The story as traditionally given is known even to most Sunday School children. Isaiah of Babylon had prophesied that God would soon return the exiles living in Babylon to their homeland of Judah. When Cyrus of Persia defeated the Babylonian armies about the year 540 B.C., he issued an edict that said that conquered peoples would be restored to their homeland. Cyrus had a different foreign policy than did the Babylonians. The Babylonians took conquered people into exile in and near Babylon. Cyrus thought they would be more manageable if they were to return to their religious, cultural, and natural roots. He permitted them to go home. He even arranged for them to go home. A small group of the Jews returned to Jerusalem.

Fast forward now about one hundred years. Nehemiah, a Jew, is living in the capital city of Persia. Nehemiah is cupbearer to the Persian emperor Artaxerxes; in this role he has to taste all the wine delivered to the Emperor to make certain it is not poisoned. Nehemiah receives a message that the people in Judah were living in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem had been broken down a century before, and its gates had been destroyed by fire. In other words, the people of the city are defenseless before their enemies. Nehemiah persuaded the king to permit him to return to Jerusalem in order to rebuild its walls. The Emperor granted the request, and very shortly Nehemiah was in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem was not a pretty sight. Its gates were torn down. The mess was so tangled that Nehemiah could not get the animal he was riding through some of the gates to the city. He told the officials in Jerusalem what he intended to do. The people joined in. They rebuilt the Sheep Gate, the Fish Gate, the Old Gate, the Valley Gate, the Fountain Gate, the Horse Gate, the East Gate, and the Dung Gate, and they rebuilt the walls between the gates.

Not everyone in the vicinity was happy with this. Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite and the local Arabs were incensed. If Jerusalem was rebuilt, they would lose their access to it. "What are these feeble Jews doing?" they asked. "Will they restore things? Will they sacrifice? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubble, and burned ones at that?" Tobiah made light of their work: "If a fox goes up on that wall they are building, he will break down their stone wall!" As the work progressed, however, the enemies became increasingly angry, and they plotted ways to destroy the wall. From that day forward, half the Jewish workers held tools of construction, and the other half held spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. Even the workers worked with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. In fifty-two days, they finished the rebuilding of the walls.

It was time now for the reading of the Law. The law had not been read in Jerusalem since the time of Jeremiah, a century and more before. Every seven years after 621 B.C., when the law was found in the temple and read to King Josiah, all the people had gathered together to hear the Law read. Once after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 it had been read. But that custom had stopped. Now it would be read again. Ezra the scribe would be the reader.

The law that King Josiah had heard had been changed during the time of exile. King Josiah heard the Book of Deuteronomy, or a portion of it. During the exile the Law, the Torah, the Five Books of Moses had been fleshed out. The stories of Genesis and Exodus were added to Deuteronomy. The strict laws of Leviticus were compiled, edited, and added to the finished product. Additions were made to the Book of Deuteronomy, and these Deuteranopic scribes edited the other four books. To all was added the stately account of creation: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It was an impressive work in this finished form, this Torah of Moses.

In the seventh month the people gathered at the Water Gate in Jerusalem. Ezra stood on a wooden pulpit that had been made for the purpose. When he opened the book, the people stood. Ezra blessed the Lord. The people responded "Amen and Amen," lifting up their hands and bowing their heads with their faces to the ground. Ezra read from the book of the law, all day he read. Ezra read from the Hebrew Bible. The people spoke Aramaic. Levites scattered among the people helped the people bridge this language gap, until all could clearly understand what had been said.

The people had two reactions as they heard the reading. At first they mourned and wept. They had not kept the Law, and God must be angry with them. But Ezra, and the Levites, said to them, "Be quiet, for this day is holy. Do not be grieved." And the people feasted with great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were read to them. Joy over the rediscovery of the Teaching of God, the Torah, is an apt summary of what occurred that day.

But this reading of the Law also caused the people of Judah to separate themselves from former friends. No longer would they choose foreign wives for their sons, nor give their daughters to foreign husbands. Those who had married wives and husbands who were not truly Jewish had to divorce them. No foreigner was to be allowed to worship and sacrifice in the Temple of God. It was a new and exclusive Judaism that emerged from Nehemiah's return to Jerusalem and Ezra's reading of the law.

These two men bequeathed a huge problem to Christian people. How shall we view the writings that make up the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments? Many ways of doing this have been put forth in the history of Christianity, from the first day until now.

