“They read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”[1] Lord, may we also have grace to understand the readings from Scripture. Amen.

The People of Israel, on their return from exile in Babylon, faced a question which faces many of us today: “What are we to do now?” That is a question which plagues humankind, which we human beings have been asking since time immemorial. With each and every change in our individual and corporate lives we face the same question: What are we to do now?

This was the question which Nehemiah the governor and Ezra the priest sought to help the Jews answer in the event recorded in our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning. (By the way, it wasn’t just those two: the verses left out of the lectionary selection name 26 other people who read from the Bible and “helped the people to understand the law.”[2])

This public reading of Scripture is called miqra in Hebrew. The word originally meant “calling together,” but came to mean “reading” (and in modern Hebrew it is now one of the words for the Bible itself) because while in exile in Babylon, the Jews developed the tradition of reading through the Torah each year. They had been taken away from their homeland, away from their Temple, and they faced the question: What are we to do now? Our country has been taken away from us; the institutions we rely on to define ourselves as Jews, the monarchy and the Temple, are gone; what are we to do now?

Their answer was to remember the Covenant. As the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain Jonathan Sacks said in a speech given to the American Enterprise Institute in 2017, covenants are about community, about corporate identity. Covenants, he said, are “about the bonds of belonging and of collective responsibility”; a “covenant creates a society.”[3] With their country not merely in disarray, but wiped away… with their insitutions not merely imperiled, but destroyed… the Jews of the Babylonian exile divided the Torah into 54 portions or parashat, one or two to be read each week at public worship, and with each parashah a second lesson, the haftarah, was added from the Prophets. These haftarot were meant to, in the words of our lesson from Nehemiah, help the people understand the law.

The Jews in exile, answering that question – “What are we to do now?” – created a lectionary which helped them remember and maintain the Covenant, because the answer to the question was, “We keep doing what we’ve been called to do! We continue keeping the Covenant. We continue honoring and worshiping God. We continue to honor our parents, continue to tell the truth, continue to respect human life.” Or as R&B singer Curtis Mayfield would later put it, “We just keep on keepin’ on!”[4]

And then, 60 years later, when King Cyrus of Assyria freed them and they returned to Jerusalem, their national government a shambles and their temple a ruin, they faced that question again. Then, as now, the danger in such circumstances is what Rabbi Sacks called “magical thinking.” In modern times, he warned, with such thinking

you get the far right dreaming of a golden past that never was and the far left yearning for a utopian future that never will be. And then comes populism, the belief that a strong leader can solve all our problems for us. And that is the first step down the road to tyranny, whether of the right or of the left.[5]

But, said Rabbi Sacks, the good news “is that covenants can be renewed” and that “nations with covenants can renew themselves.”[6] And that is what the returned exiles sought to do, what Nehemiah the governor and Ezra the priest encouraged, the continued practice of miqra, the continued use of the lectionary to remember and renew the Covenant.

500 years later, when the Jewish people of Palestine had been conquered by the Romans and were again trying to answer the question – “What are we to do now?” – they were still following that lectionary, and that is why when Jesus went into his hometown synagogue on the sabbath described by Luke in our Gospel reading and was given the honor to be the maftir, as the person who reads the haftarah is called, he was handed the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah from which he read:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[7]

These words from the 61st chapter of Isaiah are part of the haftarah which is read along with a Torah portion from Deuteronomy which begins with Moses’ admonition to the Israelites, “Observe the words of [the] covenant and perform them, in order that you may succeed in everything that you do,”[8] and his reminder that “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.”[9] From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus’ answer to the question – “What are we to do now?” – was the same: “Observe the words of the covenant and perform them.”

On several occasions he was asked, “What do I do to inherit eternal life?” (just another way to ask, “What am I to do now?”) and his answer was always the same: “Love God. Love your neighbor.” If pressed for specifics, he would give them: take care of your neighbor even when he’s the despised foreigner from across the border;[10] give your wealth to the poor;[11] feed the hungry, refresh the thirsty, take in the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned.[12] What are we to do now? What the people of God have always been called to do!

