Laying Down the Law: Sunday Reflection

This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke 1:1–4; 4:14–21:

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

What does it mean to be free? And what does it mean to be faithful?

Our first reading today from Nehemiah 8, in which Ezra delivers the Law to the restored city of Jerusalem, reminds me of the excellent 2013 comedy The World’s End. For those who haven’t seen it, the film follows an absurd evening in which old friends reunite for an epic pub crawl, and wind up battling galactic powers over the right to be free … at least as they see it.

Or, rather, what they consider freedom, anyway. It’s a wickedly funny film without much pretense of profundity, and I don’t want to give too much away or read too much into it. However, the climax of the film features the protagonists as drunk and defiant, proclaiming that they refuse to accept the authority of the extraterrestrial network because “we want to be free!” And when asked what that means, they reply, “We want to be free to do want we want to do! And we want to get loaded! And we want to have a good time!”

They get their wish, only … it doesn’t turn out quite the way they imagined. 

The accidental (I assume) parallels to the first reading today are quite striking. Ezra the prophet assembles the people after the return from the Babylonian captivity. This is in fact the second wave of return; the first wave had taken place nearly 70 tears prior to this, after an additional 70 years of exile. In the first wave, Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple, which had been ruined in the sack of Jerusalem. 

Nehemiah writes in today’s first reading how Ezra reconsecrated the people to the Law and the authority of the Lord. Both Israelite kingdoms had fallen because the people had refused to follow the Law and the Word of God, despite the constant warnings of the prophets. Why? The Israelites wanted the freedom to do what they wanted, rather than choose to do what the Lord called them to do. The Lord, ever loving, kept calling His people back to Him, but they refused to listen — and ended up suffering the consequences of their own sinful choices.

After surviving several generations in exile and bondage, the people had returned not just to Jerusalem but also to the Lord. The decision to follow their own ambitions and appetites had proven ruinous. The northern kingdom never did get restored, and Judah only returned by the grace of God, who allowed His people to repent and return. The basis of that return, as Ezra made clear, was the Law and Will of God. He assembled the people at the Water Gate and read it aloud, interpreting it so that all understood the covenant into which they were again entering.

At this, the people wept, but Ezra rebukes their tears. “Do not be said and do not weep,” Ezra declared. “Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!”

Why did Ezra rebuke their tears and declare a celebration instead? True repentance and atonement is not an occasion for bitterness or despair. It reunifies us to the Lord and reminds us that we are happiest when we conform our wills to His. The Lord does not mean for His people to live in sackcloth and ashes, but to live in His grace with joy and celebration. The return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity was that reunification, as well as a reminder that the Lord’s covenant with Abraham is eternal. Even if we walk away from it, the Lord remains waiting and willing to fulfill it when we choose to return. 

As we know, this return did little to convince the Judeans to remain faithful to the Lord. They once again fell back to their desires to live as a worldly kingdom, and once again fell subject to other nations. A brief revolt against the Greeks took place a few centuries later when the Maccabees briefly restored the Temple and the Law, but the Judeans then fell under the thumb of Rome instead. 

In that moment, the Lord sent Jesus to fulfill the Law and provide the fullness of His covenant with Abraham. Luke describes the moment in Nazareth when Jesus proclaims that the moment of salvation had come — and we know in other Gospel passages how that message was received. The people still wanted salvation on their terms; they wanted the Lord to come to them rather than the other way around. 

They wanted to be “free”! To do what they want! Any old time! And they want their Messiah to let them do precisely that.

But is that freedom? To get back to the film The World’s End, the protagonists are all … rather miserable. The main character is clearly a mess, and the others in his group are only barely better adjusted. All of this makes for hilarity, especially when the nature of their own personal Jerusalem (from which they have self-exiled for many years) is revealed. None of them are “free” in a spiritual sense, and despite the implication after the climactic event of the film, they aren’t free after the destruction of their Jerusalem either. In fact, they are all rather lost, reduced to a survival-of-the-fittest existence for which most of them are ill-suited. 

That isn’t freedom, as much as it is the consequence of unchecked license. It creates its own shackles and bonds on our lives, whereas the Lord offers us true happiness in His divine love. He calls to us constantly to choose His love over our own impulses, and offers us many opportunities for repentance and atonement in order to do so. We persist in seeing that as an occasion for sackcloth and ashes, rather than taking Ezra’s declaration of it as a celebration to heart. 

This is why Ezra rejoiced while laying down the law at the Water Gate. And when we hear the Law and the Word, we should rejoice that our Father loves us so much that He keeps calling us to return to Him, even when we make a devastation of our lives by defying Him.  

Previous reflections on these readings:

The front page image is a stained-glass representation of the restoration of the Temple under Ezra and Nehemiah in St. Patrick’s Cathedral of the Church of Ireland, Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, 1864. Via Wikimedia Commons. 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.