The Twenty-First Sunday
after Pentecost, Proper 24C-RCL, October 21, 2007
Bible Matters
The Rev. Robert B. Wood,
St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alpharetta, Georgia
Last week and this week, we heard Paul
tell Timothy some things about Holy Scripture: “don’t wrangle over
words but rightly explain the word of truth” and “all scripture is
inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness.”
So today’s sermon is going to be about
the Bible, and I will start, logically, by telling you about an
episode of Star trek. I grew up watching Star trek and got
double-doses at my grandparent’s house when I asked to be excused from
adult talk after dinner. I’d sit back in my grandfather’s black,
leather recliner and join the travels to places where no man had gone
before.
On one occasion, Captain Kirk and
company landed on a planet where people had been before, and now,
years later, its inhabitants are dressed up like old-time, big-city
gangsters with double-breasted suits and fedoras. They use all the
right slang, and are masters of drive-by shootings—right down to the
machine guns and 1940 Fleetline Chevys.
Kirk and Co can’t figure it out. This
was not their report on this planet. Then they hear about “the book.”
It turns out that Starfleet travelers had visited the planet years
before, found its civilization rather undeveloped and left; but one of
them had accidentally left a book. Something like the history of
gangs in America.
Seeing this book as wisdom from an
advanced culture of space-travelers, the people of the planet started
following its plot for their lives. They organized their crime,
amassed guns, and made hits on their enemies. In short, it became
their Bible. I seem to remember it was kept on an elaborate display
shelf, on a stage and under a lamp.
I think that I’ve remembered that
episode because there was an edge to it…a little ridicule for any
group that lets a book have such a hold on them—be it Torah, Koran, or
Bible—of taking any book, particularly a religious book so literally.
Of it becoming an end in itself or the object of worship.
That may be what Paul means when he says
to Timothy. “Don’t wrangle over words.” Don’t get so caught up in the
words that you forget the Living God—who inspired those words in the
first place. God is the object of our faith.
And, of course, the Bible did not come
out of the sky—nor from an advanced civilization. But we do
understand it as having been given to us. Not only passed down from
human beings, but, as Paul says today, “God-inspired.” Another
translation, the NIV, even says, “God-breathed.” “God-breathed.”
There is some credibility. Think of the things God did with his
breath. He breathed life into Adam. Jesus breathed new life into the
disciples after the resurrection by appearing in the upper room and
saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
That Spirit inspired and filled
disciples like Peter, James, and Paul…and Timothy. And I pray that
their words inspire you too that their recorded words in our scripture
breathe faith into you…and strength…and the knowledge of your
salvation. I also pray that the words of the Good News are not
misused nor misread…made into something they are not.
They are not, for example, a fortune
cookie. Allow me to explain. A daughter was working for her parents
in the family business, and discovered they were cheating their
customers and not paying taxes. She knew God would not want her to
continue this way, so she looked to the Bible for help: she opened the
Bible and pointed at a verse which read: honor your father and your
mother. In another example, A college student prayed, “All my friends
have started doing drugs and having casual sex. God, what should I
do?” Under her finger read, “Go and do likewise.”
On another note, the Bible, as holy and
as God-breathed as it is, is not best classified as inerrant or as
something to be taken literally at all times. A magazine I get,
The Christian Century, has the cover story this time around that
says, “My year of taking the Bible literally.” And on that cover, the
picture of the author goes from your regular, clean-shaven guy with a
hair cut to a very bushy, shaggy man who could have been seen tending
sheep in Jericho or Gaza. He also changed his wardrobe to include
only clothes of one thread kind—according to Leviticus—and, since the
Bible asks it, he decided to start stoning adulterers and Sabbath
breakers (though he did it with pebbles and little emotional force.)
I think this type of simplistic
literalism is what I fear the most—and maybe why I remember the
silliness of the word-for-word gangster culture that Captain Kirk
discovered. But I also fear ignorance—a world in which Bibles collect
more dust than readers. Or where Biblical literacy is around the
sixth-grade level.
What then is a healthy reading of these
God-inspired, God-breathed words? Of letting God’s breath push the
sails of our faith so that we are not dead in the water. Paul’s
letters to Timothy sheds light on exactly that. Timothy, you see, was
a convert to the faith but not a first generation convert. His
grandmother and his mother were believers, as we learn in Paul’s first
letter to him.
He is a third generation Christian who
Paul is training…encouraging…to be a leader, an evangelist, a bishop.
And Paul reminds him to follow the sacred writings (talking about the
Old Testament here of course. The New Testament was not BIBLE until
387 AD.) Although for us now, the “new” ones are just as if not more
sacred.
Don’t get me wrong, the stories of
Jesus—the good news—were being told in
Timothy’s time. And that is exactly why Paul writes: “Continue what
you have learned and firmly believed the sacred writings that are able
to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. “All
scripture is inspired by God” and, Paul says, useful for four things.
Did you catch these four? for teaching, reproof, correction, and for
training.
For
teaching—not that it teaches itself, but once we know it, have learned
and studies, we can share the stories and lessons of faith. For
reproof—when we hear a parable of Jesus about a rich man eating while
a hungry beggar goes hungry at his door, or a prophet criticizing King
David by saying “you are the man” who betrayed a weaker neighbor, we
can also see how our actions separate us from God and neighbor.
For
correction—I take correction to mean repentance. Whether it was
Israel being called back from sinfulness, or the Samaritan woman at
the well, being told of her infidelity, God gives us a chance to amend
our lives, repent (we call it) and come home. And lastly for
training…as we study Acts of the Apostles, we’ve seen how the early
church grew and handled change, managed issues of leadership and
faithfulness—and even understanding of the Bible itself. We can see
how God is breathing on us to train us for ministry in our time…even
ministry in the face of threats to the faith itself.
Without all
these stories and teachings, we might think that God has been holding
his breath…just hoping that we will get it one day. Yes, we need the
Bible. I would not go so far as calling it “Faith for Dummies” and
putting a yellow cover on it, but I would call it Faith for sinners.
That’s the reproof, the correction, the training.
I also hope you will understand when I
say that the Bible is not the center of our faith: Jesus Christ
is--living and breathing Jesus Christ--who speaks to us still. So
pick up the Bible this week and do some reading. Ask the Spirit to
guide you. Don’t make it a Sunday’s only activity. There are
wonderful study Bibles with notes, or full Bible studies that you can
read in groups or by yourself, or just start with a short letter like
Colossians, Philippians, or 1 Peter.
And as you
read the God-breathed words, consider them part of God’s
mouth-to-mouth—to you—meant to resuscitate your faith, stir your
heart, and bring you from death to life. We’ll, it’s more like breath
to breath, For these words of inspiration, reproof, correction, and
teaching, are meant not only to be received, but to be
breathed again…by you.
You, like
Timothy, have received them, and then it’s your turn to breathe the
good news…to pass it on. Paul was writing him to encourage him to be
an evangelist…to use his breath, not hold it, for the growth of the
kingdom. And the same is true for you.
Let your
breath tell the story of our Lord…maybe even in song. Our hymns today
are all about Scripture and the Word, and so I leave you with this
verse—to sing later with gusto—as prayer, and praise, and promise that
you will study and breath the Word of God. Spread, o spread, thou
mighty word / Spread the kingdom of the Lord / that to earth’s
remotest bound / all may heed the joyful sound.
© The Rev. Robert B. Wood. All Rights
reserved.
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