A Law in Common

Nehemiah 8:1-10

Epiphany 3, January 26, 2025

Holy Trinity Cathedral

“A Law in Common”

Recently we have seen a lot of political changes that are resulting in the rewriting and reinterpretation of laws.  It is worth asking, “what do we mean by the law?”.  “How does it apply to me and those around me?”  Stories from our scriptures help us to understand better that living in right relationship is connected to how we see God at work and how we include our neighbours in community.  Our behaviour to each other depends on our belief in either a covenant that works for the benefit of all, or a partiality that favours a few. Common good comes from a law in common.  

The Oxford definition of law is “a system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the activities of its members and which it may enforce by imposition of penalties.”  If you are part of a group that subscribes to a set of laws, even if you don’t believe in God as an arbiter, you recognize that breaking the law can bring consequences.  But it depends on the group holding each other accountable to the law held in common. If people don’t know the law, or if they turn a blind eye to violations, the system weakens.  Ignorance, apathy, and cowardice are dangerous in the face of arrogance.  Bullies don’t have to go by playground rules when nobody stands up to their unacceptable behaviour.  It becomes accepted and expected: the rules change for them.  The stronger party has the ability to inflict harm on the other without recourse. Fights and conflicts erupt when disagreements between two parties become violent; the laws once held in common are cast aside in each party’s struggle for power and possessions.  The breakdown of law happens when people don’t think it applies to them.

Law is at its core a social contract.  We have responsibilities to others and they have responsibilities to us.  When we include God, the contract is threefold.  The relationships are between God and myself, myself and my neighbours, and God and the community.  This is the basis of the covenant that was established in the time of Moses.  At the sacred mountain, God established a sacred relationship with the people whom God had liberated from captivity in Egypt.  The children of Israel called it Torah: the Law. 

The Hebrew Scriptures record the Torah in the first five books of our Bible.  Various words are used to describe its breadth.  Testimony, covenant, promise, statutes, justice, decrees, commands, precepts, ordinances, the Word.  Together they encompassed what was required of individuals who professed that the Lord their God was One.  In the daily living of Torah, a path to stay in right relationships was established.  And God’s promise was to be with them in the land that was given to them. 

But as soon as people began to pick and choose what parts of the Law they thought applied to them, the relationships began to break down.  Faced with both inner dissention and foreign powers, the kingdom of Israel disintegrated.  The people were taken into exile into Babylon and Persia.

Generations passed, until a time under more moderate rulers Cyrus and Artaxerxes of Persia.  They allowed the Jewish people to return to their ruined capital of Jerusalem.  The exiles had the freedom to rebuild the broken walls and temple. Even more, they were given permission to practice Mosaic law: to return to the way of Torah.  Under the priest Ezra and the governor Nehemiah, the restoration is not just physical, it is spiritual.

It begins with the reading of the book of the Law.  All the people gather to listen: not in the remains of the temple, holy to only the priests or men purified to sacrifice, but at the city’s Water Gate.  Men and women, children, and foreigners alike could hear the commandments of Moses.  And because the holy scriptures were in Hebrews but most of the people spoke Aramaic, there were designated leaders to help interpret and to explain the meaning of the writings.  This massive all day bible study took place on the first day of the seventh month of their calendar.  We now know it as the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah.  It marked the new beginning for the people with God.  And when the reading was finally done, all the people said “AMEN”.  It is their assent to what they heard.  It means, “so be it!” 

They wept and lamented how far they had gone from what God wanted.  Their leaders then reassured those present that God’s covenant is so gracious that all of them were being given a new start.  They ought to be happy and thankful, and rejoice in the Law as a guide to righteousness rather than a punishment for wrongdoers.  God’s purpose was not to beat them over the heads with their failures, but to win them back into the fold. It wasn’t so much that they got all the details right from that day forward.  But as long as the people together agreed to try and keep Torah, they remembered that they were accountable to God and to each other.  Every time people stumbled, the call to repent and return to the Lord repeats. 

Fast forward to our present day.  What does their experience have to do with us?  Perhaps we too need to be reminded that we are part of a society where what we do has consequences.  We each have an opportunity to make justice, safety, compassion, reconciliation, dignity, and growth possible.  We do so by both raising leaders who have wisdom and courage and humility to act.  And we do so by holding each other to account out of mutual respect and a desire for wellbeing.  Our actions are an example for each other of how we want to be treated.  And if we stay silent or only look to our own interests, then those who care more for power and privilege than the good of another will weaken our social contract. 

Thank God for the courage of those who speak truth to power, and do so with the love of neighbour at heart.  Thank God for those who resist laws that target minorities unfairly, and who advocate for justice and reconciliation even when it is costly to themselves.  Thank God for those who continue to teach and practice what it means to be a good neighbour.  We have from our faith the strength of Scripture, tradition, and reason to work together for the common good.  Our law in common is the law of love: given by God, lived through Jesus Christ, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Today this Scripture is fulfilled if we hear and obey.  Amen.