January 25, 2004
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; I Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21
This passage from the book of Nehemiah emphasizes the importance of remembering the past as we engage our journey into the future. Ezra brought the the book of the law of Moses before "all the people" in order that they might be reminded of where they had come from. As they recalled their past and noted areas of failure some became discouraged because they had fallen short of what they might have been. Nehemiah and Ezra encouraged them to go out and enjoy life doing better in the future than they had done in the past for "...the joy of the Lord is your strength". What is past, is past, and cannot be changed. From the past lessons can be learned which can enable human beings to make the future better than it otherwise might have been. The journey of life, individually and collectively, is a journey of success and failure, of uphill and down. The message to the people went something like this: "You now remember what you should have done; you know what you have done; now go forth and enjoy doing what you ought to do." A good lesson to be learned by each of us!
Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, does a wonderful job of helping them appreciate diversity by emphasizing the importance of unity. His example was one with which they were all familiar. He spoke of the various parts of the human body and the place of appreciation we tend to give to each. He noted that some of the less comely parts are given high privileges of possibility and it is thus not wise to assess levels of value by appearance. When the human body is at its best the various parts work in unity, each adding to the significance of the other. Paul said that is the way it is with the human family in general and in smaller groups, i.e. the church. Each is different in the "gifts" they bring to the "whole". The gifts of each person is important and the "whole" could not meet its potential without the variety of "gifts" from the various parts. It is significant, as indicated earlier, that Paul was expanding the importance of unity from "just the Jews" to the Jews and Gentiles who know had the common goal of Christian discipleship.
The story of Jesus returning to the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth and participating in the Sabbath service is interesting in that it raises an interesting Christological question--and in my opinion suggests an answer. Jesus read from the book of Isaiah. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Having read that he gave the book back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of the entire congregation were upon him. He responded to their interest in him by saying, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Did Jesus choose to do this, or could he not help himself? Traditionally the explanation of this is that God had SENT Jesus to do what he did, i.e. he couldn't help himself. He did what he was forced to do by God! In relation to how we observe God at work today, it was not a matter of Jesus being sent, but instead a matter of Jesus accepting responsibility to become and do what he believed God and his people needed him to be and do. Jesus chose to become the kind of person he became and to do what he did! The implication of this explanation is broad and very reasonable. All the ways we view God at work through a process which we sometimes recognize as "evolvement" lends credence to this explanation. One might conclude that God does not intervene in the affairs of life or of the world, but works through human beings as they assume responsibility for what needs to be done. This explanation places responsibility for what happened in every way to Jesus, on Jesus. It takes away the option of blaming groups of people for killing the gift of God, or of unknowingly fulfilling the needs of God for sacrifice by killing the "best and brightest" whom God could then use as a "sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world" Furthermore, by example, all who accept the responsibility of Christian discipleship are shown that discipleship is not so much a matter of "accepting" what Jesus has done for them, as it is of accepting the challenge to express their lives as nearly as possible, in the same spirit with which Jesus expressed his. The wonderful thing about this from a Christological point of view is that given the small amount we know about Jesus, it is possible to conceive in Jesus a level of human perfection which meets whatever standard we perceive human perfection, at any given point in our journey. That is to say that the example of Jesus as we perceive it, thus becomes applicable to any situation in relation to our perception of the most perfect human response. "Perfection" thus becomes like our view of a mountain range. We perceive where it appears the horizon is only to arrive there and discover there is another range beyond. We should always be on the journey to perfection realizing that we will never attain the goal because it will change as we near it!
Jesus thus becomes the promoter of "process theology" through the personal acceptance, by him, of responsibility to be the best part of the process he could possibly be.