Dear friends in Christ as we celebrate today Sunday of the Word of God, the responsorial psalm (Ps 19:8), beautifully describes the power of God’s word, which read’s “The law of the Lord is perfect it revives the soul. The decrees of the Lord are steadfast they give wisdom to the simple”. In the year 587BC before the birth of Jesus, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple which Solomon had built. For this reason all Jews were taken into captivity. Only a few, the poor and old were left. God moved the heart of another King Cyrus to grant freedom to Jews to return home in 538BC. But surprisingly only the poorer people returned; while the rich already established in this foreign land declined to go back. Other groups of Jews returned home in the years that followed. These groups of returnees were led by a Pious Priest Ezra.
zra did his best to revive the spiritual life of the returnees; after years of exile, most of them ignored even the basics of their own religion and lived as Pagans. Some years later, Nehemiah another prominent Jew in the court of the king, asked permission to return home. The king granted his request and made him high commissioner of Jerusalem. With this I launch you into the first reading (Neh. 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10). Before this time the people of Judah were in exile and Nehemiah was a Jewish eunuch of the Persian court. He got report that Jerusalem’s wall was broken down, its gates were destroyed by fire and the returnees were in great trouble. When Nehemiah got this news he sat down and wept, and mourned for several days (Neh. 1:4).
Nehemiah took a bold step and approached King Artexerxesof Persia seeking his permission to go and rebuild the dilapidated walls and erect the gates in Jerusalem (Neh. 2:2-5). Nehemiah got approval of the king in the year 445BC though experienced obstacles in the person of Saballat and Tobiah but he (Nehemiah) was victorious at the end of the day because his mission was accomplished. Meanwhile, Ezra the priest came into the picture in (Neh. 8:2-10) when he read the law before the assembly. In this Scenario the book of the law united men, women and children. This is how leaders should operate. I had observed that there is a sport that unites people, and that sport is football. This particular sport attracts people far and nears in the sense that blacks and whites forget their differences. Moslems and Christians forget theirs, traditionalists and atheists do same.
They rejoice together and are sorrowful together. A typical example is the Atlanta 96, when the super eagles won and equally were gold medalist in that competition. The coach and players were exceptional that their memories are still alive till date. As Christians, our uniting force is the word of God. No wonder (19:10) describe’s the word of God as “More precious than gold, pure gold of the highest quality; more sweeter than honey and drippings from the honeycomb”. Vs11 says “ By the word your servant is warned, in keeping the word there is great reward”. If we accord respect, to mere gold made by human hands in Atlanta 96, how much more the word of God?(Ps119:89) Says “ O Lord your word stands forever firmly fixed in the heavens”(Is 40:8) “The grass withers, the flower fades but the word of our God will stand forever”. The word of God never fades or grow old.
The word of God is our pride, our victory, our triumph, our motivation. The word of God know’s no nation, race, color. On the other hand unites people of different nations, race and colour.(Gal 3:28) “For there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. The question should be, how do I bring these people together? That, after building and renovating what next? Listen, though Nehemiah was at the forefront of this, he aligned with Ezra the priest. He (Nehemiah) did not read the book of the law it was Ezra who did. As some persons may say I built this Church and as such may want to dictate for the priest or play his role.However Nehemiah never did. This was because Nehemiah understood very well that we are one body in Christ.
This is in conjunction with vs1 of Neh. 8 which reads “All the people gathered as one man” they asked Ezra to bring the book of the law. When the book of the law was read, they wept. Why did they weep because they have derailed, they recalled the sins of their ancestors, they realized how they have fallen short of God’s expectation and disobey his laws. Listen, the uniting factor here was the Word of God. In the 2nd reading (1 Cor. 12: 12-30) St. Paul made it clear that we are the members of the body of Christ “Christ who is the Word of God”. Members of Christ’s body though with many parts. And as such the foot should not say “Because I am the foot I do not have business with the hand.
When members of Legion of Mary say I have no business with members of Charismatic Renewal or members of Sacred Heart of Jesus disassociate themselves from Divine Mercy Society or classified as small groups etc. or when we feel that the problem of the Charismatic renewal is not the problem of sacred Heart of Jesus Society or if one is bereaved and is a member of Divine Mercy it is not my business because I belong to the block Rosary Society. Listen, when we see ourselves in this reality the word of God cannot be effective in us. The word of God was effective to Ezra the priest and his people because they gathered as “one”. When we put up this attitude, whenever the Word of God is proclaimed we begin to point accusing fingers in our hearts, only God knows.
At this point whenever the word of God is proclaimed or the homily is been delivered by the priest, some personsbegin to comment in their hearts “yes talk to them, they see themselves as the most pious group, the other group “yes talk to them, see themselves as the most active group”.These are limitations that hinder us from accepting the word and acknowledge just like in (Neh. 8:1-10) “We have sinned, scripture says they wept on hearing the word”. They wept as a body, a family, a people. Can we emulate this? In the Gospel reading Jesus did same when he proclaimed his mission statement in the synagogue. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for 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” (Jubilee year).
Scripture says all eyes were fixed on him. And he said today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. These people while gazing at Jesus must have been asking different questions in their hearts. For example “is he telling us he is now the Messiah”? “How is he going to be our deliverer, one who was born into the humble home of Mary and Joseph”? “Are we not his kinsmen who does he think he is”? Remember this was Nazareth where he was brought up.“This one who had never fought, how will he fight for us? These are the speculations that would be going on in the mind of these people. Of course they listened to the reading but did they receive Jesus the word of God? The answer is no, because of these limitations surrounding them. Are we surrounded by the same limitations? As the body of Christ? May the good Lord bless his words in our hearts through Christ our Lord.
• Rev. Fr. Francis Chinonso Okpara HFFBY is Associate Priest of St. Dennis Catholic Church, Bariga, Lagos.
