Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, 

returned to Galilee, 

and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 

He began to teach in their synagogues 

and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, 

where he had been brought up, 

he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, 

as was his custom. 

He stood up to read, 

and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. 

He unrolled the scroll 

and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

And he rolled up the scroll, 

gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. 

The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 

Then he began to say to them, 

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

The tale is told that Archbishop Michael Ramsey, when he was old, went to the Church where he had been baptised, and was much moved to see the font where his journey had started. Some years’ ago, I was asked to take a funeral of someone I’d known since childhood in Gosport. In fact, it was the man who’d worked in the Portsmouth Harbour Master’s Office who had planned the mooring positions for the large number of naval vessels in the Solent for the Queen’s Review of the Fleet shortly after the Coronation. This funeral put me back in touch with the Church where I grew up in 1940s and 50s, and had been a Cub and a server, and they asked me to preach there, after of an absence of nearly forty years. Happily, we were able to see the old font, but only in the nick of time, as they were to remove it to install something more trendy. 

So, we read that Jesus returned home for a Jewish Sabbath morning service, on the Saturday. Our own Sunday eucharist is a game of two halves, and this story of the synagogue service might remind us of how we got the first half of our service. Our second half is clearly the stuff of Jewish meals, the Last Supper and the Resurrection. But our first half, is based on the synagogue service with its readings and sermon and prayers and hymns. 

In New Testament times at the synagogue there probably wouldn’t be a Rabbi about. There would be a Caretaker, who doubled as the Schoolmaster teaching the local boys at the synagogue school during the week. At that time, they had not quite got round to educating the girls in the Law, and in Hebrew. 

For the Saturday service at the synagogue, they would look up the correct reading from the Torah for the day, bring the right scroll from the special place at the front of the synagogue and read it. That would be from the first books of our Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, - the Law. For the second lesson, they were more flexible. They would find a man there who seemed to have a clue, let him choose a passage from the books of the prophets, let him read it, and then he would sit to speak about it. So it was, that when Jesus was gaining a reputation as a teacher, and went back to his home synagogue at Nazareth, it was pretty inevitable that he would be called on to choose a passage, read it and speak.

He would sit to speak. That was the custom. Jesus, later, would sit in boat near the seashore to speak to those on the shore, - sit where they couldn’t jostle him. From this we get the idea of the bishop’s chair. The bishops won’t always use them much these days, for instance to confirm people, as they probably did when some of us were confirmed. But diocesan bishops always have their special seat in their cathedral, and the word ‘cathedral’ means ‘where the bishop’s seat is’. The bishop’s chair is perhaps ‘a seat to teach from’, rather than a throne! Some new bishops ask to be ‘installed’ not ‘enthroned’.

The Epiphany season is when we are meant to be discovering whom Jesus is. He caused a lot of controversy when he chose the Isaiah reading at the synagogue. “God’s promises in Isaiah are now being fulfilled, with me, - now”, he claims! What follows is, that those who reckon Jesus does have something very special to offer, say, “we’re his old neighbours, if he’s amazingly important, we demand special benefits, because we knew him first.” Jesus then replies to the effect: “No chance, - it doesn’t work like that. God is even-handed, you don’t get priority!” Things then got rather nasty, and Jesus left.

The first half of our service has obviously moved on from the synagogue service, although we might well still use their hymns, - the psalms. For the readings, we have gained the Christian epistles, Acts, Revelation and so on… and especially the Christian Gospels. The Gospels are central for us, rather than Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. 

So what about the Jewish readings, from the Law and the Prophets? We can have up to three lessons on a Sunday, but usually have less, and no Old Testament reading at all, although sometimes that might have had more interest than the epistle that day. Many parishes do more, and that ought to be under review by a new priest here. Jesus’ life and background and vocation, and the conflicts he met, were all rooted in the Old Testament, and we lose a grip of that to our detriment. This could, of course, be also addressed with Bible study groups. In Wales, I objected that Readers, licenced lay ministers, in their training, studied no Old Testament at all, which was bizarre. The leader of the course was promptly promoted to Archdeacon, and I was in the doghouse yet again! But a minority is not necessarily wrong.

Looking back to the women in my family long ago, one thing they seemed to like was remnants. Cheap left-over ends from expensive rolls of cloth. Remnant is a theme in the Bible. The future very often seems to lie with a minority. Nearly 4000 years ago, at the start of the People of God, Abraham was one ageing man from a small, and not very advanced nation. “How odd of God to choose the Jews”, as the saying goes. Later, it was often a lone prophet who had the right idea. 

When the Jews had their 12 tribes, the northern 10, the majority, were eventually lost to the main story, overrun by the Assyrians. Only the minority, the two southern tribes of Benjamin and Judah, around Jerusalem’ became the focus. And when they went into exile in Babylon, only a remnant of them returned to Jerusalem. And Jesus was the ultimate remnant of those. 

So, God can work through remnants and minorities, and majorities at meetings do not necessarily have the answers. A vote at a meeting doesn’t decide the will of God! The 39 Articles of Religion are encouraging when they ask us to accept, not just that church meetings can be wrong, but that they sometimes have actually been wrong. 

But when a lone individual does take a lead, it has to be discerned whether it is because they are in tune with God, who is urging them. Or, less happily, whether they are led by a wrong vision, personal ambition or concern for power. 

In the end, God’s activity in the nearly 2000 years of Old Testament times, became focussed in Christ, who was sometimes very much alone. But when light is focused by a lens to a point, it will immediately start to spread out widely again, which is what we in the Body of Christ are meant to be about and need to have a vision of where we have come from. And that has to mean knowing the Old Testament. 

And we still have important remnants – very possibly minority figures in the Church who have the right way forward. The role of a parish priest is not just to have some of the answers, but also to be to be able to spot them when others have them.