Today's readings: Nehemiah 8, 2-6.8-10; 1 Corinthians 12, 12-30; Luke 1, 1-4. 4, 14-21.
The Church seems to be a major issue for post-modern sensibilities. For some, it is an opportunity in their journey of faith; for others, an obstacle. We continue to be haunted by the question 'What model of Church' we should promote. In the Christian market we have different models of Church, of Christianity, and even different ways of perceiving our Christian presence in the world.
This was also a problem in various instances in Israel's history and at the time of Jesus. But today's readings seem to provide the remedy. The first reading recalls the return of the Jews after years of exile in Babylon. It was a sort of homecoming, but with a difference. They couldn't afford returning to Jerusalem without being transformed by the experience they had gone through. Nehemiah read the Scriptures to the people and they wept with joy.
The Gospel recalls Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth doing something "he usually did". But what he did now completely broke from the usual ritual and, having read the text from Isaiah, he was in a position to declare: "This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen". Jesus in the synagogue marks a rupture with the past.
The question 'What kind of messiah was Jesus meant to be?' was still looming when Jesus started his ministry. But the fact that he takes off from the Isaiah text about the anointing with the spirit is an unequivocal statement that his role was prophetic and that his mission was not temple-centred. The people he was to address were mostly outcasts, not found in the temple.
His message was one of freedom, very much in contrast with the prevailing religion of the priests and the scribes who sought merely to perpetuate their own power structures over the people through laws that kill rather than through the spirit that liberates and empowers.
Luke's narrative, which will accompany the Church throughout this liturgical year, will unfold this messianic programme in the stories told about Jesus and by him. Both Jesus in today's Gospel and Nehemiah in the first reading distance themselves from a dying past in order to receive the redemptive future.
Ezra, a priest, and Nehemiah, a trusted official of the Persian court, are companion books in the Scriptures and their story is one of solidarity and recommitment in a time of trial. They tell the story of the 'second exodus' of the Jews, the return to their homeland. While Nehemiah rebuilt the city wall, Ezra rebuilt the people's spirit. It was a time to renew commitment.
All over the world at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, a time which the philosopher Karl Jaspers calls "the axial age", great founders of major spiritual traditions, such as Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu and Socrates, were calling for a refounding of their traditions on more inward and moral foundations.
God is new in each moment, and each moment in our stories can be the opportune time for God's promise to be fulfilled. The time of God goes beyond our time; it is a time, as we read from Nehemiah, which is sacred, a time in which there is no reason to weep or to be mournful. It is a time when, as with Jesus in the synagogue, true liberation can be experienced the moment it is proclaimed.
The times of both Nehemiah and Jesus were marked with disillusionment and void. The remedy in both cases was the priority of the Scriptures over organised religion. In our times, it was highly significant that in October 2008, in its final message to the faithful, the last Synod of Bishops suggested reading the bible as a love letter, such that everyone reading it has the certainty that "It was written for me".
Only the rediscovery of the living Word of God can make us go back to the real source of our spiritual health.