Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
There's an old story about a couple that was walking out of church one Sunday. The wife asked the husband,
"Did you see the strange hat Mrs. O'Brien was wearing?"
"No, I didn't," replied the husband.
"Bill Smith badly needs a hair cut, doesn't he?" commented the wife.
"Sorry, but I didn't notice," her husband said.
"You know, John," said the wife impatiently," sometimes I wonder if you get anything at all out of going to church."
People get different things out of going to church, depending, it would seem, on what they expect to get when they go there.
Today's Gospel reading begins by telling us that when Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, that he went up to Nazareth - his home town - and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.
What an interesting statement. He went into the synagogue, on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.
Jesus grew up attended the synagogue in his home town - it was his habit, his practice, his custom, to worship there on the Sabbath day, and here he is, after his baptism and anointing with the Holy Spirit, here he is, after already having demonstrated his power and his righteousness, here he is, after showing through healings and teachings his connectedness to God attending weekly worship in the synagogue in his home town.
Why?
I ask this question because there are many people who claim to be connected to God, many people who say they are aware of the movement of the Spirit of God in their lives and in the world around them who do not attend public worship on a regular basis.
I ask why because there are many who claim that they can be Christians without attending Christ's church; and yet here we see that the most holy person this world has ever seen - the person who men and women of many different faiths recognize as being one of the most righteous and beautiful that history has produced - a person who had the deepest kind of prayer life and a profound intimacy with the creation - so much so that he could command storms to cease, here we see that he attended public worship that he entered the synagogue, on a regular basis.
What did he expect to find there in that experience? Surely he knew it all already?
Surely the prayers of the cantor, the psalms that were sung, the scriptures that were read, and the message of the teacher for that day were old hat to him.
Surely he could have spent the time better on the mountainsides walking and praying, surely he could have done better simply resting his tired body after a hard week of being about his Father's business...And yet he attended - he attended worship services very much like this one, week in and week out, year in and year out.
What did he get out of it?
Why did he go?
I think that there are several reasons.
The first and most basic of these is that Jesus attended the worship held each Sabbath day because it is part of what it means to keep the Sabbath Day - because it is part of what God commands us to do in the ten commandments
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work - you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
To consecrate something is to set it apart, to set it apart and to dedicate it to God.
Now we know Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man - and not man for the Sabbath, but remember in this profound reminder how Jesus did not neglect the purpose of the Sabbath Day, how he did not neglect worship and prayer and hearing the Word, how it was his custom to assemble with the faithful in the synagogue and to do there with them very much what you are doing here today with me.
Jesus most surely attended the Synagogue each week because God commands that of us all, when God commands us to keep the Sabbath holy.
But there is something more profound than even holy obedience in what I think are Jesus' reasons for attending the synagogue on the Sabbath.
His obedience to God, like ours, helps to establish a foundation upon which God can build and then inhabit the temple that is our heart and the temple that is our community of faith.
I believe that Jesus went to the synagogue to hear the Word of God, to be reminded of the Word of God, and to be recreated by the Word of God, this even though he was the Word of God made flesh!
Do you remember how Jesus tells us that we should listen to the teachings of the scribes and pharisees, even when their personal lives, their holiness, their way of doing things, are less than perfect.
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
Jesus was and is the Word made flesh - but as flesh Jesus needed, as much as you and I need, the systematic and regular reminder of what the Word tells us.
He did not allow the imperfections of those who proclaimed the word to detract him from listening to the word from their lips, nor did he allow the hypocrisy of those who taught the word detract him from telling his disciples and all who would hear him to listen to the word from their mouths.
What is the one of the big excuses that so many people who claim to be followers of Christ use when they tell us they don't need to go to church - or don't want to go to Church?
Isn't it that the church is full of hypocrites?
That one doesn't wash with Jesus.
He himself listened to the words of the Law and the Prophets from lips far inferior to his own and he urged his brothers and sisters - his followers and his disciples to do the same.
I believe that is because Jesus knew that the Word gives life no matter what container pours it out - just as water from a chipped and dented mug is as good as water from the finest crystal.
