Epiphany 3 C + 1.27.13 + Yay Torah! / Arriba la Torah!
Melissa Campbell-Langdell+
All Saints/ Todos los Santos
1.27.13
3rd Epiphany, Year C (Neh. 8:1-3, 5-6,
8-10; Ps. 19; 1 Cor. 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21)
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a
Simchat Torah celebration at a synagogue.
Hace un par de años visité a
la celebración de “Simchat Torah” en una sinagoga en Riverside. Imagine a whole synagogue stuffed with people on a night at
the end of Sukkot, the festival of booths, a fall evening turning slightly
crisp. La rabina me
guiaba junto a otro líder en la comunidad hasta el arca, un gabinete donde
tienen sus rollos de Tora. And the Torah is lifted out of the
ark and unrolled all around the room!
We all stand side by side, carefully holding open the precious
scriptures. Lado a lado,
estamos de pie, muy cuidadosamente cargando las sagradas escrituras judías.
The young people preparing for their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are gleeful,
walking around with the room, carefully using the wooden or metal hand-shaped
pointers to find their places in the script as they chant parts of the Torah to
us. They begin a new year’s cycle of
scripture reading, starting with Genesis.[1]
Hanging out in that synagogue, I was
struck by the joy. Lo
que me afectó mas era el gozo con que todos acercaron las sagradas
escrituras.
All this joy goes right back to Moses, but we largely have
Ezra to thank for it. Ustedes
escucharon en la lectura de Nehemías hoy que fue Esdras quien estableció esta tradición
de leer la Tora, las sagradas escrituras judías, de esta forma. Ezra re-established a long-time tradition of reading the
scriptures aloud that had fallen by the wayside during the Babylonian exile. He created a tradition that has lasted to
this day, and has been continuous since the Maccabean time period, which was in
the second century before Christ.[2] We also have a tradition of reading
scripture, which we continue every week. Esdras empezó este proceso, porque quería
re-establecer un sentido de fe en un pueblo que había olvidado sus tradiciones. The people of Ezra’s time needed to look before the exile to
figure out how to build up Jerusalem, physically and spiritually. They had been through some hard knocks, some
transitions, and in connecting to their roots, they got stronger. También, ellos tienen que
hacer algunas cosas diferentes, porque no están en la misma situación.[3] ¿Sound familiar?
Así que cuando Jesús va a su
sinagoga en Nazaret y empieza a leer, Él
es parte de una larga tradición judía. Jesus, stepping up to speak in
today’s gospel, is therefore living into a long history wherein any Jewish male
can read aloud scriptures in the synagogue.[4]
Y justo como
Esdras levanta la palabra, Jesús levanta las sagradas escrituras y las cumple. Just as Ezra read the scriptures and lifted them up to the
people, Jesus, God incarnate, lifts up the scriptures and then takes it a step
further, fulfilling them.
But then, what happened? Jesus was
rejected. Jesus takes a scripture that
spoke of the Messiah and in owning it, it shocks his listeners, and they can’t
handle it. Esta
escritura de Isaías que Jesús lee fue relacionada con el Mesías en la tradición
judía. Así que el da un choque a su
pueblo cuando Él dice que ha cumplido las escrituras. Ellos no pueden aceptarlo de su propio “hijo
local.” Así que Jesús fue rechazado. Just after this, Jesus’ own hometown
wants to toss him over a cliff. How’s
that for the hometown love?
Sometimes the scriptures tell us new truths, and our
challenge is not to reject God’s truth before we listen in love. Esdras toma una gente, quienes
habían escuchado “no” en su historia recién, y él les dice “si,” levantando las
sagradas escrituras a ellos. Ezra told the people “yes” and Israel
was reborn. Jesus took the “no” of his
rejection, of those who didn’t see him as fulfilling the scriptures, and continued
to set us free, turning that “no” right into “yes!” Jesús convirtió nuestro “no”
al “sí” de la nueva creación. This is good news for the church, what Jesus brings. Buenas nuevas para una iglesia
que ha enfrentado a desafíos. We too can lift up scripture and see
its fulfillment in Jesus. Podemos
levantar a los miembros del Cuerpo de Cristo aquí que hacen tanto para el
ministerio de la iglesia. We can lift up the members of this
church who give so much of themselves to the church’s ministry. As we hear from St. Paul today, we are all
part of one Body of Christ and in today’s Annual Meeting we get to celebrate
that.
Podemos con valentía enfrentar a cualquier trabajo que nos queda para el
re-establecimiento de la iglesia y decir “si” a Dios. We can say “yes” to rebuilding the church—be it spiritually,
or physically.
And we see this building up happening here.
Hoy celebramos una iglesia que está mejorando físicamente
y espiritualmente. Physically, we are improving our campus, its
security and its ability to serve the community, including a re-vamped
kitchen. Espiritualmente, estamos
mejorando nuestros programas de educación cristiana. Sure, we have had a couple of set-backs of
late, folks who have tried to crumble our “walls of Jerusalem,” but we know we
are strong. Somos fuertes. Tenemos tradiciones—de leer las
escrituras. De alabar y convivir juntos
y de compartir con la comunidad. We can keep breaking open the Word
together the way that Moses and Ezra and Jesus taught us to do. We can worship and feed each other and feed
the world spiritually and physically in our own simple ways.
Pero mientras vivimos la vida de fe, es posible que Dios nos va a
sorprender. Sometimes Reading scripture in
community is challenging because we might not always understand it the same
way. But that doesn’t mean we stop
reading scripture or that we stop being in community. Porque somos parte del Cuerpo
de Cristo, continuamos en comunidad aunque a veces tenemos ideas diferentes. Así que ¡Debemos
continuar siendo una nueva creación en Dios, compartiendo todo el gozo de las
Buenas Nuevas de Cristo! Let us embrace that continuing revelation,
continuing to be a new creation in God, and in our proud Judeo-Christian
tradition, let us share the Good News revealed and fulfilled in Jesus!
[1]
Shira Schoenberg, “Reading the Torah,” from Jewish Virtual Library: (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/torah_reading.html).
[2]
Ibid.
[3] Kathleen
M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10,” FOTW Year C,
Vol. 1.
[4]
Linda McKinnish Bridges, “Exegetical Perspective: Luke 4:14-21,” FOTW Year C,
Vol. 1.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment