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Today is the second Sunday in our Squirmin' Sermon series. Bethany, Doug and I will respond to several questions that you asked about the relevance of the Bible to our contemporary lives. After examining the subject from three perspectives, we hope you will join us at 11:15 to discuss the topic and share your own thoughts and experience.
Is the Bible relevant to us or is it just a beautifully written but antiquated resource that stores family baptism dates and looks pretty on our bookshelves? Is it a series of writings that was important to our ancestors but has little relation to today's world of "shock and awe," SARS and AIDS, corporate misbehavior, fears of terrorism, and stress and exhaustion that comes from living day to day? This is not a new question in 2003. About the time of Jesus' birth, a there was a Jewish teacher named Hillel the Elder. He was challenged by a Gentile who said to him, "Teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot." Hillel replied, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it."
(Barbara): Doug, what is it about Scripture that makes it relevant to your life today?
It's not possible for something to be relevant in our lives if we do not have an intimate relationship with it. Some people are too busy to read and study the Bible. Many people feel that they lack the skills, history, context, and linguistics to read and study it. Others tried to read it cover-to-cover and bogged down in the middle of yet another list of four-dozen names they could not pronounce.
People get to the Levitic code or a list of St. Paul's rules, realize that they've broken most of them, and decide to hedge their bets in order to plead ignorance at the "pearly gates." For some people the Bible is literal truth, word-for-word, and for others it is a remarkable metaphor.
If the Bible is to be relevant it helps to know why you are reading it on different occasions. I read the Bible as part of a regular study of the text. I read it in times when I feel a loss, vulnerable, needing a guidepost; or when I try to find inspiration or hope, challenge or comfort. I read it and know how deeply it speaks to so many parts of human life.
There are cautions. U. C. Berkeley Professor Robert Alter told our class that reading the Bible as literature is like reading Moby Dick as a whaling manual. Be careful reading the Bible as strict, binding laws, rules, and regulations -- that probably wasn't the author's intent. It also doesn't help to read it like The Arabian Nights or Harry Potter: the stuff of fantasy and modern myth.
Read Scripture as a lively, creating, evolving, unfolding drama that ignites your imagination and passion. Try to find your own story and the human story in Scripture. I try to live in the skin of its archetypical characters: Job, David, Ruth, Sarah, and Mary. I live in their times and circumstances so that I can better understand the parallels in my own life and times.
To read the Bible in these ways is to recognize that its teachings transcend time and speak to different eras because it has such a rich and wise understanding of reality, of the human condition, of our intimate longing to have a place in the being of God. I read Scripture because it helps me know who and whose I am: it is a critically important element in my psychological and spiritual journey.
Scripture has authority in my life because I choose to live as if the stories, poetry, law, history, and the overarching message are utterly true and real. In Deuteronomy we are asked to never forget the Word of God, to teach it to children; to repeat it at home and on the road, when at rest and at work, and to engrave it at the portals of our being. We repeat, teach, remember, and engrave the passion of faith, the purposes of God, the presence of Christ, and the reality of the Spirit's grace and love.
Bethany, The Bible was written so very long ago. Can it possibly be meaningful to the youth of today, of Marin? How do you help youth understand the Bible as they grow in their faith experience?
If you were to survey the youth about their favorite youth group activities, Bible study would rank near the bottom of the list. I can understand the problem. The Bible is filled with some pretty detailed history that the average person isn't going to understand in one sitting, and some archaic rules that have no place in today's society. Not to mention those geneologies that Doug spoke of. How many of you enjoy reading the first 16 verses of Matthew? There are so many names I can't pronounce, I just skip to Jesus' birth. Yes, it's easy to see why the Bible can get a bad rap, not only with the youth, but often with us adults too. I was sitting in on the 6th grade Sunday school class a few weeks ago, and the teacher, Susan Picetti, was leading the kids in a very lively discussion about an issue one of them had faced at school. After a few minutes of conversation, Susan said to the class, "Let's see what the Bible has to say about this." Amid a chorus of groans, one of the kids asked, "Why does it always come back to the Bible?"
Why does it always come back to the Bible? Perhaps because it is so much more than history, rules, and geneologies. It is a road map for how we should live our lives. Especially today, with so many demands on our time and resources, the Bible is what keeps us centered on what is most important, it's what comforts us in times of difficulty, what lifts us up when we are down, what puts us back on God's path when we wander.
Every now and then, I enjoy reading the Robert Fulghum book, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Fulghum lists all the basics of life that we've known since Kindergarten — like Share Everything. Play fair. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody. Use the Golden Rule. Love. Certainly all good lessons — lessons that still apply to us today — right now, even though kindergarten was a long time ago. All those lessons, by the way, are found in the Bible. It was written a long time ago, even before our kindergarten years, but its lessons are so very applicable today. Where else can we read the Good News that our sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ? Where else can we read that God will turn our tears into dancing? Where else can we read that God created and shaped us, and loves us just as we are?