The Christians who followed James the brother of Jesus saw the law as good and Jesus as fulfilling the law. "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets," they remembered Jesus as saying. "I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. Till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all has been accomplished. . . . Whoever does these commandments and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Mark's Gospel presents a slightly different picture. Mark wanted to know what is the greatest commandment. He remembered Jesus as saying, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

The Jesus of the Gospel of John has a different opinion on the Word of the Lord. "In the beginning was the Word," said John's Gospel. "And the word became" -- not a book, not a precept, but a person. "The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. The law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Even ethics in John centers around the person of Jesus. John does not say "Love the Lord your God." His Jesus says, "Love one another as I have loved you."

Later interpreters differed in their understanding of the place of the books of the Old and New Testament. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the later fifth and early sixth centuries, said "Love God, and what you will, do." In other words, the books of the Scripture are to teach us to love God. Loving God we can do what we honestly will to do. Martin Luther, a millennium later, said that the Law teaches us what our sins are and that we should confess our sins. John Calvin found a more positive place for the law. After we are saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he said, we should look to the law for positive direction for our lives. "Christians," he said, "do not steal, do not cheat, do not kill, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother, worship the Lord your God." So the problem that those ancient Jews faced by the Water Gate so long ago is brought home to us: Do we weep for our sins as the law of God is read to us, or do we rejoice that God has favored us with a written record of God's activity among us, a record that requires us to carry out all our actions in a manner that is pleasing to God?

PSALM 19: This psalm is a composite of two earlier psalms. The first is found in verses 1 through 6. This psalm uses the word "el" for God, which indicates that it was written before David came to the throne of Israel. The second psalm, verses 7 through 14, was written much later, maybe as late as the time of Ezra when people were extolling the virtues of the law that Ezra had fastened down upon the restored people of Judah. This fused psalm becomes our reading for the day, because it is related to the giving of the commandments to Moses. While the two psalms were composed at widely different times, together they express the conviction that the law of Israel is no less a marvel of divine creation than is the majestic order of the planets and the stars.

The law, says the psalmist, is perfect. It is sure, right, pure (the original word means "shining"), clean, and true. It revives the soul, rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, endures forever and is righteous altogether. Such a law is more to be desired than the finest gold, sweeter to the taste than the sweetest honey. Such is Judaism's appraisal on its sacred law.

On the other hand, this law can be a fearsome thing. The psalm warns that failure to keep the law is ever at hand. It reminds that faults hidden from the mind of the one who does them may cause one to break the law. It requires that we shun the company of those that have divorced themselves from God's ways. We cannot see all our errors. We are prone to presumptuous sins. The law must be tempered with prayers for forgiveness. Such are the thoughts of this pious psalmist as he meditates upon the law.

The first psalm (1-6) draws upon the experience of looking up into the heavens. All mideasterners did this; they had an unobstructed view of the heavens stretching beyond the deserts surrounding them. As Rene Pascal wrote, (Pensees 243 [Dillenberger, OT and Christian Faith, 164]) "The heavens declare the glory of God" - they do not argue it or try to prove God's greatness from it.

"Day to day utters speech." J. R. P. Sclater (IB4:102-103, 1955 edition) points out that for the Hebrew "each day had a life of its own and is pictured as coming forth from its dwelling to play its part at the appointed time, with a primary duty of declaring to its successor that God is glorious. There is something majestic and exhilarating," he adds, "in the conception that each day is handing a trumpet to its successor to blow the same triumphant note: while as evening falls and the stars come out, each night does likewise." "Night to night declares knowledge."

The picture of the sun coming forth from its chamber (4b-5) is drawn from ancient myths concerning the sun. The sun was portrayed as an heroic runner for whom a tent is set at the western sea. From it he issues forth each morning radiant as a bridegroom, as joyful as an athlete eager to run his course. Each night he returns to his tent and into the arms of his bride to prepare himself for his journey tomorrow. Israel shared this much of the myth with its neighbors. Unlike the Egyptians, however, Israel never made a god of the sun. The sun, like everything else in heaven and on earth, has been created by God and goes forth like everything else to serve the God who is its creator.

As to the verse that says, "there is nothing hid from the heat of the sun," Sclater reminds us of its importance. We must not omit this clause, he says. "God's greatest benefit, in all its splendor, may contain death if we are presumptuous. He who boastfully would dare the sun will die. In the presence of God a man must 'cover his head,' as Isaiah did in the temple. Perhaps this explains why God curtains his light; it is mercy, not aloofness, that prevents God's full glory from striking through our day. The mists of earth are necessary if we are to endure the rays of the sun. They condition even the beauty of sun-light: it is they who turn its steady, silvery strength to gold; it is through them that we obtain the glory of the sunsets. Sorrows and perplexities that seem to veil God may well be evidence of his pity: until at last we, by God's grace, become fit to see God face to face and live."

The psalmist concludes his contemplation upon the heavens and upon the law with familiar words: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."

