”³No longer need the law scare or condemn those in Christ, for it now becomes our helper. Believers see the law for the gift—the revelation of God’s will—that it is and rejoice.

Returning to Nehemiah, the reader sees among the people a pattern similar to the one outlined above. Ezra, who has returned from exile with the “book of the law of Moses” (v. 1), stands before the people of Israel and reads it to them. Notice that the peoples’ first reaction to the law is to cry out in repentance for their sin: “‘This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law” (v. 9). However, beyond that initial reaction comes the realization of the law as the revelation of God to the people for their benefit, not their condemnation. They are told to celebrate: “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine… and do not be grieved” (v. 10). Verse 12, beyond the lectionary selection, says the people did eat and drink and made “great rejoicing.” Simchat Torah!

Christians, then, while denying the law or any system of works as a way to salvation, can embrace the law for the purposes it serves: restraining evil, convicting of sin, and aiding our understanding of God’s will. Because we know the law as gift from God, we understand that the entire law can be summarized positively as loving God and loving one’s neighbor. Christ becomes for us not the rejection or abrogation of the law but its telos, or fulfillment. No longer can Christians, as we are prone to do, simply think of the OT as containing the law and, therefore, telling of a God of judgment, while we now worship a God of love and mercy. The law remains, in a sense, in the gospel, and it continues to serve us. In that we can rejoice.

RICK NUTT

1. For a quick description of the festival, see “Simchat Torah,” in Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem, Israel: Keter Publishing House, 1971), 14:1571–72.

2. See Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 251–55, for a summary of Luther’s understanding of the law.

3. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 360.

Pastoral Perspective

While the Bible is full of sermons, prophetic speeches, and prescriptions about how worship of God should take place, it is relatively rare to get a picture in the Scriptures about how worship actually takes place. On this Third Sunday of Epiphany, we get two such glimpses, in Nehemiah 8 and Luke 4. Nehemiah 8 in particular is rich in possibilities for teaching and preaching about worship. It is also a text to be considered by anyone who plans a worship service.

What do we learn about worship here?

First, worship is something that all of the people of God do together. “All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate” (v. 1). The place is significant; the square in front of the Water Gate was a place where everyone could be present, even those who were ritually unclean. In verse 3, the author of Nehemiah is explicit that Ezra spoke to a gathering that included men, women, and children “who could understand” The unity of God’s people is emphasized by the number of times that “all” appears in this text and by Ezra’s instructions to the people as they leave: those who have brought food and drink are to share them with those who have brought nothing (v. 10). Nehemiah 8 brings to mind the admonitions for inclusivity in passages such as Deuteronomy 12:12 and 14:26–27.

This passage speaks a countercultural word to the individualistic West. While private spiritual disciplines and practices are important, there is no substitute for God’s people gathering together to worship. As someone has said, there are many things we can do on our own, but being a Christian is not one of them. Together, we are the body of Christ. In our life together, we should seek to share and to be inclusive, so that all parts of the body feel welcomed and valued.

Second, the people know that they have entered the presence of the living God. The people do not ask Ezra to speak about God. They ask him to read the Word of God. When Ezra opens the Torah, he prays, and the people prostrate themselves with their faces to the ground in response to God’s living presence.

God is not just the object of our worship; God is also the subject our worship, the living, Holy One whom we encounter in our worship. Does our worship convey that? We may well work hard to express through our worship the friendliness, hospitality, and grace of God’s immanence. Do we work equally hard to convey the holiness of God’s transcendence, that is, “the awesomeness of God… the overpoweringness of God… the energy and urgency of God … the mystery of God… and the fascination of God?”¹

The writer Annie Dillard colorfully describes what worship might look like if we approached it as the people in Nehemiah 8 did:

Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?… It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.²

Third, the worship led by Ezra centers on the Word. Worship in Nehemiah 8 is simple and straightforward: Ezra steps up on a wooden platform made for the occasion and reads directly from the Torah. Then, certain named Levites present with Ezra interpret the Scriptures, either by translating the Hebrew into the Aramaic language more commonly spoken by the people or by explaining the sense of the Torah to the people, passage by passage.

