January 24, 2016 sermon: With Jesus In The Centre

… all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

(Nehemiah 8:1-3)

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     I don’t know how many of you were aware of it, but this past week, lasting from Monday until today, was The Week Of Prayer For Christian Unity. It’s an annual and international event, almost always the third week in January, that’s jointly organized by the World Council of Churches and The Vatican, and its purpose, I think, is self-explanatory. It’s to take time - at least for a week - to remember the prayer of Jesus in John 17 that all of his disciples may be one. When I served in Port Colborne, this was a big event. Most of the churches in the community took part in it. One church was chosen to host services every day from Monday to Friday at noon, followed by a soup and bread lunch. Different preachers offered the message every week. We had Protestants and Catholics, and Presbyterians and Pentecostals and Baptists and United Church folk involved. I had the opportunity to preach at the services a few times over the 11 years I was there, and it was always a very meaningful thing to see a diverse cross-section of Christians set aside their denominational differences and simply come together as one to celebrate what’s really important - their faith in the one who transcends all those differences - Jesus Christ himself. I was a little sad to do some checking on the internet and not see anything much being done about the Week Of Prayer in the Pickering-Ajax area. And yet, in a weird sort of way, as much as I enjoyed the services it also saddened me a little bit that we have to set aside a specific week to celebrate Christian unity, after which those who take part in the event still have a tendency to retreat back behind their own walls, as if they and they alone know what it is to be a Christian. And, in the midst of doing some reflection of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - lamenting both its absence here but also its need anywhere - I found that this reading from Nehemiah was in the lectionary for this week.

     Nehemiah? Really? Nehemiah? Nehemiah lived hundreds of years before Jesus was born; centuries before there was any such thing as a “Christian” - never mind any concerns about Christian unity. What in the world could Nehemiah possibly have to say about Christian unity? And then I read these three verses. And I saw it. You see, the Bible is always about Jesus. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Old Testament or the New Testament. The Bible is always about Jesus. You just have to have eyes to see and ears to hear - and if you do, you’ll see Jesus and hear Jesus coming from the most obscure and little known texts. Even from Nehemiah.

     Nehemiah lived during the time of the Jewish exile in Babylon. As many Jews did, he rose to a position of great prominence, and actually became a trusted servant to the King of Persia, as Babylon came to be known, and he was sent by the king to Judah as the governor, with instructions to supervise the rebuilding of the great temple of Jerusalem. This was seen by the Jewish people as a culmination of all that they had hoped for; the rebuilding of the temple, it was believed, would bring forth the Messiah. For decades the Jewish people had been forbidden to practice their religion openly, and - with that background to put it into context - what we read in today’s passage from Nehemiah was the first time that the Book of the Law of Moses had been opened and read in the eighty years since Judah had been conquered. And you can see the response of the people: they all gathered together, and they were attentive to what they were hearing. This was God’s Word - silenced for eighty years, suddenly being offered to them. Had we read on in the Book, we would have discovered that the people were so overwhelmed by hearing these words that they cried in joy. That’s the effect of the Word of God - it brings God’s people together; it gives God’s people a focal point to gather around. Nations have their flags; the people of God have the Word of God.

     And this relates to Jesus because Christians believe that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, as John’s Gospel tells us - the Word of God perfectly lived out in a human life. For Christians, more than the Bible Jesus is the centre of our faith; Jesus is the one around whom we gather. We gather as Christians with Jesus in the centre, and everything we do, everything we say, everything we believe revolves around him. And we gather together today around Jesus, who is right here in our midst, as he promised - “whenever two or more gather in my name, I am there among them.” And I hope that, like the Jews of Nehemiah’s and Ezra’s time were to the Book of the Law of Moses, we’re attentive to the presence of Jesus, listening for him, listening to him, being moved by him - and, who knows, maybe even (now and then) being moved to tears.

     Last week, as I said, was “The Week Of Prayer For Christian Unity.” Our bulletin cover today is using the logo for the Week of Prayer - with outstretched hands coming together around the cross of Jesus. That’s a great symbol for a church gathered together with Jesus in the centre. The week kicked off last Monday, on what was also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech is all about unity; it’s about the hope of people of different races and religions being brought together, and being able to set aside their differences and unite as one. King saw that in unity there was also freedom. In fact, he believed that without unity there couldn’t be any real freedom. In the church freedom is found in Jesus. Here is the freedom to come before God not as others think we should be, but simply as we are. With Jesus in the centre, we know that we are always welcomed and accepted.