FULFILLED IN OUR HEARING
3 rd Sunday Year C January 27, 2013 FULFILLED IN OUR HEARING! The people during Nehemiah’s time had a compelling reason to be emotional. The first reading says they were weeping as they listened to Nehemiah’s reading with attention and deep interest. Nehemiah, of course, was reading for hours on end the completed Book of the Law, known to Jews as the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. When was the last time, you and I wept over an attentive and rapt reading of Scripture? Was there ever a time when the words we read or heard so convicted us or so convinced us, and by their power, moved us in the same way as Nehemiah’s listeners were moved? Today, I stand before you and I start with a little confession. I confess that preaching has become of late an even harder task to do. It never was, in the first place. While Nehemiah read for hours, and people were moved by what he read, people now are moved by something else...