Sunday Stretch: Vol. 110

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

Welcome back to the Sunday Stretch. We’re trudging our way around here through a cold and ponderous January, anxiously awaiting the change that the world seems likely to bear.

In the midst of it, I see these weekly writings as an anchor, tying me back not just to the Word of God but also to each of you, and us to one another, through our prayer and shared commitment to love and to hope.

Let’s get to the texts …

Bible Stories

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Neh. 8:1 all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had given to Israel. ² Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. ³ He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

Neh. 8:5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶ Then Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.

Neh. 8:8 So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

Neh. 8:9 And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰ Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our LORD; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

When I was coming up as a pastor in the 2010s, and the American Christian world was dominated by megachurch pastors and Evangelists (it still is - but at least now many of their hypocrisies have been revealed) - the texts of Ezra and Nehemiah became popular among the crowd of increasingly strident right-wing Christian Nationalists. At first, it was the idea of a scribe (Ezra) advising a high-placed official in the court (Nehemiah). Then, even more blatantly, those who supported a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico during Trump’s first administration would claim to garner support or even connection to the wall built around the city of Jerusalem after the time of Babylonian Exile.

What I see more, though, in these passages, is a deep reliance on spiritual practice, and an unwillingness to lie or minimize the role of grief and suffering in a religious community. In this passage, the mourning of the community is seen as prerequisite for any kind of healing or rebuilding. In America too often we lean instead into toxic positivity, and rarely take enough time for grieving and mourning together. (I should note that this passage above, where Nehemiah tells the people not to weep - follows the community’s shared mourning ritual over many days. Only then do they no longer weep!)

Questions to Ponder

How do you practice grief and mourning in your own life?

Do you have a community with which to mourn?

Why was it important for the community to gather for these rituals?

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

1Cor. 12:12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

1Cor. 12:14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many members, yet one body. ²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; ²⁴ whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, ²⁵ that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

1Cor. 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. ²⁸ And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

What a depressing reading for the would-be schismatics (of whom there are many in our current day)! We live in an age of Christian division: where many know all too well how to