But it's important to not think of the Bible just as "feel good" reading. We must get more than a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when we read the Bible. We need to be challenged. That's what Jesus taught us. To challenge ourselves to befriend our enemies, to love the unloveable, and yes, to follow those rules that we'd like to ignore. Though some are outdated in today's world — we wouldn't want to oust Barb from the pulpit just because she's female - but many others are extremely relevant. In the high school youth group, we've been doing a study of the Ten Commandments, looking at a different commandment each week. We have been amazed at how important each one is in our lives today. We've also had our eyes opened about how difficult each is to follow. Thou shall not steal seems straightforward enough, right? And we understand that robbery or shoplifting are bad. But as the discussion continued, many of the youth realized they had stolen from the movie theater by paying a child's admission rather than the appropriate adult admission. Others hadn't quite finished their homework one night and had stolen from another student by copying their answers. And who hasn't treaded into these gray areas from time to time? But the Bible is not just warm and fuzzy — it is challenging. Especially when we face these gray areas in our lives, we ned to be challenged by the Bible. That is when it becomes relevant to us.
So how are you doing living the ten commandments? Or the two we heard read today — "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you think those aren't relevant today, think again. And if you think all those "feel good" lessons of love and forgiveness aren't relevant today, think again. We have been given the Bible — God's word — as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let's use it.
Barb, how is the Bible relevant to you? Is there only one interpretation or is it something we can discuss and debate?
Our passage from Mark gives us a brief glimpse into a discussion Jesus had that was similar to the one we had last week, on the topic of resurrection and heaven. At the end of that exchange about whose wife she would be in the afterlife, a scribe put a question to Jesus. The scribe was a learned man who probably had an opinion of his own and wanted to open a discussion. He asked Jesus which commandment was the most important of all. Instead of responding with just one, Jesus quoted the first of the famous Ten and included another as equally important. The second wasn't even part of Moses' original list received from God on Mt. Sinai. Jesus pulled out a verse from Leviticus that is listed deep in the midst of others that might not seem relevant to us today. They include regulations from the time and culture in which they were written. One is, "you will not wear a garment made from two kinds of fabric." Another says, "you will not round off your hair at the edges or trim the edges of your beard or tattoo yourselves." A third one instructs, "when offering a communion sacrifice to God, it must be eaten the same day and whatever is left on the third day must be burnt." Jesus' message was clear and the scribe agreed by saying, "Loving God and loving one's neighbor is much more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices." Even in the time of Jesus, he and those around him recognized the love of God and neighbor as the core of God's hope for all humanity. Though people through Biblical history found various ways to live their faith in their own time, that core of love, that plumbline against which we measure all other commandments can be found weaving its way through Scripture.
That theme to love God and each other is repeated by the matriarchs and patriarchs, by the prophets, by Jesus and his disciples and by Paul and the early church leaders. In Biblical times as well as today, it often meant going against the culture, going against conventional wisdom to put that love into action. It is risky and people have lost friends and possessions and even their lives as a result of their commitment to respond to God's love by actively loving others. Is it relevant? Here's one little example that's close to home. In that same chapter of Leviticus with the regulations that I quoted earlier, there are also these words: "If you have resident aliens in your country, you will not oppress them. You will treat them as though they were native-born and love them as yourself…" Did you read in the paper this week of the proposed cutbacks and rate increases in Golden Gate bus service here in Marin? Who do you think will be most affected by elimination of many routes and significant cutbacks in others? As we go by the bus stops in our cars, do we notice the people, many of whom were not born in the United States, who transfer from the bus at the freeway and take the #10 to jobs in restaurants, supermarkets, and homes, jobs that help pay their rent and buy food for their families? Do you know that Marin has turned down a transit tax several times though most other counties help those who need transportation in this way? What would be the loving thing to do in this situation — how can we best love our neighbors?
Can you imagine what people would say to us if we proposed a new tax during this time of growing unemployment and dwindling value of investment income? We might not be very popular in this year of tax cutting. And, yet, the second theme that winds its way through scripture from the earliest stories of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mary and Joseph and Jesus are the words, "Do not be afraid." Is it relevant? You bet it is! Living a faith that includes a social commitment, a love for neighbor, is image threatening and life threatening but it is the only thing that brings new life for all God's adults and children. When we are honest with others, and ourselves we acknowledge that living our faith in that way is what brings new life to us as well! Our high school youth and leaders experience the same when they put in hours of thoughtful planning and study and give up post-graduation holidays to meet and build homes for families that have migrated to the Tijuana area in search of work.
So…is the Bible relevant? Most definitely, however, it is only relevant when we read it with our hearts and minds open to God's Spirit speaking to us through the words. The words are not frozen in time. The Prophets interpreted the Biblical commandments for their world situation. Jesus did the same when he spoke to the people saying, "You have heard how it was said to our ancestors…but I say this to you." The Biblical model is one of God calling us to read, think, pray, discuss and then to act. The promise is clear. Though our future is unknown we need not be afraid. God is always with us.
What about the Bible makes it relevant to you? Is it legitimate to emphasize one portion over others? Does the Bible contradict itself and if so, how do we explain the contradictions? Please continue the conversation with us at 11:15.
Let us pray.