It is now coming up on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Here’s what the lectionary serves up:

• Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
• Luke 4:14-21
• Psalm 19

The OT reading from Nehemiah paints a wonderful picture for us.  It is a time of Spiritual and faith renewal as the Israelites are slowly rebuilding their lives and fully accounting for their ancestry and genealogy.   They are literally trying to get their houses in order and in the midst of it, they stop to honor God.  They hear the law and as we know from other passages, there are priests moving about the crowd to help them understand the word that is being shared.  The weeping that we read about is not because they are sad about laws they must keep, they are happy tears of restoration and reconnection with their faith and heritage.   Theya re mindful that despite some very difficult days in the recent past, God has provided for them and the horizon is bright because of their Lord.

There’s a lot to the Epistle, but I’m going to go quick and dirty with it.  The understanding is that we all have value in the body.  There are some in society we think provide so very little to its movement forward and perhaps they are some who look around their own churches and decided who they think is valuable and who is not.  This Scripture typically comes with a story about a paper cut on a pinky finger or a broken toe.  Until you have that paper cut or broken toe, you don’t realize just how much that part of your body is involved in activities, from the important to the mundane.  We all have roles to play, and some will be out in front and obvious, while others are the folks I like to call “pluggers” who just show up and do what they’re supposed to do with absolutely no fanfare.  We are each given different qualities and gifts by our gracious God, and we should appreciate them in one another as such.

Let’s do the Psalm next.   Verse six is a little hard to believe when you’re in the middle of a polar vortex 😊.  I have nothing pithy to offer other than like many of the Psalms, it makes me look around with rekindled wonder at how everything works.  God’s handiwork and the majesty of it are all around us every day.  The sun, moon, stars and the beautiful earth we live on; it’s simply amazing.  By the same token, I don’t want to ignore the back half of the Psalm which is a prayer to God for cleansing and to be enlightened in his ways so that we may more readily follow them.  Truly let us pray, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.”  Amen.

The Gospel took me back to something we discussed a couple weeks ago and that was being filled with the Holy Spirit.  The story of Simon the Sorcerer and the laying on of hands from Acts so that the newly converted may receive the power of the Holy Spirit.  Like in that story, where it is obvious that being filled with the Holy Spirit is something tangible, it is likewise in Jesus.  We don’t get the whole story in this selection from Luke, but we know Jesus tells the folks in Nazareth something they are not quite ready to hear.  They are not willing to believe that the person Isaiah is talking about is right in front of them.  Perhaps like the Psalm, do we look around at the incredible nature of the world, solar system and beyond and not see God in it?  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news, and it is news for all, including the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed and everyone in between.

As I tell you each week, these are my Monday morning thoughts as I run through the readings for the first time.  Please don’t count these ramblings as anything like the Levites who were walking among the crowds to help them understand.  Take this more as a call to spend time with these readings this week and to study the Word for its full and truthful meaning.  Blessings to each of you and I hope to see you Sunday morning.