Homily for the Week of January 27, 2013

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2013 Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 · 1 Cor 12:12-30 · Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21 One of the words most of us have identified with prayers and hymns and with church is the world AMEN. The word ''amen'' is derived from the Hebrew verb aman meaning to accept. It is best translated as so be it. It means that we agree with what has been said. In the Old Testament its primary use is to indicate that the one who says Amen! agrees with what has been said by another. Today in our first reading we hear this word uttered by the people as they listen to Ezra read from the Torah or the First five books of the what we call the Old Testament. After he has finished reading they all agreed with Ezra by shouting: Amen, amen!' At this time Ezra was with Nehemiah, the leader of Jerusalem,. Nehemiah was a Jew who had been a cup bearer for King Cyrus of Persia. A cup-bearer was a person who tasted beverages to see if they were poisoned. Cyrus had defeated Babylon and in so doing decided to end the Jewish captivity in Babylon. The background for the first reading is inspiring and instructive. The event described by Ezra took place right after the most traumatic experience in Jewish history: their exile to Babylon. They had been broken up and dispersed as a people. They lived away from their home for 40 years. Then their exile came to an end because the Persians let them go. Cyrus sent Nehemiah back to Jerusalem as governor to rebuild Jerusalem, and he sent the priest Ezra back to rebuild the Temple. With the rebuilding of the Temple, Ezra saw that the people needed to recommit themselves to the Lord. They had grown lax in faith and in their response to God. Prior to the Babylonian Exile, much of the Torah remained in its oral form. During the Captivity, the Torah was set into written form. At this assembly, the people begged that the Torah be read to them. Ezra read from the Torah for six to seven hours, translating it from Hebrew into Aramaic and explaining its meaning as he read. (He had to translate it because while in captivity the people ceased speaking Hebrew and instead spoke Aramaic, the language of Babylon.) Jesus knew about that event. What Ezra did is what we observe Jesus doing in the synagogue in today's passage from Luke. Jesus wanted to united the Jewish people again and wants to tell them what is right and what is wrong because they had gotten away from doing good. So he starts reading to them from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah had a special view of the law. By the time of Jesus the Jewish people had obeyed the law for 500 years. Jesus not only reads to them but also interprets the reading and applies it to their lives. He tries to make the words understandable and they all listen and looked intently at Him because they hungered for what he had to say. They needed a word of hope, and Jesus turned ancient words into hope. So when Jesus reads from Isaiah he reads the part about the glad tidings for sinners. Jesus indicates that he came to rehabilitate sinners. Sinners were those who could not, for one reason or another, obey the law. Jesus announces the new law. This new law forgives sinners, releases captives, heals the sick and announces a year of favor, a new millennium. Certainly another great reason for having a party. Listen to the gospel again. This time it is not Jesus who unrolls the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, but you. All eyes are on you as you announce that the Spirit of the Lord is upon you and that you have been anointed to teach, to preach, to heal, and to set free. And you announce that the Scripture is being fulfilled even as you speak. You announce this because it is the truth. When you feel spiritual dry, empty, try to nourish yourself and give yourself spiritual energy by reading for yourself the story of our gift of faith. When we read our faith story we realize who we are. We aren't Catholics or Christians because of a moral code or a set of laws. We are Christians because we believe in what Jesus taught us, how to live it. Our story is also one which brings us out of exile into the wonderful presence of God and Jesus. In many ways, the hardest place to bear witness to God is in our daily lives, among people who know us, warts and all. Jesus chose his home town of Nazareth to proclaim who he was. Our witness, if it is to be effective, must start with the people of our own community, our own town, our own family. That is where we find God and where we are called to give witness to God--among the people who make up our daily lives now. Anything else is unreal. Jesus said: "this text is being fulfilled... even as you listen." It was being fulfilled through him, through the kind of person he was. The challenge for us is to fulfil that teachings of Jesus today, to make them real, to live them out. Let us try to be like Christ, and bring joy and life to the people we are sent to. May that be the lasting impression we make on the world around us.