Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 26 January 2025.
• First Reading: Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10 (The joy of the Lord is your strength)
• Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12: 12- 31 (Baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body – made up of many parts, interdependent on each other)
• Gospel: Luke 4: 14-21 (Jesus rejected at Nazareth)
It was said that in the armed forces, you could discuss anything except sex, politics or religion. I think that this was the order of importance. And it was intended to maintain the harmony of the military unit.
The same generally applied to polite society. I am not sure whether this is still the case now. Anyone been to a social occasion when a political comment was not made – and responded to?
So what about religion? This is more complicated. In a place of like-minded people with the same affiliation, then this may be acceptable. But in a mixed group? Maybe not.
So what about these religious comments: ‘It’s all about money.’ (Is it?) Or ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’ (Really?) Or ‘I blame the ….’ (You may insert the scapegoat of your own choosing).
Now the issues are a little more complicated. But then look at Ezra, the priest who had discovered a book of the law and was now about to read it to the local populace.
The people had recently returned from exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, having been released by King Darius of Persia. They were still cleaning up and rebuilding the walls, but this discovery was momentous, for it covered the relationships and loyalties of the people living together in covenant before God.
Their identity was tied up with their loyalty to and worship of God and here was a scroll of the law, recovered from the ruins.
And so they gathered to hear it: from sunrise until noon. The afternoon heat would not be a good time to ponder these things, when the people might be busier inspecting their eyelids.
And when they heard it, they were astonished – and dismayed to find how far from the requirements of the law they had been living. This was not just embarrassing but a word of deep rebuke. God was speaking to them, and it was uncomfortable listening.
And yet this was the very point when they were being told: This day is holy to the Lord, so do not mourn or weep. Go and enjoy the choice food and sweet drinks on offer.
The fact was that they were being brought back into their covenant relationship with God.
While it may be challenging, it was not a matter of despair or discouragement.
Indeed, the joy of the Lord was (and would still be) their strength. God had spoken though the scriptures and the people were found to be attentive and engaged with them.
Now look at what was happening to Jesus in His home town of Nazareth.
He had come back from His ministry around Galilee and prepared to read the scriptures in the synagogue. This time there was no novelty: more the opposite – a familiarity that bred contempt.
And His message was not one of condemnation or rebuke, but of release and a living freedom. But it would apply most to those rejected by society: the poor with no contacts or people to speak for them; those in prison, the sick and the deranged. Those with no stake in society would be the people to be most blessed by His message and ministry.
This was going to be a challenge to the local establishment. They would no longer have first call on Him. They might be expected to contribute towards the health and wellbeing of the community.
Instead of money and position doing the talking it would be the Word of God. And yes, when Jesus spoke they had better listen.
The strength of the community would be that of the community as a whole: not just the strongest, noisiest or most insistent.
And so we get to Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. They had been blessed with the release of the Holy Spirit, together with an endowment of spiritual gifts.
There were already rivalries in the way these gifts were used and to whom they had been given.
And this is where Paul explains the life of the church as the Body of Christ. They were already baptized and they were already committed in faith to Jesus Christ. And yet they were still taken with rivalries and one-upmanship. Still looking for prestige and position, seniority and status.
But that was not gong to work. The human body works as a combination of organs and senses and capabilities. When one part is in pain then the body as a whole feels it.
So how much more so when the body is spiritual in its being, and when it is inhabited by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ? His personal presence among them as He would be among all others who confessed His name?
And yet while they may rejoice in the variety of the Gifts of the Spirit, they were still immature in the Fruits of the Spirit.
Love was still a fruit to be grown within and among them, and God would move among them to prune away those parts of their lives that were not fruitful in His eyes.
And this is where we are: still needing the depth and the power and the glory of the Word of God in our lives. And still being pruned in order to me more fruitful in the things of God and in our personal qualities of life.
