Preached on September 7, 2008 by Winton Boyd
Psalm 119: 97-105
97 Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all day long….I do not turn away from your ordinances, for you have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your teachings I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Take home sermon response form – What is the Bible?
My parents’ bedroom in the house I grew up in was at the end of an L shaped hallway that began right off the backdoor (and thus the most used door) of the house. That hallway became, over time, the “picture hallway” – containing pictures of our constantly growing and evolving family – including all eight of our baby and graduation pictures, pictures of deceased grandparents in front of historic houses, exchange students, and various family vacations and award ceremonies.
In a similar vein, Tammy and I started a picture hallway in our current house when we moved in. After putting up a few pictures when we moved in, it remained untouched until last week, when we put up framed copies of our family Christmas cards over the 25 years of our marriage. Because we pass through the hallway several times a day, we now have a renewed, daily connection with our history, our family’s journey through three states, and of course the changing sizes, hairstyles and ages of us all. In a small way, however, it is a reminder of “who we are” and “where we have been”.
What is important to remember, however, is that while the pictures are static, the memories behind them are quite dynamic and fluid. We remember different points in our family’s life differently from each other and differently today than we did yesterday.
I tell you this because today we start a several month series of sermons and discussions on the Bible – which could also be called a somewhat static storybook of a fluid, dynamic, ever changing, and evolving relationship between people of faith and the sacred presence in their lives mostly often called “God.”
We acknowledge at the outset that many of us have an uneasy relationship with the Bible. Phyllis Bird, in her 1982 book, The Bible as the Church’s Book, says for some of us our relationship with the Bible is like
A divorce openly declared; for others it is a quiet separation; still for others, there isn’t hostility; it’s just not worth the effort to understand.
I have been thinking all week, is there a GOOD reason that compels us to know this book? Is there a reason, outside of the fact that we were given one at confirmation or baptism?
I know as I read these words from Psalm 119, I feel a sense of awe and meditation that seems to speak not just of words on a scroll, but a relationship with a Divine presence or friend. I marvel at that and wonder, how can this be?
Thinking back to our picture walls and albums, we can ask “why do we try to find some connection to our own personal history?” Why do we tell stories of forebears or hang pictures of our family? Do we want to farm as grandpa did during the depression? Do we express the same social values as great grandma? Are we looking for new hairstyles or wedding dress ideas?” Probably not.
We have those pictures because in some way – a way we find mysterious – we know we are connected. They are part of our history. Maybe not all of our history, and maybe not a complete guide to our future, but in some way we are them, and they are us.
The Christian faith suggests that in the same way, the characters, ideas, lives of faith and responses to the Divine that we find in the Bible are part of our story. Like a mysterious box of pictures with no descriptions, it often feels jumbled and confusing and overwhelming – but in some way, they are us.
We will spend the next few months looking at some of the major themes and stories of the Bible. Beginning with the question, ‘If you had only a few stories from the book to give a sense of the whole – which ones are most essential? If you do not know any other stories, which group of stories should you know? Not by rote, but in your heart?
We will travel this journey, slowing filling our backpack, through the fall and into the winter, adding one story at a time – taking time for reading, reflection, prayer and possibly even storytelling. There is a booklet in the lounge with all the texts from this series. Each week, as we have today, we will include an insert for this booklet with questions, reflections, prayers and thoughts to guide your own journey through the week.
I begin with a few facts – interesting and helpful even if you don’t remember them
• The Christian Bible consists of the Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT)
• The word “testament” means “covenant”
• “Bible” comes from Latin biblia, meaning “books”
• The Bible has 66 books, and was written from about 1450 BCE to 100 CE
• The Bible contains many literary genres – poetry, myth, wisdom literature, prophecy, letters, narratives
• The longest book in the Bible is Psalms
• The OT is almost identical to the Jewish Tanakh, originally written in Hebrew, has 39 books
• The names of OT books in Hebrew are based on the first prominent word or phrase in that book, in Greek (and English) they are based on the general topic of the book
• The book of Esther is the only book of the Bible that never mentions God
• The NT was originally written in Greek, has 27 books, and is about the same size as the Qur’an
• The youngest book in the Old Testament is Malachi, written about 400 BCE
• The oldest book in the NT is James, possibly written in 45 CE
• The Bible was written over 40 generations, over 40 authors from many walks of life (i.e. – kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars); in different places (i.e. – wilderness, dungeon, palaces) and at different times (i.e. – war, peace); in different moods (i.e. – heights of joy, depths of despair) and on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe)
While those details are fascinating, there are some other things that I would prefer you remember. As we seek to make sense of these specific 18 stories, I want to suggest three approaches to reading and receiving them. (For more about this, see Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity or Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.)
