3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025
Nehemiah 8:2-4, 5-6, 8-10; I Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21
Ezra read from the Law from early morning until noon, and from the lengths of those readings it seems that the compilers of the Lectionary want us to emulate him. The Jewish people were in tears as they listened to Ezra, and I was almost in tears as I listened to the length of that Second Reading: to my shame, I have to confess that it reminded me of a long ago episode of Monty Python, which referred to “naughty bits”. This is the Sunday of the Word of God, but I feel that it is being slightly overdone.
Anyway, let’s look at that First Reading, which paints a magnificent picture of the powerful effect which the Scriptures had on the assembled people. We need some context. It is set at the end of the sixth/beginning of the fifth centuries BC. The Jewish people have returned from their seventy year Exile in Babylon—except, of course, that they haven’t.
Think about the length of seventy years. How many, if any, of the original exiles would have been still alive? Even their children would, in many cases, have died. It would have been their grandchildren and great grandchildren, by and large, who trekked from Babylon to their ancestral homeland, to Judah and Jerusalem, the place of their hopes and dreams, but for them as individuals an unknown quantity, a run down and neglected place, bearing little or no resemblance to the magnificent territory of their grandparents’ stories.
Apart from tales, what would the Exiles have kept alive? There were songs of lament, such as the psalm “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept as we remembered Sion”—and as we saw it through rose-tinted spectacles. There was no Temple in which to worship. How much of their ancient faith had they retained? How many had maintained the practice of that faith? And how much of what they retained would have been folk tales, rather than the word of God handed down in the scriptures?
Now thanks to Ezra, to Nehemiah the legal authority, and to the scribes, they are hearing the Book of the Law—presumably the first five books of the Bible—read and explained. (Did they have to listen to Leviticus and Numbers, with their endless lists, rules, and statistics? That would reduce anybody to tears.)
Bear in mind too that they are gathered in great numbers. They would feel the solidarity, the strength, the encouragement which comes from being part of a like-minded crowd. Did you attend any of the events of the papal visits of either John Paul II or Benedict XVI? As a young priest, I was at Speke Airport when JPII’s helicopter flew over and landed and, after a short trip in the Popemobile, he addressed the crowd.
One incident remains embedded in my mind. A few rows in front of me was a young couple. As the wife or girlfriend strained to see, the young man lifted her up onto a convenient railing. After watching the Pope for a few minutes, she jumped down, and the couple shared a brief embrace, a moment of joint joy, enthusiasm, and delight. Some shared moments have that effect.
Of course the crowd effect can be dangerous, even evil. How many football hooligans, how many rioters, would have remained peaceful, well behaved citizens had they not been swayed by the power of the crowd? Think of Hitler’s Nuremberg Rallies, or of Trump’s demagoguery which led to the attack on the US Congress on the Feast of the Epiphany four years ago.
Ezra and his companions ensured that the crowd gathered at the Water Gate (a name embedded in the mind by the nefarious activities of another American President half a century ago) remained peaceful and positive. How lasting an effect did this event have?
Today’s Gospel reminds us how fickle a crowd can be, how short lived a positive effect. In the Nazareth synagogue, Jesus is doing what Ezra and his companions had done five hundred years earlier. He is re-introducing the people, in a new and fresh way, to the word of God, and the people are enthralled, for a time. Yet we know that, as soon as Our Lord began to tell them home truths, they performed a complete volte-face, and sought to kill Him.
What is all of this saying to us? We need to be refreshed and renewed constantly by hearing the word of God. It is good to find the encouragement of a crowd of like-minded people, especially when those people are gathered for worship, to be nourished by God’s word, and by the Body and Blood of Christ. But remember always the potential of a crowd for harm, and beware demagogues and rabble-rousers. And remember too how quickly enthusiasms can fade if not sustained and nourished.