On Tuesday, the Bishop of Washington, DC, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde preached a sermon that was extraordinary. It was extraordinary not for its particular content; Christian clergy have been preaching about what the bishop called the “foundations of unity” for centuries. She said there were three of them and then actually preached about four. The three she named are respecting human dignity (another word for which might be “justice”), honesty, and humility; the fourth, which attracted the most press attention, is mercy. Her sermon wasn’t extraordinary for its delivery. She didn’t raise her voice. She engaged in no histrionics. Her timbre was even; her tone, respectful. No, what made her sermon extraordinary was its audience; she spoke to power. She addressed the highest leaders of our nation and at the end she spoke directly to our newly-inaugurated president:

Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.[13]

In a post on Facebook, I referred to Bishop Budde’s sermon as “heroic” and was taken to task by a clergy colleague who argued that the bishop isn’t a hero; she’s just a Christian doing what she’s called to do as a Christian. To a certain extent, I agree with my friend, but I as I told her, I was and am using “heroic” in much the same sense that historian Heather Cox Richardson used it in her Letter from an American written last Sunday:

[H]eroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them.

It means sitting down the night before D-Day and writing a letter praising the troops and taking all the blame for the next day’s failure upon yourself in case things went wrong, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower did.

It means writing in your diary that you “still believe that people are really good at heart,” even while you are hiding in an attic from the men who are soon going to kill you, as Anne Frank did.

It means signing your name to the bottom of the Declaration of Independence in bold print, even though you know you are signing your own death warrant should the British capture you, as John Hancock did.

It means defending your people’s right to practice a religion you don’t share, even though you know you are becoming a dangerously visible target, as Sitting Bull did.

Sometimes it just means sitting down, even when you are told to stand up, as Rosa Parks did.

None of those people woke up one morning and said to themselves that they were about to do something heroic. It’s just that when they had to, they did what was right.[14]

Perhaps, like my colleague, you wouldn’t call these things heroic. My friend after all is right; the People of God aren’t called to be heroes. So, instead, let’s call these actions brave or bold or daring, because Scripture does admonish us to be “strong and courageous,”[15] and the angels and prophets of God constantly address God’s People with the words, “Be not afraid.” But we live in what Mark Wingfield, executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global, has called “a nation full of fear.”[16] As another Christian journalist has observed, fear is at the heart of White Christian Nationalism:

…fear of change; fear of independent women; fear of people of color; fear of other religions; fear of different sexual orientations; fear of immigrants; fear of loss of power and privilege; fear of uncertainty.[17]

In that 2017 speech I mentioned, British Rabbi Sacks warned his American audience away from nationalism, but he encouraged us to teach our children patriotism. “Nationalism,” he said, “is about power. Patriotism is about pride. Nationalism leads to war. Patriotism works for peace. We can be patriotic without being nationalistic.”[18]

The New York Times editorialist David French drew the contrast between Christian Nationalism and the Christian patriotism this way. Christian Nationalism, he wrote, is “a deep emotional attachment to a particular and exclusive culture, a skewed version of history, and a false sense of ‘marked superiority.’”[19] Quoting historian Thomas Kidd, he described Christian Nationalism as “an understanding of American identity and significance” that makes the nation “a central actor in the world-historical purposes of the Christian God.”[20] It is the notion that God’s grace is somehow limited to or, perhaps, more generously bestowed upon this country.

Christian patriotism, on the other hand, is

a love of home and place and neighbor that does its best to fulfill the vision of peace and justice articulated by the prophet Micah so many long years ago – “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.”[21]

The French philosopher Simone Weil made a similar distinction between nationalism, which she described as a “sentiment of national grandeur,” and patriotism, which she called a “poignantly tender feeling.” In full what she wrote in her book The Need for Roots is this:

This poignantly tender feeling for some beautiful, precious, fragile and perishable object has a warmth about it which the sentiment of national grandeur altogether lacks. The vital current which inspires it is a perfectly pure one, and is charged with an extraordinary intensity. … A perfectly pure love for one’s country bears a close resemblance to the feelings which his young children, his aged parents, or a beloved wife inspire in a man.[22]

In a word, Weil argued that patriotism ought to be nothing less than a type of compassion.

When I read philosopher Weil, rabbi Sacks, journalist French, and these other writers in concert with Scripture, I come to the conclusion, accurate I believe, that nationalism, even a nationalism that calls itself “Christian,” fosters cruelty, while patriotism, real love of country, inspires mercy. But, as novelist Sophia Slade has written, “It takes courage to be merciful in a world like this.”[23] When Bishop Budde pleaded with the president to show mercy, she was asking him to be courageous, to step away from fear, to step away from nationalism, to step away from cruelty.

But as his response to the sermon makes clear, our newly inaugurated president will not do so; he will not abandon the hateful and dangerous White Christian Nationalist rhetoric which helped him get elected, whether he personally believes it or not. As a result, we Americans who consider ourselves both compassionate patriots and loving Christians are left to face the same question that faced the exiles in Babylon, the returning Israelites in Nehemiah’s Jerusalem, and the Jews in the Roman-occupied Palestine of Jesus’ time: What are we to do now? And our answer is the same as theirs: We are to do what the people of God have always been called to do: keep the Covenant. Love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

If our neighbor’s access to reproductive health care is taken from her, we must help her get it back. If his livelihood, his housing, or his safety is endangered because of his national origin or his color, we must help him defend it. If their sexuality or their gender identity is threatened, we must help them protect it. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made it clear that we are to minister to our neighbors’ hunger, thirst, nakedness, illness, or imprisonment. In our time and place, our neighbor’s hunger may be for justice rather than food; we must nonetheless satisfy it. Our neighbor’s thirst may be for righteousness instead of water; we must nonetheless quench it. Our neighbor’s nakedness may lay bare their sense of personhood not merely their physical bodies; we must cover it. Our neighbor’s illness may be political rather physical; we must nevertheless seek to cure it. And if our neighbor’s incarceration is unjust, we must do more than visit them; we must free them.

This morning we heard St. Paul’s reminder that we “are the body of Christ and individually members of it,”[24] so when in the Gospel we hear Christ say “The Lord has anointed me,” we must understand that he is talking about us no less than himself. We, too, are anointed and commissioned for the same ministry: to bring good news, to proclaim freedom, and to announce “the year of the Lord’s favor” in which “God’s grace is never subject to the limitations and boundaries of any nation, church, group, or race.”[25]

What are we to do now? What the People of God have always been called to do: Keep the Covenant. Love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Keep on keeping on. Amen.

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This homily was offered by the Rev. Dr. C. Eric Funston on the Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 26, 2025 to the people of Harcourt Parish (Church of the Holy Spirit), Gambier, Ohio, where Fr. Funston was guest presider and preacher.

The lessons for the service were Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; and St. Luke 4:14-21. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.

The illustration is Ezra Reading the Law to the Jews by an unknnown illustrator; from Edmund Ollier, Cassell’s Illustrated Universal History, Vol. I – Early and Greek History (Cassell & Co., London: 1890)

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Notes:
Click on footnote numbers to link back to associated text. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from Scripture are from the New Revised Version Updated Edition.

[1] Nehemiah 8:8

[2] “Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose, and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand. … Also the Levites Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places.” Nehemiah 8:4,7

[3] Jonathan Sacks, 2017 Irving Kristol Award Recipient Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ Remarks, American Enterprise Institute, October 24, 2017, last accessed 24 January 2025

[4] Curtis Mayfield, Keep on Keeping On, Roots, Curtom Records, 1971.

[5] Sacks, op. cit.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Luke 4:18-19

[8] Deuteronomy 29:9

[9] Deuteronomy 30:14

[10] Luke 10:25-37 (The Parable of the Good Samaritan)

[11] Matthew 19:16-22 (The Rich Young Ruler)

[12] Matthew 25:31-46 (The Sermon on the Mount)

[13] Transcript of Sermon by the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, January 21, 2025, last accessed 24 January 2025

[14] Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, January 19, 2025, last accessed 24 January 2025

[15] Joshua 1:7; 2 Chronicles 32:7

[16] Mark Wingfield, Trump at the National Cathedral: We’ve already fought this war, Baptist News Global, January 22, 2025, last accessed 24 January 2025

[17] Carl Kline, ’Christian Nationalism’ based in fear, The Brookings (South Dakota) Register, March 4, 2024, last accessed 24 January 2025

[18] Sacks, op. cit.

[19] David French, Discerning the Difference Between Christian Nationalism and Christian Patriotism, The Dispatch, January 31, 2021, last accessed 24 January 2025

[20] Ibid., quoting Thomas Kidd, Christian Nationalism vs. Christian Patriotism, The Gospel Coalition, December 18, 2020, last accessed 24 January 2025

[21] Ibid., quoting Micah 4:4 (I am unable to determine which translation of Scripture Mr. French quoted in his article.)

[22] Simone Weil, The Need for Roots, tr. Arthur Wills (Routledge Classics, London:2002), pp.167-8

[23] Quoted in Kathy King, Thank Goodness God’s Mercies Are New Every Morning, Positive Pensees (Patheos Blog), October 13, 2024, last accessed 24 January 2025

[24] 1 Corinthians 12:27

[25] R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke: Reflections on Luke 4:16-30, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX (Abingdon Press, Nashville: 1995) p. 108