Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading comes from the Old Testament Book of Nehemiah. It’s often seen as a continuation of the previous Book of Ezra. Nehemiah speaks in Jerusalem to the Israelites who have recently returned from exile. They are tasked to rebuild the Temple, and in this reading all are gathered as Ezra the scribe gathers of “men, women, and children old enough to understand” to read the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). The reading ends with this command: “Go, eat the fat, drink the sweet wine, and send a portion to the man who has nothing prepared ready. For this day is sacred our Lord. Do not be sad: the joy of the Lord is your stronghold.” In Luke’s Gospel Jesus entered a synagogue in his hometown, unrolled a scroll from the prophet Isaiah quoted this: “The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me.” Jesus then told those gathered that this “is being fulfilled today even as you listen.”

I’ve always been amused and puzzled by the phase “those children old enough to understand.” So what about those children were weren’t old enough to understand? Clearly they weren’t left alone and the reading tells us that everyone else was listening to Ezra.

I’m sure they were present also, but just didn’t understand what was going on and so the phrase was more about understanding than geography. I can understand this. When my sister and I were infants and toddlers our parents tried several things that allowed them get to church while not dealing with a fussy or bored child. Sometimes they went to different masses. Sometimes they found someone who would care for us while they were allowed to worship together. Certainly we weren’t among “those old enough to understand.”

But from my earliest memory they took us to mass with them. Looking back the idea of those not “old enough to understand” engenders memories of my desperately trying to pass the time. None of the words coming through the microphone were meant for me and my wandering eye wasn’t nearly sufficient to find anything worth looking at. Eventually, as my understanding grew, church (and especially Scripture) made more sense to me. And that understanding grew and changed as I grew and changed.

I like to think that the phrase “old enough to understand” is a process instead of a dividing line. Our lives continually tell us that our understanding of our role in the Kingdom of God evolves throughout our lives. A ten year old has a different understanding than an infant. A thirty year old has a different understanding than a ten year old. And a sixty year old has a different understanding than a thirty year old.

I say this with the understanding that we continue to attempt to determine a line between children and adults. But that line varies. By age 12 we pay adult prices at the theatre. On our 16th birthday we are old enough to drive, and we cast our first votes after our 18th birthday; we can also serve on juries and sign contracts. Finally, on our 21st birthday we can consume alcohol. This adulthood thing is, at best, a moving target.

This provides the context for our first reading. Ezra recounts what we now call our “salvation history.” Our understanding grows as we grow, but something else is also happening. Events that dramatically change our history, that cause us to recognize God’s role in our lives, fade over time. Within a few generations we think we are where we are because of our role and discount God’s role. We see this in the current election cycle by presidential candidates who regard immigrants as problems while ignoring the fact that our ancestors were themselves immigrants.

Our history as Christians compels us to remember who we are and where we came from. Ezra recounts salvation history because, from time to time, we need to hear (and listen to) the events that made us who we are. We can’t think we are “self made” if we know the stories and events that brought us here. That’s why I think it was critical that Ezra publicly reread the Torah to all that were gathered (regardless of their level of understanding). Their return from exile may have been luck, but our salvation history tells us that God and not luck brought them back to Jerusalem. And it was especially not from their own deeds. We are who we are because God chose us.

And the Gospel tells us that Jesus is who he is because of the same reason. I can only imagine what it felt to have been in the synagogue. Jesus, a young man who grew up among them, the son of Joseph and Mary, unrolls the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and claims to be the one Isaiah is talking about.

Jews of the 19th and 20th century grew up speaking Yiddish and the word “chutzpah” translated into English as “having nerve.” Clearly Jesus’ words gave him chutzpah when he claimed to be the one Isaiah was speaking about.

But as Christians we believe he is right. Last week I spoke about how Jesus came to an understanding of his role in salvation history after scolding his mother, and this week we can see a view of Jesus where he understands his role. All of us spend our lives learning our role in salvation history. Many of us teach our children, some of us teach our students, and all of us affect the lives of the people we interact with. When Jesus tells us “The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me,” he is not speaking only of himself. He is talking about all of us. We have all been anointed to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Each week we come to mass and listen to the readings. Unlike Ezra we don’t hear the entire Torah, but we hear pieces of our sacred readings, and we don’t read them only to think well of those who have gone before us. We read them because we understand that these readings remind us of our place in salvation history and how we need to read their words and wisdom so that we can make moral and spiritual decisions today built on how God has intervened in our history in the past.

The last book of Scripture was written about 70 years after Jesus’ resurrection and we have lived nineteen centuries of salvation history since. Volumes have been written by saints and ordinary Christians and we do read their accounts. But it’s always beneficial to go back to our ancients texts to see how we began (like Ezra) and continue to find our place in salvation history (like Jesus).