SERMON 69 - SUNDAY 24 JANUARY 2016

Sermon delivered at St. Mary’s Church, West Dean , Wiltshire – Sunday 24^th January 2016

Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-2

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be a blessing to all who hear them.  Amen

Our First Reading, from Nehemiah, and our Gospel reading today have a common theme – the law. Something, which as a student of, and then a practising solicitor for over thirty years, has taken up a great deal of my life. 

I was very privileged to have been presented with my final professional certificate by the then Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, a relatively local man to this part of the world (from Whitchurch in Hampshire), who made a great name for himself in legal circles by his often unusual judgments in the Court of Appeal which grafted the rules of Equity onto the Common Law.

Our English legal system is made up of three basic strands – common law (the law of the Crown administered through the courts and producing case law), statute – laws made by Parliament and Equity – rules of fairness and justice which began their journey in the ecclesiastical courts of the Lord Chancellor (who was usually a cleric).  Indeed, the Degree of Batchelor of Law is actually Batchelor of Laws indicating the duality of our system – law and equity. Of course today we also have to add European Law and the statutory human rights legislation.

Lord Denning would take a case, consider the common law remedy and if he found it too harsh or wanting -without regard for the fairness of the situation - he would seek to provide what we lawyers call an equitable remedy - which he would deliver in a clipped judgment spoken with his soft Hampshire burr.  In simple terms, for example, if somebody stole food, then the common law would provide a remedy – say a custodial sentence. The proven act of stealing in itself leading to the common law remedy. Applying, Equity, the courts would then look at the surrounding circumstances – the fact that the accused’s family was starving and the food was taken because the Lord of the Manor refused access to a food store to his peasants – and the sentence could be revoked or changed to something less harsh. This difference between the Crown’s law and the Church’s Equity led to the dispute between King Henry II and Thomas Becket.  But the Courts of Equity had a maxim – “He comes to Equity must come with clean hands” – in other words, the person seeking an Equitable solution must themselves not be tainted or using Equity to evade their responsibilities.

In our First Reading, we are taken back to those days following the return of the Exiles to Jerusalem from Babylon to rebuild the Temple and the Walls.  Much of the book of Nehemiah is taken up with the rebuilding of the walls.  The Hebrews had been in captivity for seventy years under the control of the Babylonians influenced by their pagan worship and Ezra, the priest who had led many of them out of that captivity, felt it necessary to remind them of the Laws of Moses which God had given to him on Mount Sinai – especially the Ten Commandments.  

Many may well have forgotten the law or if they hadn’t forgotten it, then its meaning or its interpretation had become lost.  Even today, in Jewish synagogues (the word “synagogue” means place of learning) the Torah (or first five books of the Old Testament containing the law) is read out by the rabbi completely through the course of every year – a bit like our three-year lectionary cycle of gospel readings – in order to remind the Jewish congregation of the law and its meaning.  The early covenants with God made it necessary, in the eyes of the Jews, to observe the law in its entirety in order for God to bless the people.  Failure to observe the law they thought would bring about calamity and destruction – such as the Babylonian Exile itself. Over a period of time more and more complicated rules were embedded into the law and many can be read in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Some make quite humorous reading in today’s modern world. Some are quite sinister.

The interpretation of scripture is something which, today, can cause immense problems and you only have to watch some of the TV Evangelists to see some incredibly interesting and zany interpretations often connected with the “prosperity gospel”.  In theology, scriptural interpretation is called hermeneutics – something which later, as a theology student, I had to try and get my head around. It is all well and good to read scripture piecemeal, as we often do in church on a Sunday – short readings from the lectionary – but it is quite another to understand the passage within the context of the whole of the bible story and the events surrounding it. In the case of Ezra, the passage tells us that the Levites, i.e. those who are not priests but rather like us licensed lay ministers – trained and authorised to assist the priests as a holy clan – stood by to interpret the law as it was spoken out by Ezra the priest so there could be no doubt as to its meaning.