Which brings me to another reason for regularly hearing the Word of God in the company of believers - in our churches - each day.
It feeds us.
I heard a story the other day about a man who was telling a friend that he no longer saw any point in going to church - that he had heard over a 1000 sermons over the previous years and couldn't remember what any of them said.
His friend replied that over the same period he had eaten thousands of meals that had been prepared by his wife - and that he would be hard pressed to remember a single one of them - but that wasn't about to stop him from going home for supper.
God has prepared a meal for us within the bosom of the family he has given to us.
Jesus reminded the devil when he was being tempted in the wilderness that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Those words are read each week in our assemblies.
Our old testament reading this morning describes one such occasion. Actually it was a special occasion - An occasion when the Word as we now have it recorded in the scriptures was, for the first time after many years - years of exile - years of deprivation - read aloud to the people and explained as it was read.
We hear that the children of Israel mourned and wept aloud when they heard it. They mourned and wept because that Word showed them how they had departed from God's way and because it spoke to them of what they had lost or never had - and of what could be and should be.
The word convicted them - as I know it has convicted many of you at different times in your lives, causing you to weep for yourselves - and for those whom you love.
And that is good. We all need to be reminded and we all need to be convicted from time to time. We need to recall what is right and true - what leads to life - and what leads to death.
But that is not the end of the story of how the word was read to the people of Israel that day.
Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them:
"This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.",
and then Nehemiah told them
"Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."
The sharing of the Word of God in that sacred assembly may have convicted the people as they heard it but it issued then in a blessing - as does the Word today as it is read in our midst.
The word "repent" is always accompanied by the words "the kingdom of God is at hand".
The very Word that convicts us - also gives us the promise of God, the promise of God to be with those who listen to him, to forgive those who call upon him, to grant life, abundantly, joyfully, to those who take his word into them.
The word feeds us - it feeds us with that which need to live. Even when it doesn't always seem so to us.
I heard of a business man who flies every week and his frequent flyer miles are now in the millions. How often has he and his fellow passengers heard the emergency instructions by the cabin attendants just prior to takeoff? How much attention do any of us who have flown more than once, pay to the instructions?
Sometime ago he was on a flight. Just prior to landing the pilot interrupted the routine to tell the passengers that they possibly had landing gear trouble. He looked out at the approaching airport to see the fire engines assembled alongside the runway. They had to circle, dump fuel and listen to emergency procedures again but this time even the most seasoned flyers paid intense attention. As the man said, "As if our lives depended on our getting them right - because they did!"
There's a parallel to our gathering in the midst of whatever journey we may be on each week.
We pause to hear God's Word and hope to hear "landing instructions". The people of Israel in our first reading, and Jesus by his example today in the Gospel reading, call us today to pay attention to the God who addresses us - it really means the difference between a life of exile or a life of meaning and community - it means the difference between being fed and not being fed.
(By the way, the plane arrived safely.)
Jesus went up to Nazareth - and on the Sabbath day, he entered the synagogue - as was his custom.
I think he did this for many reasons - he did it so he might have fellowship with God, he did it to keep the commandments of God, he did it so he might be fed - so that he might be instructed and counselled.
He did it too because it made him a part of God's people, a people who were not only defined by the name they took and the law they obeyed, but by the fact that they gathered together to hear and to pray to the one who named them - the one who said that they would be his people and that he would be their God, a God who would save them from their enemies and make them a light to the nations.
On the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place 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 the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
Today the scripture is fulfilled in our hearing as well.
Christ is here, here in our church on this our Sabbath Day to bring to our poor good news, to proclaim freedom to those of us who are enslaved, to bring sight to those of us who are blind, and to release those of us who are oppressed - those of us - and those in the world around us.
You came today - as is the custom of many - if not all - of you. Glory be to God for that.
Listen now in your hearts to what God wants to say to you....
Listen now for what God want to tell us all...
Praise God for giving us this day... This time... this gathering of his people...
Hear what God is saying....
And make your prayer to God.... even as I pray now - and we all pray in the moments to come.
May His name be praised day by day. Amen!
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