Read it and weep.

(c) Katherine E. Brown

“And all the people gathered as one man in the square before the water gate. And they said to Ezra the scribe to bring out the scroll of the teaching of Moses which the LORD commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the teaching before the assembly, man and woman and all with understanding to hear…. “

Nehemiah 8:1-2 [Neh 8:1-12 NRSVUE]

Another round of Sunday morning balcony prayers. Sitting in my perch of a pew, looking at the stained glass colors shifting on the stone floor, while the sound of the choir’s rehearsal washes over me. The news of the new administration has come in a barrage of rapid-fire reports. Day 1 executive orders. A bishop’s plea for mercy. Late-night ‘truth’ tweets and morning updates and executive orders round 2 and 3 and more. (Reminder to self: read the print paper; avoid the online comments.). Now I am here, at church, in the balcony praying, if only, to settle and center myself for worship. Mentally rehearsing the week’s news is not the right litany for my need. Settle. Center. Listen to the choir, even its pauses, its repeats, a particular phrase rehearsed again and again to make it right. ‘Slow it down,’ our music minister exhorts, ‘hear the words. They’re beautiful.’

Slow it down. Hear the words. Nehemiah 8. I’ve been in it a week, and I may linger a week longer. Nehemiah 8: the chapter depicts the people as one. That’s the literal Hebrew: that the people were ‘as one man’ [8:1]. The text lists men and women and all with understanding to hear, and knits this variety together as one whole. United they are in asking of Ezra that the scroll of the teaching be brought to be read. United the people ask to hear God’s instruction; united they lift their hands; united they bow their heads and worship God [8:6].

Ezra reads. The ears of all the people are tuned to the scroll of teaching [8:3], and the words heard penetrate past ears to hearts. Ezra reads, and the people weep at the voice of this writing restored to them after long while. Reading Nehemiah, I remember Amos’s warning: refusal to heed God’s word leads to inability to hear, to famine of truth. Had God’s people starved? (Have we? How else to interpret a people that hears the call to mercy as ‘nasty,’ conflates politics with partisanship rather than community governance, grabs after ‘mine’ for me rather than seeking ‘ours’ for all, interprets diversity as opposition to unity rather than its intended expression?)

Ezra reads, and weeping follows. It’s as if the people — through giving hands and heads and ears to worshipful attention — themselves have been given new vision. Through this lens of God’s teaching, they glimpse God’s holiness, and they glimpse themselves through God’s eyes. (I see this second sight also in Amos.) Weeping expresses their intense yearning; weeping is their prayer that God, too, yearns for reunion, that God, too, longs to rejoice with us, in us.

The weeping people’s wordless prayer is answered. Do not weep, the leaders exhort, do not mourn. Do not grieve, they say — and the Hebrew used, etsev, takes me back to the beginning: etsev is the word for human toil and pain [Gen. 3:16-17], for the intense grief of the LORD God-self at the spoliation of God’s good creation [Gen. 6:6]. Do not etsev, the weeping people are told, for ‘this day is holy’ and ‘the joy of the LORD is your strength’ [Neh. 8:10].

Live holy. Live in the strength of God’s joy. Eat and drink and share portions with those who have not [8:10, 12].

The blur of tears gives way to clearer sight. I do not settle or center myself. I am settled through being present to God’s presence, lifting hands to praise, bowing body to worship, tuning ears to hear. I am centered through eating and drinking and generous living. Phrases and practices rehearsed over and over till I — till we — are made right in the repetition.

Time to go down again to worship, to word proclaimed and table opened. And from there out into the fray of the world to ‘resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.’*

Do God’s joy. Be God’s joy.

*This phrase comes from the Baptismal Covenant of the United Methodist Church.