| July 6, 2008
You are welcome to reflect on this message
Independence weekend focuses our thoughts on our nation’s birthday, and the blessings of freedom, made possible by the revered U.S. Constitution. It struck me that most of the hot-button issues of our time have in common, somebody’s mis-reading of a sacred document. And every week, we gather in the worship of God, centered around the holy scriptures, our sacred document. Jesus was always in hot water for taking his culture's sacred things to task. Three of the most hallowed in Jewish tradition: the Sabbath, the temple, and the Torah. To disregard any of them was deadly. But Jesus put them all in their place in pursuit of something nobler.
The day he healed a man beside the pool on the Sabbath, he violated 2 at once. "The Jews asked, 'Who is this fellow who told you to pick up your bed and walk?'...The man said it was Jesus. After that ,they tried all the more to kill him; not just because he broke the Sabbath. But he called God his own Father." So Jesus treads on thin ice if that’s what it took to heal a lame man. The Jews were adamant that their sacred texts, said no such thing about Jesus' claim of being Lord of the Sabbath. Their rule book had no such rule. Therefore, Jesus had to be wrong, because the book can't be. That’s the thing about sacred pages. It’s very had to amend them, if at all.
But Jesus repudiated their approach to the Bible and for making something bad out of something good, misrepresenting the will of God. "You diligently study the scriptures because you think that in them you possess eternal life." Whew! What a statement! I don’t know what you do with that, but Mary Ann Lathbury put the words into song a long time ago. “Break Thou the Bread of Life” could be about either communion or the Bible. But it's really about Jesus: "Beyond the sacred page, I seek thee Lord; My spirit pants for thee, O Living Word!" An obvious recognition that the sacred page doesn’t go far enough. Think of humanity's preoccupation with their testaments: the Hebrew Torah, the Islamic Koran, the Book of Mormon; Buddhist texts: sutra, Dharma. And we Christians have what some errantly call the inerrant Bible. A claim the Bible never makes for itself.
Of course “sacred pages” have helped many people along the way to live better. But when the book gets too sacred, as Lathbury allows, we have to go beyond it. Hard copy can only go so far with personality. It takes more than dogma to redeem a soul. It can ruin one but never save it. That's what Jesus was getting at: "You diligently search the scriptures because you think eternal life is in a book." The song got it right, while the religious keep getting it wrong. "Beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord!" We like to think the book will do it. Our book, that is. Certainly nobody else's. The letters on the page will see us through. We forget that all literature must be interpreted. Even our revered U.S. Constitution. We have to agree on what it says, mostly. But what it means isn’t always clear.
Maybe you’ve seen those Bibles that have “For help read” glossaries. “When in doubt, “read.” When living in sin,” read. “When putting down women read wahtever you like, so we pick and choose what suits us depending on the controversy. That’s the problem with sacred pages. But Jesus exposed it. "You think you have eternal life in something inanimate.” Where I come from, folks call that idolatry.
Everlasting life is not found in a page--even a sacred one. Abundant life is not knowing about God. But knowing God, in relationship. The only place in the Bible where eternal life is explicitly described is John 17:3. "This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God. And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” I don’t see how anybody can spin that. It means what it says. John says nothing about a single ritual or sacred page or even an old rugged cross. Just knowledge of a person. Jesus couldn’t be clearer: "This is eternal life, that they may know God and the One whom he sent."
It upset those who prefer the "letter of the law" because he exposed the danger of making the scriptures a means to an end. The end is God, who is the Bible’s Lord; the means are the church and the scriptures. "It is the scriptures that bear witness of me," said Jesus. The Jews were and still are a people of the Book. They have a place for the Dead Sea Scrolls, just like we do the U.S. Constitution. Over centuries, with great attention to detail, they recorded a great body of sacred literature as a means to serving God. To them we owe a great debt for that. Yet one of their own, Saul of Tarsus said, "The law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ." Our vehicle to bring us to Jesus?
Over time, the Jews' regard the Word of God missed the intention of holy writ and their purpose. Instead of becoming a "kingdom of priests," and a "light to the nations," Israel pulled inward and hid her light. Rather than searching the scriptures to find life and share it with others, they began to find life in the sacred scrolls as a way to exclude others. And the Bible becomes voodoo! Jesus mocked their magic and that’s what got him crucified. The Bible can't give life. But challenging it can take life. The Bible only tells us where life can be found. I know it’s hard to accept that people can be saved without a Bible. But not without God.
It's like the difference between the menu and the food. Nobody goes to a restaurant to eat the menu. It’s just a pamphlet; a means to an end. The end is the food. The purpose of a menu is to help us decide what to eat. We should know the difference between the scriptures as a menu and Christ as the Bread of Life! When people get hungry for Bread, we dare not offer them a stone! An introduction to Christ is much more filling than a religious tract, because he stands beyond the sacred page. The Bible itself is not the problem. We’re the problem, because we impose our thinking onto the text, in order to twist the scriptures to say what we want them to.
From time to time people have an investment in the Bible saying certain things. In the 1800's in the southland where cotton was king, it was profitable for the Bible to support slavery. Ever since Constantine’s vision in the 4th century, seeing clouds in the form of a cross, he believed God was telling him “In this sign, conquer!” Now we have the “just war” theory. National leaders always quote the Bible to support war. German soldiers wore the Christian cross on their belt buckles during World War II. Yeah, it’s blasphemous. But when you can enlist the sacred page to underwrite your cause, it has a lot more clout. We all want God on our side, so we have to ask one another, “Which god do you kill for?” One kills for Jesus, another for Moses, or Allah or the Emperor.
Anybody with an agenda tries to wrap it in the Bible. Those against abortion, quote the Psalmist. Those opposed to gay marriage, quote Romans. America is a Christian nation? Well there aren’t any on that because America came 1400 years after the Bible. But they’ll find something. “Infallible,” some like to call it, when it suits them. But the scriptures never claim it. Inspired? Profitable? Authoritative, yes. Inerrant, never. The Bible is a human book, and those who claim perfection for the Bible have never read it. Or else they’d know better. They’re saying more about themselves than the scriptures. What they mean is "my interpretation of the Bible is infallible and yours is not." Those who are unsure of their position have to crawl under creeds for reassurance, because they know the power of the sacred page.
So why settle for a word, when we can have the Living Word? The Bible's Lord, “the Alpha and Omega;” towering above all of our sacred pages and constitutions and by-laws with life eternal. But the Son of God was rejected for the sacred page. Because in it, they thought “they had eternal life.” Our reverence for the sacred page crystallizes the mentality of those who use the Bible as religious means for political ends. And Jesus ridicules it! That’s why the authorities feared him. He didn’t just “color outside the lines,” he re-wrote the law: “You’ve heard what the old timers said. But I say to you … this.” Jesus put himself above the law! How can such people be controlled? They might heal somebody on the Sabbath, for God’s sake! Or not wash their hands right. Oh there are plenty of people today who still use the Bible for ulterior motives. And beat people over the head with a book! Paul advises Timothy to “Rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15).
On a recent trip to Israel, they always take you through the streets of the old city of Jerusalem. More like a narrow alley, it is always crowded. Merchants haggling over prices of items in the front of the shops, lining both sides of the street. Its so jammed there’s no way to get by without bumping into somebody. So you had to zig and zag and watch out for pick-pockets.
I noticed an orthodox Jew speed-walking, like he was holding his breath -- trying not to touch a Gentile. It reminded me of a Rhode Island snow-plow scraping the winter streets. The only way he thought he could navigate was to place a tiny copy of the Hebrew prayer book over his nose, and lean forward. Which meant he couldn’t see well and barged into anybody who stood in his way. In case he contacted a non-Jew, the scriptures were his shield! Bibliolatry is the sin of making something ugly out of something good. It’s as cock-eyed as confusing the menu with the food. The Bible is the word of God, but not God.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed but on most Sundays, the communion table in the sanctuary has a huge Bible, presented as a gift by somebody way back in 1848. Because it not only represents our appreciation for old things, but our strong belief in the power of the Bible to help us live rightly, to be a "light to our path and a lamp to our feet." And we properly acknowledge it as that. But on Communion Sunday, we also properly remove the Bible from the table. And replace the Sacred Page with the Bread of life as our way of saying “beyond the sacred page, I seek Thee, Lord. My Spirit pants for Thee, the Living Word!”
Pastoral Prayer: July 6, 2008
We gather in worship in this church called forth by Thy son, to see how the good is too often the enemy of the best. Knowing you always want for us, the best. You called us to be doers of the word, not hearers only, and not worshipers of it. Remind us in this worship when we break the bread and share the cup, you are the one who saves, none other. Save us from pretending that we speak for Thee, deny us the peace of poring over words, but not following the Living word. Heavy on facts, mushy on truth.
Let us not overlook the unfortunate experiences of our neighbors, neither allow our weaknesses to leave us in despair, nor our strengths make us proud. Help us live rightly, even when we don’t want to. Forgive us for praising prayer but rarely praying. Expecting gifts but hesitant to give; damning the sins of others, while overlooking our own. We know so much yet see so little, or feel safe in our wisdom or lack thereof. Our love is strong, yet fragile, strong enough to show kindness, frail enough to make a mountain out of a molehill. We are so alive, yet so dead, alive enough to hurt back when slighted, dead enough to feel nothing when others hurt. Grant us in these moments of summertime worship around Thy table, clear minds, warm hearts, stirred souls. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. |