Likewise, in our Gospel reading, we again heard of the reading of scripture and its interpretation – this time by Jesus himself in his local synagogue.  This time the piece of scripture he was given to read was not from the Torah but from the prophet Isaiah where it is written:-

“The spirit of the Lord is on me,

Because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” [Isaiah 61:1-2]

Jesus’s hermeneutics is simple – this passage foretells his arrival on Earth as the Son of God and he proclaims that this piece of scripture, this prophesy, has been fulfilled that very day in the sight and hearing of the congregation.  Jesus is here, the anointed one is here, the Messiah is here.  No wonder, then, the local Nazarene congregation, local to Jesus and his family, found this so hard to believe or thought of it as blasphemy that the local carpenter’s son should make such claims. Indeed, such was the outcry that the local people sought to drive him out of the town and push him over a cliff.

It is so easy to simply read the words of scripture and not to undertake a study or reflection of them – especially how scripture interacts with our lives today or its prophetic qualities. 

I readily admit that I have to take time out to sit down and read my bible but when I do – usually first thing in the morning with a cup of tea by my bed - I find there is always something new and refreshing to discover and often a message for me for the day ahead. In particular, I find that Jesus’s wonderful interpretation of the law is so profound and wise. The bible is full of so many do’s and don’ts in the Old Testament law. The presence of these so very often goes towards people’s reluctance to read their bible or follow the Christian faith believing that being a Christian means the end of having any fun in life. Wrong!  I have lots of fun!

Jesus was at great pains to tell the Pharisees and the Sadducees that he had come not to break the law but to fulfil it – that all the laws were put in place to support the good news that is Jesus Christ – our great high priest and intercessor, the one through whom we can seek God’s forgiveness direct. The one who saved us by dying on the Cross for our sins. When asked by the teachers of the law which of the commandments was the greatest he answered that there were two – “Love your God with all your heart, mind and body” and “Love your neighbour as God loves you”.  Upon these basic precepts all other laws follows. What a simple and yet great message – I love it!  It even applies to our complicated system of English laws. The long reading out of the law in Jerusalem by Ezra could have been dispensed with and the feast celebrations referred to in Nehemiah could have commenced earlier!  But in reality how easy is it for us to obey these two short commandments?

Paul in that part of his first letter to the Corinthians, which was read to us, goes some way to giving us the answer. Basically, we can’t do it on our own - but only through the unity which is the Church. In this respect I don’t mean the church as in the building or parish but all Christ’s community of faithful disciples. We need to help each other and then we can then reach out to those who do not share our Faith and show them the love which God has shown to us.  Here today, in this building, we all have different gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit. We are not all prophets, we are not all teachers, we are not all preachers, we do not all have the gift of healing, we do not all speak in tongues or interpret tongues, but each of us does possess a gift or more likely gifts which have been given and which we need each other’s help to discern. As Paul puts it, the body needs all its different parts to help it function and Christ’s community on Earth likewise needs all those gifts collected up from all its different disciples. 

So my message to you today is how can we, as individuals, discern what gifts we have and how can we use them to fulfil the prophesies and the “law” – to love God with all our hearts and our neighbours as ourselves?  You might like to think about the community here in West Dean. Here we have a population living close to a railway and a church with great facilities. How can we, acting together as one body in Christ, show that love of God through our actions locally. We can start with much prayer asking God to show us these things.

Let us pray

Lord, there are so many things in my life that I do not understand,

So many scriptural passages which need interpreting for me

So many questions about the future that I need to ask.
What is Your plan for me?
What is the work You want me to do?

All I really know is that You love me.
Show me the road You want me to walk –
to fulfilment, to happiness, to holiness and to help me love my neighbour.

And if You are calling me to
ministry or additional duties give me the strength to say “yes”
and the grace to begin even now
to prepare myself for the challenge
of a life spent in Your service and
in the care of Your people.

I ask You this in Jesus’ Name.

  

Amen

MFB/69/23012016