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