1 CORINTHIANS 12:12-31a: This is Paul's sermon on diversity in the church. Just as God has assembled the one human body from its many parts, so has God made the body of Christ out of many diverse ways of proclaiming Christ to the world.

Corinth in itself was an extremely diverse city. It was located on a narrow isthmus that divided Athens and the northern parts of Greece from the Peloponnesian peninsula to the south. Because the trip by sea around the peninsula was both long and very dangerous, Corinth had become a trans-shipping place for the goods moving from Asia, Phoenicia, the "lands of the two rivers," and the rest of the East. The goods moving from Rome and points west also crossed at Corinth. All the tribes of the earth, it seemed, had ethnic communities in Corinth. In addition, in Corinth there were Jewish synagogues, Roman and Greek temples, shrines to Isis and Osiris from Egypt, mystery cults of every variety. With the possible exception of Rome itself, no city of the ancient world was marked with diversity more than Corinth.

To minister to this kind of cultural situation, the church in Corinth had become quite diverse. Some in the church were high-born members of the Corinthian elites. Some were freedmen, former slaves who had gained their freedom and were the artisans and shopkeepers of the society. Some were slaves at the beck and call of their masters. Different Christian groups ministered to different segments of Corinthian society. The followers of James, the so-called "Christ party," ministered to the old-line Jewish community. Apollos and his church ministered to the Hellenists, Jews who felt themselves liberated from the old ways and who spoke primarily Greek and worshiped in synagogues that used that language. Peter and his group ministered to people in Corinth who had come there from Galilee. Paul and his church ministered to Greek-speaking people who had been attracted to the synagogues but who did not want to be circumcised in order to join them, nor did they want to abide by the strict food laws to which Jewish people held. Different worship patterns had emerged from the different groups, and each group was suspicious of the ways the others worshiped. The deep and impermeable schisms in the church in Corinth were built along the fault-lines in Corinthian demography.

So Paul took on himself the almost impossible task of trying to bridge these deep divisions. The first letter to the Corinthians is a colossal attempt to bring people together once again, without destroying the diversity that God had built into their situation. Paul did it by means of the analogy of the human body.

"God gave us hands and feet, eyes and ears, public parts and private parts," Paul said, "as He put our bodies together. These parts cannot compete with one another; God has given them to us in such a way that they must work with one another. If one part of the body is in pain, the whole body is pained. If one part of the body rejoices, the whole body rejoices." In the same way, Paul implied, "God gave a ministry to the orthodox Jews and one to the Greek-speaking Jews and one to the gentiles of every persuasion. They should not compete with one another, or try to make each foot a hand, each ear an eye. They should appreciate each others' ministries. If one part does well, all parts rejoice. If one part suffers, we all suffer with them." "By one spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews and Greeks, slave and free -- and all were made to drink of one spirit," the spirit of God in Jesus Christ. (12:12-26)

In the light of this message, the divisions in the church become not barriers to ministry but enrichment of the body of Christ. "To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good" (12:7). In the church there are gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, said Paul (12:8-11). No one of you has them all, but together they manifest the full spirit of Christ, and the church is enriched through each gift. There are varieties of gifts, there are varieties of service, there are varieties of working. But the same spirit, the same Christ, the same God gives them all. (12:4-6)

We can only wonder at the broad and deep spirit of the Apostle Paul who can subscribe to a position like this. The contemporary Christian Church can only pause in wonder before this miracle of faith.

As Paul ends this sermon, he gives us the best look we have at the organization of the church in the early 50's, approximately twenty years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ (12:27-31). The ministries of the church are set down in three unique categories.

There were ministries of proclamation: apostles, prophets, teachers. Apostles have been called by Christ to travel from place to place to present the message and to found congregations. "Prophets" are not the Old Testament variety, but persons attached to a congregation or to a set of congregations (as the Seer John was in the Roman province of Asia) or perhaps merely free-lancing, to bring a new and convincing message about Christ. "Teachers" were attached to local congregations, and may have been drawn from that congregation, to teach about Christ.

There were ministries of support. The word Paul uses here can be traced to the Egyptian papyri, and it has to do with succor of the people and defense of them again outside attacks. Paul refers to these as "workers of miracles, healers, helpers." Such people stand forth within every congregation, and they bring to one another the necessary love of Jesus Christ that holds the Christian community together in times of anxiety and grief.

