He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone…

In these ‘Sundays of Epiphany’ we are getting many revelations and beginnings. Those of you who are, shall we say, regular listeners, will have journeyed with Jesus and with the Church of God through the arrival of the Magi, complete with their extraordinary gifts and excessive homage, to that thin place at the river Jordan, when heaven and earth seemed to meet at Jesus’ baptism, to Cana, to witness the seemingly premature ‘first sign’ that produces a needless, extravagant amount of very fine wine, to this morning’s ‘curtain-raiser’ of the purpose, the very vocation of Jesus’ ministry, set in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth.

All of these moments, in their own ways, are new beginnings in which we see God’s desires and hopes for the world foreshadowed in a key episode at the start of Jesus’ ministry. All of these episodes speak to us in different but related ways of the beginning of something new and vital, that will help the world understand more fully the loving plan of the one God who creates, redeems and sanctifies. But – as we hear tell of these momentous beginnings – we should make sure that we do not lose sight of the bigger picture – the whole story of what is going on.

And, thought it pains me to say it, our readings this morning do not help us to do this. Indeed, the impact of this morning’s readings is quite the reverse – that they disguise or hide the bigger picture.

Take that passage from Nehemiah that was our first lesson. It sounded a seamless and straight-forward story – a story of the Jewish people being reacquainted with the Torah – the Jewish Law. The people weep – an acknowledgement that they may have strayed from keeping the Law – and Nehemiah and Ezra offer them words of encouragement for the future, telling them not to be grieved, ‘for the joy of the Lord is your strength’. All well and good – and indeed, it was all well and good.

But did you notice, if you were following the reading in your order of service, did you notice that two verses were cut? If you look at the attribution in the service sheet, you will see that verse four and verse seven were, for some reason, omitted.

Now, the reading cycle we use was set many decades ago, and it is used by almost every church in the western world, and I cannot claim any authority or certainty for predicting why verses four and seven were cut from that passage. But I can speculate, and I’m prepared to offer you generous odds that the reason these two verses were cut was simply to give the reader an easy ride. For verse four tells us that:

 The scribe Ezra 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.

And if those thirteen names are not bad enough, verse seven compounds the challenge, telling us that:

Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, [and] Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places.

Many churches struggle to find volunteers to read lessons on a Sunday morning, and if you knew you might have to attempt 26 such awkward names as those, the situation would rapidly get worse, not better. And so, these 26 helpful Jews, supporting Ezra the priest in teaching the Law, they get cut from our lectionary, consigned to liturgical oblivion, despite their significant and supportive ministry on this critical morning in Jerusalem.

And perhaps – perhaps that really doesn’t matter. After all, we get to hear about the governor, Nehemiah. We get to hear about Ezra, the priest and scribe. We get to hear about the important people. Is the story really helped by learning about the 26 folk who only had bit parts in the narrative?

And He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone…

But if the omission of the 26 minor characters from our first reading was not enough, you will – I very much hope – have realized that we really did only hear part of the story in the gospel which was read to us just now.

For Luke, this scene in Nazareth is the public declaration of Jesus’ own understanding of his vocation – a declaration, so the evangelist makes clear to us, is authenticated by the presence, no less, of the Holy Spirit (which, let us not forget, has put in an appearance at Jesus’ baptism, where – so Luke tells us – the Spirit comes down ‘in bodily form’, and which then also leads Jesus into the wilderness so that he might deal with Satan’s testing of this vocation).

And so, on a roll, on a high, filled with the Spirit, Jesus reaches for the scrolls of Scripture in his local synagogue, and sets out his agenda, in timeless words found near the end of the prophetic tradition of Isaiah. Jesus – making it quite plain that he is endorsed by the Holy Spirit – speaks of Good News. Of Good News aimed emphatically at various categories of people whom you might class as impoverished, or regard as ‘underdogs’.

But we were only allowed to hear eight verses of this vitally important scene, which – even if read in its entirety – is not particularly long. Had we been allowed but one more verse, we would have seen the immediate affirmation Jesus receives, and be told that ‘All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.’

But had we been allowed to read to the end of the scene – only another eight verses – we would have heard the whole story. A story which moves with quite dramatic speed from affirmation to condemnation – partly caused by Jesus himself, it must be said – a story which ends with everyone in the synagogue being ‘filled with rage’, and attempting to take Jesus by force and murder him.

He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone…

But that is not the whole story.

And while, on these Sundays we label ‘of Epiphany’ we are focusing on the different ways that the Good News begins, even at this time of the church’s year, we must ensure we do not overlook the whole story – even when the lectionary attempts to stifle it – for to do so will not enable us (by which I mean you and me, here, in York, on this cold January Sunday) – it will not enable us to grow into being proper disciples.

Because the two readings we have heard this morning teach us as much by what was cut from them, as they do by what was included. And – even if it might have been a bit of a challenge for the unfortunate reader – it might have been helpful for us to have heard that when Ezra and Nehemiah wished to remind the people of Jerusalem of the importance and the power and the beauty of God’s Law, they needed the assistance of Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on Ezra’s right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand – let alone the ministry of those supportive Levites: Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan and Pelaiah.

Because – of course – they are us. They stand for us – those people whose names are on lists, in baptism registers, or perhaps even inscribed on the west wall of the Minster, but who really are not the famous names in the story of the Good News.

But people, nevertheless, without whose ministries, the spread of the Good News of God’s love would be greatly lessened. The 26 ‘assistants’ of Nehemiah 8, had they not been expurgated from our first reading, might just have given us a hint that, in our own obscure lives, we still have an important role to play in the economy of God’s Good News.

And what we might have learned, had we been allowed to read to the end of our gospel story this morning, what we might have learned is that proclaiming to the world the nature of God’s Good News will not always make us popular, as Bishop Mariann Budde has most certainly found out, after her sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington DC on the day of President Trump’s second inauguration.

In the wake of the President’s reaction to Bishop Budde, if you are a social media type, you might have seen the meme depicting bystanders in the crowd at the crucifixion.

“What was it he said that got everyone so upset?” says one onlooker to another.

“Be kind to each other.”

“Oh, yeah. That’ll do it.”

Today, on these Sunday of Epiphany, we find ourselves focusing on the start of the Good News, as we learn that Jesus began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone…

But now – whether or not it makes us popular, or quite the reverse – insignificant though we might feel that we are in the so-called ‘grand scheme of things’, let’s make sure we play our part in the next chapters of God’s unfolding story of Good News. Amen.