The Bible is to be read as the response of God’s people in history. As such, it invites us to find our response. The ancient stories are to understood as our stories.
The Bible did not float down from heaven, it grew from below. It grew from the lives of men and women who were trying to figure out their lives and their relationship to the sacred as they experience it/him/her. We call the Bible “authoritative” and the “word of God” not because it contains words from God, but because it is a faithful response to God on the part of people like you and me.
By faithful response, we don’t suggest the writers or people depicted in this book were perfect or anything but human. We don’t share all the same values, we don’t see the world in all the same ways, we don’t experience God in all the same ways they did. We call it a faithful response because they did their best to share in story and word how they lived and how they understood faith, community, grace, sin and so much more.
But as Psalm 119 suggests [Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path] – they lived their lives with some sense that life was not all about them, but about something larger and more guiding and ever present. However flawed their words and ideas may seem to us, they sought to communicate to us a life of faith; their own relationship with God.
What does this mean? It means do not get into arguments about the Bible being inerrant, infalliable, without mistake. It is a waste of time. Do not argue with someone who says, “The Bible says it, that’s good enough for me.”
If you want to ask questions of inspiration – ask “What inspired these writers so much that they tried to codify and document their love for God? What inspired them to live through all kinds of calamity and still trust in God as their rock and redeemer?” Inspiration isn’t just about words on a page, but life on the ground.
If you want to think about inspiration, ask, “Where is the story of my life similar to the stories in this book of faith? Where have I been given a mysterious and unexplainable light to my path? Where have I felt like a slave in need of liberation, a Samaritan in need of care, a sinner in need of redeeming?”
Ask yourself, “What is my response to the grace of the universe? How am I connected to this larger story and how do I carry these stories with me as guides, inspiration, and insight for the next days of my life?”
It is to be read as metaphor – meaning “more than literal”. As I said earlier, the bible contains many genres – but not one of them is like our fact-based newspaper. Not one of them is rooted in scientific inquiry. The Bible is much less concerned with the “what” and much more concerned with the “why?” It is always a doorway to deeper truth, deeper understanding. It is ALWAYS more than literal.
Please, do not get hung up on “did it happen” – rather ask “HOW is it true?” The question “did it happen in such a way we could videotape it?” and others like it are not the questions the Bible is asking or answering. They are the questions of our age, often propped up by our cultural wars; but they are not the Bible’s questions. Before walking away from the Bible, before suggesting it takes some kind of magic to understand it, it might be worth looking for the metaphors that speak to our lives today.
For example, how does the one story of creation that describes us as created from the dust illuminate our relationship to the earth, to the larger universe? How does Jesus admonition to take up our cross and follow him serve as a reminder that our choices in life have real consequences, that truth is costly, that faithfulness not without struggle?
It is to be read as sacrament. As it reflects the faith and sense of the Spirit of those before us, it is sacred. We appeal to its sacredness not because it comes directly from God to the writers. It is sacred because the COMMUNITY OF FAITH has found it to be so.
To be a sacrament means to “reveal the nature of God.” If everything in life can be sacramental, the issue then is not “is the bible sacramental, or does it reveal the nature of God?” but, “how can we approach it with that perspective, that expectation?”
For example, many of us gathered in worship last Sunday to listen to the Psalms and sing songs. As we heard the voices of one another read these ancient words – as we heard the anguish and faith and hope of the ancients expressed through the voices of those among us – we felt the presence of God.
In our frustration with the way the Bible has been used as a weapon or tool to limit our thinking, limit our imagination – many of us have given up on this mysterious and ancient book.
I hope in this journey together some of us can reclaim this book and come to see it as sacred. I hope it can become a guide to our prayers, a light to our paths, a friend in times of need and uncertainty. I hope in these stories we can see our story. Amen