There were ministries of direction. Behind the word "administrators" lies the picture of "steering a ship." These persons plot the course and see that the congregation holds fast to it. "Speakers in various kinds of tongues" are the last category given. This was a phenomenon peculiar to Corinthian worship. Persons would speak out during worship. Some might cry out, "Jesus is cursed," others "Jesus is Lord." (12:3) Some might murmur and some shout out in ecstacy; others in the congregations would want to know what this murmuring and this shouting was all about. Remember, said Paul, only through the Holy Spirit can tongues be spoken or interpreted, and only through the Holy Spirit of Christ can the meaning of these murmurings be discerned. (12:10)

Now, said Paul to this diverse body that made up the church in Corinth, set this before yourselves: "You are the body of Christ, and individually you are members of it. . . . But earnestly desire the higher gifts." (12:27, 31)

LUKE 4:14-21: In this frontispiece to his gospel, Luke brings Jesus to his hometown of Nazareth and into the synagogue of his hometown. A number of things important to the understanding of this passage need to be described.

Nazareth, Jesus' hometown, probably had a population of less than 500 people. It was only three or four miles from Sepphoris, the main city of the area. This inland city had been the capital of Galilee until Herod Antipas built the city of Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee. Sepphoris was a sophisticated city. It had paved and colonnaded streets, water installations including a system of cisterns under the streets, multistoried buildings. Nazareth, like other villages in this part of Galilee, was ruled and taxed from Sepphoris. (This material is gathered in part from Richard Horsley, Archeology, History, and Society in Galilee 108-111) Strangely enough, this important city which controlled the destinies of the people of Nazareth, is not mentioned once in the New Testament.

Synagogues were places of worship in Galilee, but they were more than that. They were also marketplaces and places of meeting for political discussion. The governance of the village was carried out in the synagogues. As long as taxes were paid, the villages were not deeply scrutinized by Roman authorities. This made it easy for the synagogues of Galilee to become the places from which the revolt against Roman authority was later plotted out. The attendant of the synagogue, called the Hazzan, was a general factotum, whose duties ranged from teaching children to scourging criminals, and included that of taking the roll of scripture from the ark and returning it there. (Gilmour IB8)

Jesus came to the synagogue "as his custom was." We can take it from this that Jesus customarily sought out this Jewish place of assembly and worship; he was regular in his worship responsibilities. The phrase "as his custom was" is used only twice in the gospels, once here and once in connection with Jesus going to the Garden of Gethsemane. Both times it is used it has to do with Jesus praying. If, as I suggested above, the synagogue was the center both of religious worship and political activities, when Jesus came to the synagogue he was attending to both sets of duties.

Worship in the synagogues of Palestine consisted of a recitation from the Shema ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one"), a prayer, a fixed reading from the Law and a free reading from the Prophets. The Law, the Five Books of Moses, was read through in a period of 3 years (Gilmour IB8:90). Since there was no official minister in the synagogue, an invitation to read and preach could be extended to any member of the congregation or to any visitor.

Jesus chose as his free reading from the prophets a passage from Isaiah. This was not an easy passage to find in the scroll of Isaiah. It is found in our 61st chapter, verses 1 and 2. This means it is deep in the scroll and could only be identified as the scroll unrolled. This means to me that Jesus could read the Hebrew of the text, and this means that he was a literate person who had had considerable education in the language and ways of his people.

In Isaiah the "poor" and the "captives" included both enslaved Hebrew captives and fellow Israelites reduced to slavery through debt (Deut 15:1-2) who were to be released after 7 years. The command to let the land lay fallow every 7th year likewise served the poor (Ex 23:10-11). Already in the Ten Commandments the prohibition of theft proscribed kidnaping and selling into slavery fellow Israelites, the command of Sabbath rest pertained to slaves as well as free persons, and the first commandment implied the liberation of all Israelites. Thus Isa 61:1-2 declared God's saving will for his people and became the social basis for Jesus' proclamation of good news to the poor. (Based on Dietrich TheolZeit 41 (2-85) pp 31-43)

From this passage Jesus derives the job description for his own mission. Following Isaiah, he intended "to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." His ministry was to be one of both justice and redress in behalf of those most hurt by his society, the poor, the captives and the blind, and the oppressed whether Jew or Gentile. Martin Luther King, Jr., got it right when he preached on this passage and updated it:

The acceptable year of the Lord is any year

when men and women decide to do right.

The acceptable year of the Lord is any year

when people will stop throwing away the precious

lives that God has given them in riotous living.

The acceptable year of the Lord is that year

when people in Alabama will stop killing

civil rights' workers.

The acceptable year of the Lord is that year

when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess

the name of Jesus, and everywhere

people will cry, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

(Lischer, The Preacher King, 235-236)

Said Jesus to the people: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." To put it bluntly, Jesus was saying that today, in my ministry, the kingdom of God is active among you in a new way. "God will bring good news to the poor, God will release the captives, God will restore sight to the blind, God will set at liberty those who are oppressed. God has set me to this task, and I will accept it, come what may!"