By: Francis X. Clooney, SJ
Sunday church services are built around the Word of God, its proclamation, our hearing it and sharing it, then taking it home with us. Or so we say, and so I imagine, week after week in my parish. But how often does the Word change anything, make a difference? Sunday, January 26 gave us powerful examples of the Word alive and powerful, inconveniently changing the lives of those who hear it. At my parish Mass that weekend, I attempted to show how the Word can do its work when welcomed, when denied.
In the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, when the people had come back to Jerusalem from exile, the Word proclaimed — probably the Book of Deuteronomy — was a lifesaver, their reconnection to the earlier way of life and practice of their ancestors. We heard words from Nehemiah 8:
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…. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. (Nehemiah 8:1-2, 5)
They listened to the Word earnestly: from dawn to noon, as they stood and listened, prostrated themselves, wept – helped them to find their way again as God’s people. The result is extraordinary:
Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’, lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground… And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ (6, 9-10)
Full expositions of the Word; respectful standing, listening, prostrations, weeping; even sharing what one has in joy, despite all that has happened — an astonishing instance of the Word proclaimed and lived.
The Gospel, from Luke 4, gives us a first glimpse at the preaching of Jesus in the Gospel according to Luke. A dutiful pious Jew, he does to the synagogue on the Sabbath, is asked to read and preach. He chooses to read from the scroll of Isaiah (c 62):
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. 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 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.’ (Luke 4.16-19)
The message is beautiful, reaching right into the heart of Jewish faith and Spirit-guided work; Jesus sees it as defining his mission — and thus too setting a path for Christians too. He goes further with the abrupt conclusion, that now is the time when all this must come true:
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ (Luke 20-21)
Jesus amazes them, with his daring claim that the word — the Word — is this day fulfilled. Amazed, they are then distressed, annoyed — who does he think he is? — and so Luke 4 will end with his own neighbors trying to kill him (as we heard on February 2). We cannot say that he failed to reach his audience: rather, he was too much for them, and they were scandalized by the immediacy of a word that is not forever postponed, but for now.
Now: an excellent reminder of the power of the Word properly proclaimed now is the sermon preached by Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Anglican bishop of Washington DC, at the customary January 21 day-after-the Inauguration service duly attended by Mr. Trump and his family and associates. She called for unity and community, and for the cultivation of respect for the dignity of every person, honest, and humility as necessary for a community that would escape — words that need to be heard if America is to be great again. But her sermon caught fire when she then went on to say:
Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.
And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in our poultry farms and meat-packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shift in hospitals – they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.
Have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. Help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.
Strong words — not policy, not of the right or the left, but rather an appeal for charity and mercy founded in a Gospel that is committed to solidarity with victims, the homeless, the imprisoned, the refugee. Ours is a Gospel that does bless leaders, but just as surely holds accountable anyone who would claim to be a Christian, particularly in positions of power. As Matthew puts it, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
At Sunday’s Mass my point was not simply to extol the readings from Nehemiah and Luke, or to point out how well Bishop Budde’s homily shows us how the Word ought to chasten, challenge, purify what we do today. I wanted to make the point that every week, all the time, we need to return to the deep well of the Word of God, in what we hear, read, preach, enact — if we are to find the energy to gather the people, restore the nation, tell and do the truth in a time when our real national emergency is a lack of the compassion that must necessarily temper the work of justice.
Francis X Clooney, SJ, is a Roman Catholic priest who has been a member of the Society of Jesus for 55 years. He is a Professor of Comparative Theology at the Harvard Divinity School. He also serves regularly in a Catholic parish on weekends. His blog can be found at https://projects.iq.harvard.