"I, George W. Bush do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the office of the presidency of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States so help me God." And with those words it's a new world in Washington today. Oh, its been planned for over a month now but with those words a lot is going to change. Offices are cleared out and new residents move in. Key players change. Foreign dignitaries and diplomats need to establish new relationships, new procedures will come into being, and a new agenda proposed. It's a new world and all when those words were spoken. Words can do that, words can change the world. When two people stand up and say things like, "I take you as my lawfully wedded husband," a world is created that did not exist before, a world no less real simply because it came into being through words. Or someone arrives saying "Your cancer test has come back and it's negative." That's a new world, too. Or just words like, " I love you". There is no world until we find the words to make that world. By our speech we are world makers, even as in Genesis one, the creator God spoke and worlds came into being with, "Let there be light."
Our lessons today are all about worlds coming into being through the power of words, God's word given to selected audiences and then to us. Our Old Testament lesson is the account of a special event that happened in Jerusalem five hundred years before the birth of Jesus. It is a remarkable story, but one with which most of us are unfamiliar. For seventy years the Jewish people had been in captivity in Babylon, a kingdom that included most of what is now Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. All of the educated and trained people had been taken away in defeat; only the unskilled, untaught and unemployable ones were left behind. The Temple had been destroyed, and the walls around Jerusalem torn down. Over the decades of neglect and pillage the once magnificent city had been reduced to ruins. Cyrus the Great appointed Nehemiah governor of Judah, and gave him and a priest named Ezra permission to return and rebuild the city. With an act of grace, the Persian ruler permitted or commissioned a Jewish leader to lead his fellow Jews back to Palestine from exile. Details are sketchy and confused, so it is almost impossible to reconstruct exactly what happened and who was responsible. What is clear is that these two men Nehemiah and the Priest, Ezra were the prime movers behind the reconstruction. The first order of business for this new administration was to rebuild the walls and the temple. Somewhere in the process of rebuilding the temple a scroll was found, the only surviving copy of the Torah, the Law of Moses. Word got around that he had the scroll, and the people asked him to read it to them. The passage we have read today recounts this first reading of the Word of God in Jerusalem in more than 70 years.
For most of the citizens of Jerusalem, this
was their very first direct exposure to the Book of the Law; their
first hearing of the commandments of God and the emotional impact
was just too much for them. "For all the people wept when
they heard the words of the law." Why did they weep? Tears
of joy for finding a way, a purpose, for hearing again God's call
or tears of sadness for realizing how far they had strayed from
faithfulness to their God. Whatever the words did to them, it
changed their world. Things would not be the same from this point
on, once they were no people but now they were a people again,
a community called to God's mission in the world.
Paul's words to the Corinthian community were no less world creating.
We hear this message of Paul's and we imagine it being addressed
to a sort of super church--a perfect gathering of souls--an ideal
example of God's desire for a worshiping community. In fact,
the Corinthian Church was known for it contentious spirit, for
its infighting, for its fickleness in following various leaders.
Barbara Brown Taylor preaches about Paul's struggle to preserve
this fledgling early congregation. "Words were all he had
to fight back with. Words were the only strength he had left,
so he made piles and piles of them, rolling them up and pressing
them through the bars of his cell like pieces of his own heart.
On one hand it was absurd. Words to save a church from ruin?
What were words? Black marks on a sheet of paper, letters strung
together across a page, by someone tethered to his desk like an
animal in a cage.
On the other hand it was the truth and Paul knew it. The word
of God is not chained. It breaks all bonds, escapes all prisons.
It sprouts wings. It flies off the page. It creates the world,
the church, the human being as often as any of them needs creating.
The word of God is not chained. That is what Paul knew, and he
was right. Thousands of years later, against all odds, the battered
ship of the church is still afloat, and here we are still reading
Paul's letter --grimy with a thousand fingerprints reminding us
what it is to be the church, what it means to be a community called
and created by the word of God. "Now you are the body of
Christ and individually members of it. If one member suffers,
all suffer together with it, if one member is honored, all rejoice
together with it."
Even so, Jesus begins his ministry in his home territory of Nazareth
"He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah
was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where
it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
he has anointed me to bring good news ..." "Today these
words have been fulfilled in your midst." With these words
Jesus creates a world, a new world. There are those who take offense
at this world but there are those who affirm and desire to become
a part of this new world. Through these words Jesus has called
his followers into being and more than that he has given them
a mission and purpose.
President Lincoln in the depths of the Civil War visited the New
York Presbyterian Church for a mid-day service. This occasional
practice was a respite for him during the difficult days of the
horrible War Between the States. Lincoln would slip in late by
a side door and sometimes leave early without being noticed.
One day, when he and his aide visited the church, the president
lingered there in his private corner long after the other worshipers
had left. His aide finally asked, "Mr. President, what did
you think of the sermon today?" Mr. Lincoln said "I
thought it was eloquent, well thought out, and powerfully delivered"
"Then you liked it?" the aide continued trying to fill
the silence. "No. It failed." The president went on,
"It did not ask of us something great." Jesus' sermon
asks of us something great. Jesus' sermon challenges us to the
creation of a new order, a new cause, and a new purpose. Jesus'
words create a world, often in conflict with the world in which
we live, often challenged by the world in which we live.
As the new world that Paul called into being
was community, so Jesus' words tell us what that community should
be doing. In this era of mission statements could there be a
more compelling and powerful charge to our church, our congregation
and ourselves? Could there be a more appropriate challenge to
us on this annual meeting Sunday? "The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the
poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and
recovery of sight to the blind. To let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Amen.