Should we now process from the Church to the water fountain on the High Street and once there, begin to read the Scriptures out loud, it is highly unlikely that we should draw much of a crowd.  I am always prepared to be pleasantly surprised!  However, I am also a realist and, apart from a few curious passers-by I do not think we would succeed in any lasting mission to the people of Epping!

Things were a little different in Nehemiah’s day.  In our Old Testament Reading today we heard of the gathering crowd actually asking that the book of the Law of Moses be read to them – and they were content to listen from daybreak to noon.

It wasn’t quite as spontaneous as it appears because Nehemiah and Ezra had engaged the Levite priests to pass amongst the crowd, explaining the Scriptures in what turned out to be an extended Bible Study. The reader also spoke from a wooden platform specially constructed for the purpose.

As always when we hear our lessons we really need to hear the context.  The people of Israel had returned from exile in Babylon and had found their holy city of Jerusalem in a very sorry state.  The Temple was in ruins and the city walls had tumbled down.   All around them was a reminder of the devastation wrought by the Babylonians  under King Nebuchadnezzar which had resulted in three waves of deportations of the Jews, some of whom remained in captivity in Babylon for 70 years.  On their return they sent one of their leaders, Hanani, to get the support of his brother Nehemiah who was cup-bearer to the Persian King Artaxerxes – the King who had overthrown the Babylonians and now ruled Persian lands which included the former Israel.

When Nehemiah heard of the state of the Jewish Holy City he wept and prayed to God.  As he was highly placed in the King’s favour he persuaded Artaxerxes to let him go, for a time, to Jerusalem and supervise the rebuilding of the city.  Though, once in Jerusalem he faced opposition from local officials, he succeeded in repairing the city walls and the Temple.

That was only half the battle.  In exile and in their new found freedom the Jews had become very lax about the practice of their religion.  The Old Testament Scholar, John Bright, in his History of Israel tells of a people who were disillusioned.  Their priesthood had failed them; laws were administered in a partial way which debased the sacred office in the eyes of the people.  The Sabbath was neglected and given over to business; Tithes were unpaid forcing the priests to abandon their duties in order to make a living; and there was a general feeling that loyalty to one’s faith was pointless.  Public and private morality broke down.  Men cheated their employers; Violence was done to  the weak; marital laws were neglected and community values trampled on;  the poor, having mortgaged their fields in times of drought or to raise taxes had found their property re-possessed and, together with their children were forced into slavery.  The Jewish ideal, so central to the religion, of caring for the poor and needy, was all but lost; A general lawlessness prevailed.  It was a picture of a people disintegrating from within.  It makes depressing reading, even more so when we see  striking similarities with our own society today.

Nehemiah, having rebuilt the fabric of the city, turned his energies to the much more difficult but much more vital, task of renewing the spirit of the people – of slowly re-turning their lives back to God.  The spiritual renewal was what would shape not only the Jerusalem of his day, but the very nature of Judaism from then until now.  Until 1948 Israel would never be a nation again but they would become, as they still are, a people of The Book – the Hebrew Scriptures we call the Old Testament.  Though eventually scattered throughout the world, Judaism would be united not as a political nation but as a people for whom the Law of Moses would reign supreme.  What Nehemiah realised was that Spiritual Renewal and the Word of God go hand in hand.   When the people asked for the Sacred Book to be read to them they were taking a big step in the renewal of their corporate and personal souls.

When Ezra the scribe opened the book, the people all stood up – and standing in Judaism is an action of Prayer.  They were intending to receive the word of God prayerfully and, as Ezra called for a blessing on the Lord, the people bowed their heads and worshipped - and they wept.  They wept out of sorrow for their former ways no doubt but they wept too the tears of those who have been restored in the sight of God.  They were turning their backs on their former ways in a true act of repentance which involves turning one’s life around to face God again.  Nehemiah and Ezra sensed the change of heart and told the people not to mourn any more for now the joy of the Lord is your strength.  Indeed, they were bidden to rejoice, to party, and yet also to be mindful again of the poor to whom they were to send portions of their food.

This is truly a wonderful moment in the history of God’s people and it all hinges on the rediscovery of the Word of God  as the power which brings renewed life and purpose to all who hear it, or to put it in the words of today’s collect – who read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it.  Not surprisingly, therefore is this moment offered to us on Bible Sunday when we ourselves are reminded once again of the power of the Bible to transform our lives.

If we are to take up the mantle of Nehemiah in seeking to renew the spirituality of our Society today we have to be attentive to two things.  First the Word of God itself.  How can Christians influence the society around us if we are not ourselves attentive to what God is speaking to us – not least through the sacred pages of the Bible.  Of course, we know that the Bible, being a collection of books written at different stages of spiritual history and often addressed to particular situations, is not without its inconsistencies.  It is true that you can use the Bible to prove almost any argument and counter-argument.  It is often used to lob texts at each situation in the same way that soldiers used to chuck grenades at each other, or as we might today, emails!  If the Bible is used in this way it is used unintelligently and is a misuse. In the wrong hands The Bible becomes a dangerous book.

I once led a weekend on vocation and stewardship during which a group of young people constructed an advert based on the then current campaign for the News of the World.  They presented their own version which included:

“Murder, Rape, Pillage, Violence, Sex, Robbery, etc.etc.

- All human life is there – in THE BIBLE”

Because it was presented in an amusing way, it made its point.   The point it didn’t quite make was the true purpose of the Bible which has been described as the story of the love affair between God and humanity.  Like all love affairs it is a tempestuous story. It involves times of passion, coolness, disobedience, misunderstanding, falling out and making up – in fact all that makes human life dangerous and often interesting.  But at its heart is the constancy of God’s love for us.  To engage with the Bible is to enter into that Love Affair and become part of it. When God’s love flows from its pages into our hearts is when we really will have a message for Society.

And so we need to be attentive to the Second thing.  The Bible is addressed first, not to some particular situation in society or some cause that we want to promote or dispute. It is primarily aimed at the hearts of God’s people.  Whenever you read the Bible, God is speaking directly to you.  He is not saying, this is how you can get at others – he is saying, this is how you can get to me – to my heart which loves you so much that I long to change you from within so that you too become love.  If the Bible doesn’t change you from within, it will certainly never change others through you.  And, of course, if it is to change you, you actually need to read it!

But there is something else that the Bible leads us to and you get a hint of it at the end of today’s Gospel.

Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.

Jesus is not here talking about a Book but about himself.  The Christian Bible differs from the Hebrew Bible in that it continues the Love affair of God through the life of Jesus Christ.  There is a progression through the Old Testament to its fulfilment in the New and, particularly, of course, in the Gospel itself.  It is here that there is a dramatic change in the Bible narrative.  We are no longer thinking about the word of God being pages of a book but being the Word revealed in Jesus Christ who is in Himself the very Word of God because He is God.   Jesus is the authentic voice of God.  The Bible finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ and it is His Word which changes our lives totally.

The Orthodox writer Kallistos Ware puts it this way:

The real purpose of Bible Study is to feed our love for Christ, to kindle our hearts into prayer, and to provide us with guidance in our personal life. The study of words should give place to an immediate dialogue with the living Word himself.

I have yet to find a more succinct way of putting it than that.

Nehemiah wanted to renew his people and he turned them into a People of the Book.  Jesus wants to renew us, his people, and so he seeks to turn us into a People of the WORD.  And that word is Jesus Christ himself.  Living by that WORD – learning of that word in Scripture; through Prayer; and in discovering and revealing the image of  Jesus in each other is how we shall renew both ourselves and society.