On Knowing by Heart

Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
26 January 2025

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21

In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican (through the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity) signed the so-called Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. This was a big deal not because Lutherans and Catholics decided that they agreed on everything but because together both churches could say that what had led to the schism of the 16^th century, namely the question of how sinners are justified before God, was no longer a point of controversy. Lutherans and Catholics speak about it differently, but we recognize that justification before God is never earned but always and only God’s gift.

During that time the National Church had appointed me to a committee consisting of Catholics and Lutherans and entrusted us with the task to create a study of the document and its theology for congregational use. We developed the study. We trialed it by teaming up local congregations and parishes. And I have no idea what has happened to it since.

Being on a working group like that is usually a gift, for it widens one’s horizon, not just because of the questions involved but also because of the friends you make. I remember most of the members of our working group and one of them I called up just a few months ago.

This friend who is a Catholic priest shared with me back then something that I have not been able to forget since. It had nothing to do with the Doctrine of Justification. Luis merely told me about the way one of his fellow priests prepares his homilies.

You know, I begin early in the week by reading the texts given to us, to ponder them and live with them. I take notes. Then I consult commentaries. I then distill all this and start writing. And as you probably know, I always produce a manuscript. I produce a manuscript because I know that it will keep me on track and on topic, and because I do not wish to forget to present any part of the sermon. Perhaps, I should try to preach less from my notes, but it has been my practice for a long time. However, I did a little of that for the mid-week services we broadcast during the pandemic.

Luis told me that his friend prepared his homily by memorizing one of the readings. And that memorizing of the reading during the week meant that he got to live with this reading intimately, which allowed him to see and perceive things he otherwise may not have noticed. And then he’d stand before the congregation and preach just from that.

When I was in Abbotsford we once received a promotional letter for someone who would recite (I think) the Gospel of Mark from memory. The accompanying letter told of the screen time of the average Canadian (which in 2023 was about six hours a day) and suggested that more exposure to the scriptures and less exposure to various media would be a good thing.

When I was young I saw little purpose in memorizing anything save for vocabulary and multiplication tables. That, of course, is a trend that has only continued with the internet providing information at our finger tips. But having to look things up each time gives us no time to process that information, to evaluate it, and to integrate it into our lives. I was always amazed that my parents could recite poetry they had learned in their childhood, or that their English language skills were as good as they were, decades after they had left school and with little practice since.

The reason I was intrigued by Luis fellow priest’s way to prepare a homily was that memorizing the reading illustrated beautifully that memorization is no mere Sisyphus work but is about knowing something by heart. Knowing something by heart beats having to look it up. Knowing something by heart means to know things in your heart and to let that which you have taken into your heart shape you and transform you.

And if we found ourselves persecuted for our faith in Jesus Christ, and did not own a Bible, those passages we knew by heart could never be taken from us. We know that this was the reality for many who in the Soviet Union were sent to the Gulags.

This came to mind when at the service for Christian Unity last Thursday we heard the Sh’ma Yisrael from Deuteronomy 6. In Deuteronomy God’s people receive instruction before they enter the promised land, and part of this instruction is the Sh’ma Yisrael: Hear, O Israel.

⁴Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Our house in Winnipeg had a mezuzah attached to the door post. The previous owner was Jewish. The mezuzah contains the Sh’ma Yisrael. The tefillin often worn by Hasidic Jews, are similar, containing pieces of the Torah. They reflect verse eight where it says about the words given by Moses, ‘to bind them as a sign on your hand, or fix them as an emblem on your forehead.’ While this seems a strange custom and perhaps overly literal in its interpretation, the bearers are not embarrassed to be identified as different, not afraid to be identified as God’s people.

If you watched the news, listened to the radio, went on social media last week, there was a lot of noise about a lot of things. After a while we may get used to the noise, but I am not sure. I think that the times we live in are noisy and will likely get noisier. And what do you do when you are in a place with a lot of noise when you would like to have a conversation, or simply be able to think clearly? You go away from the noise.

That, I think, will be required for the next number of years, that we go away from the noise and find a place where we can talk, and think, and pray. When the priest memorized the readings, he had to cancel out all other noise to be able to focus on the readings. You can’t take something into your heart if you are constantly distracted by noise.

In our reading from Nehemiah we encounter a people recently reunited. One half consists of the elites of Israel who had been deported to Babylon. Yet all those returning were born in Babylon and had no memory of living in the land of promise. The other group consisted of the people who had been left behind. These two groups had no common identity and no shared recent past. They ask Ezra the scribe to read to them what it means to be God’s people, as a point of orientation, and as a way to once again to become one people.

Hearing the scriptures takes away the noise, gives and gifts identity, provides instruction. When the people ask Ezra to read the Law to them, they are renewing the covenant, for the Law is sign of the covenant. And wanting to hear the Law means they want to know it in their hearts, and by heart, so that they can overcome the noise inside of them and around them.

When Jesus stands up in the synagogue of his home town to read from the prophet Isaiah, he announces God’s program, present in him, “to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” And for those who remember Isaiah 61, they will notice that Jesus omits vengeance, for in Jesus there is no room for vengeance.

It will not surprise you when I tell you that I am not a literalist. That being said, it seems to me that during these noisy times we all need to read the scriptures more, and the church fathers and mothers, so that the wisdom of God become part of us, that we know the scriptures by heart, and that they would shape us. For people who know the scriptures will know mercy and will not consider it foreign or hostile, but will know that God’s chief attribute is mercy.¹

Amen.

Image Credit: Sieger Köder, “You give them something to eat.” (Matthew 14)