Father John McGinn, Rector

Saint John’s Episcopal Church

Sandwich, Massachusetts

 

January 21, 2007                                    Epiphany 3

 

 

Every once in a while, we will run across something in your life that really feeds your spirit.  The year was 1971, and I was stationed in Tucson, Arizona.  It was the time just prior to my going to Vietnam.  I think what I saw and read and experienced there, helped speak to the Old Testament lesson.  My story is about the history of a legendary town in the old west, named Tombstone, Arizona.  Probably all of you have heard of it, some have seen the movie, or visited it yourself.  It is quite a place, and it really shook me up the first time I saw it. 

 

In the late 1870’s, miners discovered silver in the Dragoon mountains in Arizona.  An area that had once become desert wasteland, became the bustling mining town of Tombstone, so named because the first miners to the area were told all they would find there would be there own tombstones.  Like any place primarily populated by men, it was a rough community.  In the 1880’s the streets were lined with saloons and gambling halls. 

 

A young newcomer to Tombstone wrote down these words that I found to be important because of what I was going through in my life, and also because I was in that crazy town.  “Still there is hope because I know of two bibles in town.” 

 

Think about that.  This man was optimistic that Tombstone would one day become a civilized community because of the presence of two bibles.  Does any other book on earth have as much power?

 

In 1977, at the height of the Cold War, Anatoly Shcharansky,  a brilliant young mathematician and chess player was arrested by the KGB for his repeated attempts to immigrate to Israel.  He spent 13 years inside the Soviet Gulag, what kept him going?  Just this: from morning to evening he read and studied all 150 psalms in Hebrew.  And what does this give me?” he asked in a letter.  “Gradually my feeling of great loss and sorrow changes to one of bright hopes.”  Saransky so cherished his book of Psalms that when guards took it away from him.  He lay in the snow, refusing to move until they returned it.   During those 13 years in prison, his wife traveled around the world campaigning for his release.  Accepting an honorary degree on his behalf, he told the University audience, “In a lonely cell of Cristobal prison, locked alone with the Psalms of David,  Anatoly found expression for his innermost feelings, in the outpourings of the King of Israel thousands of years ago.”

 

What kept this great man going?  One thing only.  It was the word of God.

 

Today’s lesson from Nehemiah, paints vivid images of the power of God’s word.  Jewish exiles were returning to their homeland after the wall around Jerusalem had been completed.  The people gathered and asked Ezra to read them the Book of Laws of Moses.  Now granted, this was a historic occasion, and they had been in exile many years, and there had not been many opportunities to hear God’s word read.  It is not like the opportunity you and I have each week to hear these sacred words.  Still I want you to notice the impact of the sacred word.  Let me read to you from selected passages in the gospel for today. 

 

“The priest Ezra brought the law books before the assembly.  He read from it from early morning until mid-day and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.”

 

Did you catch that?  A scripture reading that lasted 4 hours at least.  The next time you are sitting there thinking, “I wonder when Father McGinn is going to stop his sermon.” Remember that day, when the people of Israel listened for half a day to the scripture lesson.  “And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.  Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, and when he opened it all the people stood up.”  Now we are not told whether they remained standing for the whole half day or not, but clearly this was a sign of reverence and respect. 

 

Student sections at universities stand for entire sporting events to support their teams, but it is rare that local congregations are that enthusiastic about the lesson for the day.

 

Ezra blessed the Lord the great God, and all the people answered ‘Amen, Amen’ lifting up their hands.”  This was a lively congregation.  It is the custom in some churches, but if you were to break into an “Amen” during our service I would probably faint.  The congregation did more than say “amen” and lift their hands; we read in verse nine, “All the people wept when they heard the words of the Law.”  They were moves to tears to hear this reading, and surely these people could say “Oh how I love the Law, it is my meditation all day long.”

 

This book that you and I take for granted, has been a source of light to millions of people through the ages.  It has been a source of inspiration to the people of Israel, the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Then also the inspiration for Jesus.  Why is this so important to our faith?  I want to suggest a couple of reasons.