Much has been written in recent years about the need for “seeker-friendly” churches and the importance of applying marketing principles to understand a congregation’s “targeted audience.” To be sure, good preaching and good pastoring require that the Scriptures read in worship are translated and interpreted with words that the people of God can understand. Good preachers and pastors also seek to understand the questions and concerns of their people. But there is great danger if we lose sight of the primacy of the Scriptures in worship. As William Willimon has pithily put it: “At the heart of preaching is either a God who speaks, and who speaks now… or preaching is silly.”³

Finally, what we see in Nehemiah 8 is worship that transforms lives. After Ezra completes his reading, all of the people weep (v. 9). Why? We are unsure. Perhaps they are overcome with regret for the loss of the Torah during the exile. Perhaps they have been reminded of how far short their actions have fallen from God’s expectations of them. Or perhaps their tears are tears of joy, for the recovery of the Torah and for a sense of God’s abiding presence and providential care.

God’s Word can do all of that, because the Scriptures give us a lens to look at this world and our lives through God’s eyes. We are reminded of God’s presence and love when we otherwise might feel alone and abandoned; we are pierced with words of judgment when we might otherwise be puffed up with arrogance and self-satisfaction.

When we gather together as God’s people, when we are conscious of coming into the presence of the living and holy God, when we center our worship on God’s Word, when we offer all of ourselves to God, we cannot help but be changed over time. We gather to give glory to God and to have God make a difference in us so that we can be sent to make a difference in God’s world. When all of that happens, we have reason to follow the example of the people on this special day in Nehemiah 8 who ate and drank together and made “great rejoicing” (v. 12).

W. CARTER LESTER

1. Albert Curry Winn, A Christian Primer: The Prayer, the Creed, the Commandments (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), 37–38.

2. Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 40–41.

3. William Willimon, Proclamation and Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 2.

Exegetical Perspective

Ezra and Nehemiah preside over a community in severe conflict, dispute, and fragmentation. The book tells about returnees from exile in Babylonian, led by Nehemiah and Ezra among others, who attempt to rebuild Jerusalem and restore Judah as a worshiping community. The future of the people is in serious doubt. Enemies attack from outside, but even more disruptively internal disagreements threaten to undermine the community’s future. The people form factions arguing about who is in and who is out, who should govern, how the temple can be rebuilt, how Jerusalem can be reestablished in safety and peace.

The question of whether or not the Jews can revivify life together and reclaim their identity as a worshiping people is an urgent matter of life and death. Like all communities that undergo military invasion and cultural breakdown, their identity has come unraveled. To rebuild their faith and their cultural life requires recovery of their pre-Babylonian worldview, yet they must reimagine it for the new situation, because their history has undermined their faith. Ezra and Nehemiah’s actions in today’s reading provide one way the community can reestablish itself in continuity with the past and in unity and hope for the present. Although today’s passage looks like a factual account of a worshiping assembly, it is a highly symbolic narrative, dividing into three closely connected parts: Ezra Reads Torah (vv. 1–2); The Whole Community Assents to Torah (vv. 3–8); The People Celebrate Torah on a Holy Day (vv. 9–10).

Ezra Reads Torah (vv. 1–2). The passage makes a deliberate effort to present Ezra as a new Moses who reestablishes the Torah. The Torah is the law of Israel, found in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. It is not primarily a legal system but instruction about how to live as God’s covenant community. After the people have settled in towns, they gather in solemn assembly at one of Jerusalem’s city gates. The gates of a city are significant in the ancient world, because they are places of deliberation and judgment. The assembly commands Ezra the scribe to bring the book of Torah before them. Ezra, now identified as priest, brings the book before everyone, “men and women and all who could hear with understanding” (v. 2).

The Whole Community Assents to Torah (vv. 3–8).

The text ties this solemn event to history by reporting date and time. On “the first day of the seventh month,” Ezra began reading the Torah early in the morning and did not finish until noontime. Meanwhile all the people—identified again as men, women, and everyone who could understand—were “attentive to the book of the law” (v. 3). The narrative takes every opportunity to underscore the unanimity of the people in responding to Ezra’s reading.

The lectionary omits two verses (vv. 4, 7), probably because they list names of attendees who might hold little interest for modern readers. But for the Jews, these lists have immense importance, because they name witnesses and supporters of Ezra present at the reading. Although the reading seems to be over in verse 5, the text revisits it, as if it has not yet happened. Ezra proclaims the Torah like Moses. He does not speak from Sinai but from a platform raised above the people (v. 4), a point reiterated, “for he was standing above all the people” (v. 5). The phrase “all the people” appears three times in this verse to emphasize that Ezra oversees the renewal of God’s covenant with all Israel.

The renewal ceremony comes to a climax when “all t...