The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year C

The Third Sunday of Epiphany

Nehemiah 8.1–3, 5–6, 8–10
1 Corinthians 12.12–31a
Luke 4.14–21

Read the text, and give the sense. Both matter. The first is given, there on the page. The second is risky, a matter of prayer and the Spirit, a deep breath and taking the plunge.

History warns of wrong, sometimes dangerous, interpretations. But interpretation is inevitable; not to interpret is still to interpret. History also remembers defining moments when text and interpretation together created a new world. Ezra and his colleagues read the law and explained it, creating not only post-exilic Judaism but, in a measure, today’s rabbinic Judaism. Jesus read Isaiah and interpreted it, setting the stage not only for his own career but also, in a measure, for his followers to our own time. What could be more dramatic than reading the law code to a community, defining them as God’s people in a new way, causing simultaneous tears and rejoicing? Perhaps only this: reading prophecies which spoke of future blessing, and then declaring that it was already starting to happen...