 

First, we need an overall philosophical and moral structure to our lives.  The bible gives us that.  The bible is not an easy document to work with. It is confusing at times and some parts conflict with other parts but when you read it, when we discuss it with other believers and when we seek to break open its meaning, we find there what we can find no where else: a plan for abundant living.  A plan for happiness.  A plan for abundant joy. That is something that every person in our world desperately needs.  Where else can we find a book that gives our lives meaning and direction?  It is a book, and it is called “God’s Book.”

 

The bible gives us abundant life by providing us with philosophical and moral structure for living, but we need more than just structure.  We need to allow that structure to somehow shape our lives, that is, I can embrace certain ideas in my head and never allow them to take residence in my heart.  Even thought the bible provides philosophical and moral structure, it is not a book of philosophy or ethics.  Whether the Bible is the product of the living encounter of real people with the eternal god and out of that encounter their lives were changed, transformed, that is what happens when someone is really into the word of God.  Change takes place.  A transformation takes place.  Think of it this way:  I have been on a diet for a couple of weeks and I can own a diet book, and I can occasionally read from it, but unless something in my heart says that I want more than a working knowledge of a diet book, that I want to change my eating habits, my exercise habits, change the way I think about food, then something will happen. 

 

The powerful thing about the bible it the power it has in shaping human behavior.  Even the most hardened cynic would have to admit that the bible does have an effect on people’s lives.  The book somehow gets inside people changing them, transforming them.  I want to show an example of a man I admire in the theological world.

 

I had the honor of hearing Jurgen Moltmann speak on two occasions.  I will first tell you he has a thick German accent, but if you listen closely, what he has to say is transforming.  Jurgen Moltmann is one of the most influential theologians of our time.  He is going to be speaking at Trinity Institute this coming week.  He was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1926.  His German upbringing was thoroughly secular.  At 16 he idolized Einstein and anticipated studying Mathematics at University.  He took his entrance exams, but was drafted and was sent to war.

 

 He was drafted in 1944 and became a soldier under the Nazis.  Ordered to the front lines, he surrendered in 1945 to the first British soldier he met.  For the next few years he was held as a prisoner of war, and was moved from camp to camp.  First in Belgium, then Scotland and finally England.  He lost all hope and confidence in German culture because of the awful death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.  His remorse was so great that he often wished he had died along with his comrades than live to face what his country had done.  He was a thoroughly broken man.  Then one day, a well meaning Chaplain came by handing out the English translation of the New Testament. 

 

German soldiers receiving English language bibles.  Imagine that.  Talk about a hopeless gesture. Moltmann knew just enough English to make sense of the one of the testaments.  There in the prison camp, under the influence of the English version of the new testaments, Jurgen Moltmann became a disciple of Jesus and would later sum it up like this: “I didn’t find Jesus, he found me.”

 

After his release in 1948, Jurgen left his field of physics and went on to study theology.  Here is a theologian whose works are read all around the world, his best known for The Theology of Hope.  To this day, he carries the New Testament with him as a reminder of what god can do.

 

This makes sense to me.  The bible not only provides us with structure for our lives, but when we suffer the bible actually shapes our lives if we let it.  A lot of people are angry at the Episcopal Church, but what it has been doing for 25 years or more has been wrestling with the bible; trying to find a place for women and gay people and those other who are down trodden.  They have done this trough prayer, bible study that this has all happened.

 

I want to encourage you all to adopt a personal discipline of encountering god and his word each day.  Many of you will be helped in this task by the publication we make available every three months or so called Forward Day by Day and each day there is a meditation and a note about scripture readings to be read.  I also encourage you to join a bible study.  This lent we will once again have bible study, and I encourage you to become a part of that group. 

 

I t is amazing how much we discover when we study scripture together.  It really shouldn’t surprise us.  This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Whenever two or more gather in my name, there I am also.”  Discover the living Jesus in the sacred pages of scripture.  The bible provides us with a moral and philosophical structure for our lives, but more important, if we let it, and study it prayerfully, led by the Holy Spirit it will lead us to be the people God indents us to be.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

  

To read the book The Theology of Hope online, visit www.pubtheo.com/theologians/moltmann/theology-of-hope-0a

 

 

For information on Anatoly Shcharansky, visit

en.wikipedia.org