St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
January 23, 2022
Year C: The Third Sunday after the Epiphany
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
Homecoming
As we continue working on the possibility of welcoming Afghan refugees here to St. Thomas’, I’ve been reflecting on what it must be like to flee one’s homeland.
What must it be like to have no choice but to seek refuge in a faraway land where people have different customs and speak a foreign language?
What must it be like to be in exile?
Have our Afghan sisters and brothers reluctantly said goodbye to their native land forever, resigning themselves to their fate?
Or, do they still harbor some small hope for a return – holding onto a dream that they will one day hear the familiar sounds and smell the comforting smells of home?
What must it be like to be in exile?
It just so happens that the experience of exile and return forms the backdrop of today’s Old Testament lesson from the Book of Nehemiah.
In the Sixth Century BC, the Babylonian Empire defeated the Kingdom of Judah. The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, including Solomon’s Temple, and drove a large number of Judeans into exile in Babylon.
Decades later, some Judeans were able to return to their wrecked homeland, a place where many of them, probably most of them, had never been.
All they knew were the homesick stories told by parents and grandparents.
Back in their homeland, under the leadership of Nehemiah, they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.
That was difficult and dangerous work, but even more challenging was the spiritual rebuilding that was required after all that time away, after living for so long among people with different customs and different gods.
We heard the beginning of that spiritual rebuilding in today’s lesson.
With the walls of the old city restored, the people ask to hear the word of God.
Hungry for God’s word, the people – men and women – all stand for six hours as Ezra, a scribe and a priest, reads the Scripture to them.
We’re told that priests make their way around the crowd, translating and explaining the unfamiliar words, helping to make sense of the old stories.
And how do the people respond?
Well, they weep.
They weep - maybe because they’ve never heard these words before, or maybe not for a long time.
They weep – maybe because they had nearly forgotten God, nearly forgotten God’s love and faithfulness.
They weep - maybe because they are just overcome by it all – overwhelmed to be back home.
That long ago day in Jerusalem, exile had finally ended.
The people had come back home, free at last.
And then in today’s gospel lesson we hear about another homecoming.
Luke tells us that Jesus has been busy teaching in the synagogues of his Galilean homeland, where he has been making a most favorable impression.
Jesus was praised by everyone, Luke says.
And now, after his successful tour, Jesus is back in his hometown of Nazareth.
And, like all pious Jews then and now, on the Sabbath Jesus is in the synagogue.
Jesus stands to read the Scripture. In this case, it’s some powerful words from the Prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I can imagine the silence and anticipation in the synagogue as Jesus recites Isaiah’s words – silence and anticipation because, yes, the congregation esteems the prophet’s words but also because the people of Nazareth have heard that Jesus, one of their own, son of Joseph and Mary, has been teaching and wowing the crowds in other synagogues, in other towns, and they wonder what will happen here at home.
And then, as “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him,” Jesus speaks for himself.
Jesus speaks about himself:
“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Without the people of Nazareth at first realizing it, Jesus has used Isaiah’s words to announce his mission.
Jesus is bringing good news to the poor.
Jesus is releasing people enslaved by the world’s forces of wickedness, restoring vision to the sightless, freeing the downtrodden, freeing them at last.
And through the centuries it has been the work of Christians to continue and extend Jesus’ mission.
In our own relatively recent history, it’s hard to think of someone who took that mission more seriously – someone who lived that mission more courageously – someone who sacrificed more for that mission - than Martin Luther King, Jr.
Last week was his birthday, of course, and every year around Martin Luther King Day he is often watered down to just a kind man who had a very nice dream.
But, of course, Dr. King was much more than a dreamer.
He made Jesus’ mission his own mission, announcing good news to the poor.
Remember, on the last day of his life, he was in Memphis as part of his Poor People’s Campaign, supporting sanitation workers who were on strike, protesting unfair wages and treatment.
Yes, like Ezra long ago, and our friend Samuel Shoemaker, and so many other holy women and men through the ages, and like Jesus most of all, Martin Luther King proclaimed God’s liberating word.
At the start of my sermon I asked, what must it be like to be in exile?
But, you know, in a lot of ways we are living in a time of exile.
The pandemic is definitely part of it, but just a part.
People all around us are living in a kind of exile – exiled from others, or at least exiled from people with different backgrounds and ideas.
People all around us are exiled from faith, exiled from the old stories that inspired and sustained our ancestors, exiled from the liberating word of God that too often is sort of kept under lock and key in churches and synagogues, exiled from the word of God that is too often distorted into a cruel message of hate.
But, I am convinced that just like the long ago people of Judah, people today really hunger for the word of God, really want to know that there is still good news for the poor and the imprisoned.
And, if they really heard the word of God – maybe if we really heard the word of God - well, there just might be a whole lot of weeping.
This exile has gone on for a long time, but I see signs that our spiritual rebuilding is underway.
Spiritual rebuilding is welcoming absolutely everyone who walks through our doors or who tunes in on YouTube.
Spiritual rebuilding is lovingly giving truckloads of help to the folks at Paul’s Place and the Community Crisis Center.
Spiritual rebuilding is bringing the word of God to anyone who zooms into a Bible Study or who joins us at noon on Wednesdays.
Spiritual rebuilding is working hard to open our church home to exiles from a faraway, ruined land – people who may very well weep at the beauty of our welcome.
So, right here and right now:
Exile is ending.
Spiritual rebuilding is underway.
The homecoming has begun.
Amen.
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