Luke 4:14-21; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31; Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Today’s meditation can be easily named division versus unity, because we find this struggle in all our readings. Let us see. In our gospel, Jesus is in Nazareth the town where He grew up; He is worshiping in the same Synagogue where he and his family did for many years. Most of the people, if not all, know him. And that day, right before them, He took the scroll of Isaiah and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
With this reading Jesus laid down his ministry before his community. His ministry is a ministry of unity; he came to bring back those who were rejected and persecuted by society. He came to proclaim the gospel, the good news to the poor, the prisoners and those called outsiders. Jesus came to a much-divided society with a message of unity and reconciliation. That unity and reconciliation was possible only with the Spirit of the Lord not only on Jesus, but also on His followers… and Pentecost made it possible.
We did not include the whole story. Luke says that they were amazed with what Jesus said. However, when he told them about God loving others who were non-Jews, like the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian.” that God help even when Israel had widows in need and man with leprosy, those who were amazed with his words tried to kill him. Jesus’ message of love and unity, his message of reaching for those in the periphery of society offended many.
In the context of Nehemiah’s ministry, we also find division. In this pericope(i) we have two groups. One is the group of those who did not go to Babylon and stayed in Jerusalem. They were mixed with people from other countries brought by Nebuchadnezzar. They were called Samaritans, half breed Hebrews. They wanted to participate in rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple and were not allowed.
The other group were those who came back from exile. Those who came back from Babylon claimed to be pure breed and they looked down on the others because they were not like them and did not allow them to be part of the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Besides this division, we find another one. You see, among those who came back from Babylon there were people taking advantage of their own brothers. They were lending money with high interest; they were taking the fields of their brothers, and also their daughters and sons as slaves.
What did Nehemiah do to bring unity to this divided nation? This is what we read in Nehemiah, “The priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding …and He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday… and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.” 8:2-3. Nehemiah continues saying “For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. 10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah found unity in the written word of God and Nehemiah invited them to practice what they heard, “Go and send some to those who have nothing prepared”, in other words go and be one with those in need. Go and feel what they feel.
Nehemiah proclaimed unity by the practice of the law; Jesus proclaimed unity by the power of the Spirit of God on Jesus and on the church. Unity is the message we got from the Bible this Sunday; God knows we need this message. Nowadays, our country and our world remain torn by separation. We are divided among races; rich nations and poor nations; divide among Muslims, Jews, and Christians; Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants; Hinduisms and Buddhism. Even our churches are divided among traditional and contemporary, supporters and opponents of the LGBTQ people. There is no end to the motives that separate us in so many ways.
We separate ourselves because of fear, ignorance and selfishness or simply because others are different. Humans have always tended to dislike and blame those who are different. And because we, the followers of Jesus are part of our society, we bring this attitude to our church. At this moment we, Christians are arguing if what Bishop Mariann Budde did was correct or not and we do not pay attention to the message she tried to deliver. Even to quote the Gospel of Jesus brings division among his followers. The Gospel Jesus brought to us to unite us; the enemy is using to separate us, because it is easier argue than practice what Jesus asks us to do.
Today, after all the stirring that the prophetic voice of Bishop Budde has caused it’s important to read John 17:21and remember Jesus’ dream for us his disciples, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one, as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Brothers and sisters, we have upon us the same Spirit of God that rested upon Jesus; we have the same power Jesus had and as his followers, we have the same responsibility to bring the message of unity to our divided world and our divided church.
To accomplish the unity Jesus preached and taught and later prayed His Father to help his disciples -us- to accomplish, today’s scriptures point us to the necessity of recognizing a central reality of God that is sometimes too easy to escape from or ignore: we cannot have the unity Jesus intended for his world while we have people rejected, oppressed, persecuted and marginalized because of who they are or where they come from. According to 1 Corinthians 12:26, “If one part -of Jesus’ body- suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
Paul illustrates this with a clear and precise description of what the church is. His analogy is a comparison of the church and its many parts with the human body and its many parts. If we can understand our bodies at the most elemental level, we can understand what God intends for the church. What Paul reminds us of in 1 Corinthians 12 is that no part is more valuable than another is. No part can say to the other, “I have more value than you.” If one organ suffers, they all suffer, if one organ prospers, they all prosper. That is the Biblical principle of unity. This principle is also found in the preamble of the Constitution of the United States, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The same Biblical principle is found in the Declaration of independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We can only make this unity possible when we make Christ the center of our lives. Because from our unity with Christ flows all our connectedness and unity with others. When we respond with love to God’s love for us, we can care for others and feel what they feel as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 12. John Donne wrote a poem called “No man is an island” here is a part of it,
No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
For the writer of the gospel of John unity is very important, for him it’s a condition for the world to believe in Jesus. We Christians know that my brother, my sister, my neighbor -regardless of who they are, of come from- are equally important for God and Jesus poured out his blood for their salvation- that understanding, that knowledge will get us to the unity Jesus and Paul describe. “I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Brothers and sister, we can hang the whole bible in every wall of every school; we can hang the Ten Commandments in every wall of every court of this country, but if we not practice the Gospel of Jesus Christ; if we do not practice our love as Jesus did with us, the world will never know that God send Jesus as a sign of his love for us. The way we live, the way we practice the love of God will attract or will keep others away from Jesus’ body. It is important for us to realize that.
As it is written Paul says in Romans 2:24, “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” How can we preach God’s love to this world, when they know that many Christians created their suffering; how can we tell them that Jesus loves them, when they know that some members God’s people caused the suffering they are going thru?
When we are one with Jesus, when we are one with God is easy to be one with others, it is easy to live, preach and love like Christ. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35. “I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” May God helps to convince those who are being persecuted for their status in this country that regardless of what we did to cause that suffering, God loves them as he loves Jesus.
May God have mercy on us.