Reflection for Sunday – January 26, 2025

Readings: Nehemiah 8: 2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Corinthians 12: 12-30; Luke 1: 1-4; 4: 14-21 
Preacher: Sue Howard

I still have my Christmas tree lights hanging from the eaves, a tree lit on the front porch, and the banister bedecked with cardinals, lights, and bows. I can’t stand to let the darkness of winter creep in. I hope it’s a joyful reflection of the light of Christ, brought into the world just five weeks ago at Christmas, still alive and well within me. That light also shines on my neighbors. I see in them how the light and life of Christ is reflected in their lives, lives very different from my own, all a part of the body of Christ. There is a bond in that reality that holds our community together.

As I write this on Martin Luther King Day, the readings from 1 Corinthians 12 take on a deeper meaning. We read, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, if one part is honored, all the parts share in its joy.” As we contemplate the enormity of those words, the grand vision of God’s love and care for all human beings becomes clearer, and our hearts and minds are expanded beyond words.

Illuminated in that vision, I see myself in relationship with all the other women of the world: women who do not have the opportunity for education, those who are limited in the resources they need to feed their families,  those in war-torn countries struggling to survive, those living in tents in refugee camps, as well as the brilliant minds of those women in universities, the next generation of women who will change the world. I think about all those whose gifts are limited by poverty, bigotry, religious intolerance, and misogyny and those used in the sex trade or kept as slaves. And so I keep shining my Christmas lights as a sign that I have embraced my part in the body of Christ, a sign of hope for the world.

There are signs of hope, and there are words of hope, words that build up community and bring life and joy. Today, we hear this expressed by Ezra from the Book of Nehemiah.  The people have returned to their holy city of Jerusalem after years of exile in Babylon. Ezra calls all the people together: men, women, and those children old enough to understand. These words are not only relegated to the minds of men but are worthy of comprehension by all human beings, women and children included. Ezra leads the people in a renewal of their Mosaic covenant by reading the whole of the Torah of Moses, the sacred text of the law of God. It is an occasion marked with joy and feasting. They have returned home! There is hope that they can be restored as a community of faith, a chance for safety and prosperity.

That renewal of faith is also open to us during this Jubilee year, which began December 24th.  Jubilee is a time set aside to build a worldwide community of hope. It is an opportunity to experience pilgrimage, an actual or virtual movement toward Jerusalem, our religious homeland. It can become a healing endeavor, allowing a mending of all that has been torn apart, injured, or forgotten.

We have a guide to accompany us along the pilgrim trail. For the next five weeks, St. Luke’s Gospel will illuminate the path so that we might begin to comprehend the identity of Jesus and his relationship with all of humankind. These readings are particularly addressed to those new in the journey, like Theophilus, catechumens, and those preparing to be baptized into the faith. They are just as relevant to lifelong Catholics, no matter where we are on our journey of faith.

Today marks the occasion of Jesus proclaiming his true identity. He stands in the synagogue in his hometown, and when handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he finds the particular passage that refers to the one who will be the savior, the anointed one sent by God. In this proclamation, he is disclosing that he has come to bring glad tidings to the poor, bring liberty to captives, recover sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free.

As members of the body of Christ, we are called to do the same. We will learn how to do this together as we traverse the pilgrim trail. Shining our lights of hope along the way.

Sue Howard
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