Today’s readings have a special message for preachers because they show the positive effects of deeply hearing the word of God. Nehemiah proclaims and interprets the law with such power that the people respond with tears.

Life is complicated. Most of us don’t live our years in a perfectly straight line without a few twists and turns. And sometimes we choose outright departures from the original direction we were headed. Opportunities arise that we had never even considered, and we take the risk to follow them.

So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this word with their very lives.

For the past year I have had the opportunity to meet some fine young people who come each week to the Learning Club’s tutoring project. The Learning Club has five or six tutoring sites throughout the city, but at this one, the student scholars live on-site in a housing development for grandparents raising their grandchildren.

I held a number of part-time jobs growing up, working in lots of low-level departments in businesses, factories, and shops. Wherever I worked, one thing was always the same. My co-workers would eventually get around to saying, “Nobody appreciates what we do. If it weren’t for us, this place would fall apart.”

In the gospel passage describing Jesus’ return to Galilee, Jesus is in a take charge, electric mood. Imagine sitting in church and an altar boy walks up to the podium, reads from scripture about the coming of the Messiah, and then proclaims to the congregation that “this scripture is fulfilled this very day in me.”

We are baptized into Christ. Let us ask the Lord for forgiveness for when we have not kept our baptismal promises.

The Holy Spirit gives wisdom against folly, understanding against dullness, counsel against rashness, fortitude against fears, knowledge against ignorance, piety against hardness of our heart, and fear against pride.