So there is this word that is a lot of fun to say. It is “recrudescence.” Recrudescence. It means “the return of something bad after a brief reprieve.” It applies to all sorts of things in life, and I'm sure we can find plenty to apply it to. But it has some antonyms that we may be more familiar with (because we often seem to want to look on the bright side of things): resuscitation or rejuvenation.
And I'd like to talk about all this today.
In our first reading of Nehemiah today, there's a lot going on that we aren't told about. The Persians have conquered the Babylonians and have freed the Jews that were in exile and sent them back to Israel to start afresh and rebuild the temple to God. To rejuvenate and resuscitate the land, as it were. And Nehemiah is appointed as the highest government official in the land to carry this out. He entrusts the actual work to others, of course...he has meetings to attend, after all. But in the end, he is in charge of rejuvenating the nation and bringing it back to God's commandment to Love the Lord and Love Your Neighbor.
And just in case anyone is in the dark as to what is expected of them, he has everyone – his family, his administration, the scribes (that time's version of the media) – all gathered together to hear the high priest, Ezra, sort of an ancient version of a bishop, stand in front of them and read the word of God. All of it. At least all of it up to that time.
And in this long story of God read out for all to hear, we end with the words of the prophets: Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Joel and Jonah, and so on. And, y'all, every single one of them, in one way or another, focus on one thing:
God desires mercy for the downtrodden. God desires mercy for the aliens in their midst. God desires love for those around you in dire straits, for the sick and the elderly, those in need of medication and those in need of education. For those living paycheck to paycheck, for those out in the cold, for those left out of the abundance of the nation.
And every single one of those prophets that the people of God heard on that day, pronounced condemnation of one thing and one thing only. That when the rich and the powerful spurn God's desires, when the rich and the powerful serve their own needs above the needs of the poor, when the rich and the powerful delight in the misery round about them, when the rich and the powerful hear God's word and scoff and cast aspersions, only this does God condemn.
That's this part of the story of Nehemiah that we hear today. Nehemiah is the right leader at the right time, and hearing the word of God preached to him and his family and staff, he believes, and he redoubles his efforts. And the land of Israel is set right anew. It is rejuvenated.
But he has to return to Persia, and as things so often go, the leaders left behind paid only lip-service to God, only pretended to care for the widow, the orphan, and the alien in their midst. The rich and the powerful of this story have hoodwinked the poor, and soon the wealthy were wealthier and the poor poorer and injustices abounded. Recrudescence.
And once more the people of the land were left wanting, needing a messiah and wondering when that day would come.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus has sauntered into a synagogue and grabbed a scroll and begins reading to people, just like Ezra has read from the prophet Isaiah. He rolls the scroll back up and says, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Today.
It's weird. I mean “today” is such a simple word – we use it all the time. But it seems that when Jesus uses it, "today" is an emotionally dangerous word, because today insists that we lay aside both our memories and our dreams to embrace fully the moment we are in right now.
The past so often romanticizes the work of our ancestors; the future so often depends on those coming after us fix everything. But "today" places us in the midst of Christ's gospel, reminding us that we are also crucial to God's desire for the world. "Today" is the most radical thing Jesus ever said.
Jesus is telling his friends, "Look around. See the Spirit of God at work, right here. Right now.” God is with us. The creating, loving, liberating, always-present God is here with us. Now.
And Jesus is asking his friends to open their eyes, to see that God is keeping God's promise, no matter how awful the outward circumstances. This is a call to see more deeply the immediate sins we have committed and have been committed on our behalf, the injustices of a world we benefit from, and evils of human life that go on all around us and are so often left unaddressed. A world that so deeply needs the remedy of love and compassion: the love of God and love of our neighbor.
And if we can see that, if we can see that today God is acting in us and around us, then our fears of the future can be mitigated, our grief and loss of the past will wane, and we can recognize that in this “today” God is calling us to act and to change, not just ourselves, but the whole world. Now.
And today, we realize that that calling brings with it real life implications, deep and life-giving. And in that calling we can say with Jesus: The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, because he has anointed us to bring good news to the poor. He has sent us 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.
Living in God's promise is not about yesterday. It's not about clinging to the way things were and grieving their loss. And it's not about awaiting some distant Messiah to show up later to do the heavy lifting of establishing the Kingdom of God. It is about today.
This can be a hard truth, and many in power won't want to hear it. And like I always say, “If you think being a Christian is easy, you're doing it wrong.” It won't make us popular out there in the world today After all, some of Jesus' friends refused to listen. They would rather stay mired in nostalgia and complain about the future. How great the prophets were back in the old days! If only a savior would appear and get us out of this mess! And next Sunday we will see that they get so angry over “today” that they try to fling Jesus off a cliff. And why? Because Jesus preaches mercy and forgiveness and not vengeance and retribution.
But Jesus doesn't balk. He doesn't back down. He asks us to act. Today.
Today this promise has been fulfilled in our hearing – what we need is here. Today.