Sermon Text Psalm 119:97-105, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
8 Jan 06
Several weeks ago, when I spoke to you at the congregational meeting I began by saying I was searching for words. I know some of you find it hard to believe that I would ever be at a loss for words. But I have continued to search for words since then -- this time a word from the Lord -- that would speak to this church at this particular time. What do the scriptures have to teach us when we find ourselves in tough times, either in our personal lives, or in the life of the church?
I'm NOT going to spend 8 weeks talking about the particular stress of this church. What I've come up with through a lot of thinking and praying is kind of a refresher course on church -- a Church 101 if you will. To remind us all of why we gather here as the church each week. What does it mean to be the church? What difference does it make? And how are we different from the world?
Even if you already have some of the answers, the point of a refresher course is to get everyone on the same page. The lessons we learn in the church are important not just for a few hours each Sunday. Church is bigger than Sunday a.m. The lessons we learn here shape us and have the potential to spill over into every part of our lives -- home, office, school, workplace, neighborhood. The first Christians understood this far better than we do -- if you read a couple of verses from Acts 2 :42-47 -- you get the picture of the church as a way of life. The world needed this in the first century. The world still needs this.
Now every course, every class needs a book. So as we begin this Church 101, we begin with our book. Christians go by the book. The Bible. The Bible remains the number one best seller of all time. Every day 168,000 Bibles are sold or given away in the U.S. alone. In case you're a number person, here's some more statistics about the Bible. The Bible can be read in 70 hours. There are 66 books in the Bible -- 39 in the old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The longest name is Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8:1) (ma her shal al hash baz). The shortest verse is "Jesus wept." (John 11:35)
But the Bible is like no other book. That means you can't read it like you read other books. An author I like, Frederick Buechner says this: "The trouble is it's not like any other book. To read the Bible as literature is like reading Moby Dick as a whaling manual or The Brothers Karamazov to learn punctuation." The Bible is different because it has the power to take hold of us and shape us into the people of God.
Throughout the whole Bible, we find scriptures that celebrate the power of the word of God. Today's first reading is one of those. The author of Psalm 119 has written one of the most beautiful psalms. It is the longest -- 176 verses -- so we do not usually hear the whole thing in worship. It is an artistically constructed acrostic poem. What that means is that in the original, each section of eight verses starts with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, beginning with the first letter and all the way thru the 22 letters.
The other thing that scholars notice about this poem is that 8 terms occur over and over in this long psalm: Torah -- which we translate as law, and 7 other words which are synonyms of Torah -- words like commandments, ordinances, statues. With only a few exceptions, all 176 verses in Psalm 119 contain one of these words. So this is a psalm that celebrates Torah -- the law -- scriptures. If you read all 176 verses, the effect is overwhelming -- and that is probably what the author intended -- That's just how important God's instruction is.
Even if we are not all that familiar with this long psalm, most of us are familiar with that song we heard today sung by Lisa, "Thy Word is a Lamp Unto My Feet and a Light Unto my Path" which comes straight from verse 105 in this psalm. In the verses we read today, it is obvious that the psalmist was in love with God's law. Not only that, this writer says, so beautifully, God's law has the power to guide our lives.
Going to the next reading from second letter to the Timothy, we hear the same message. Scripture has the power to train us, teach us, equip us to do the work of ministry, according to the letter to Timothy. God's people always have had to be reminded of this, from the time of the Israelites to the time of the early church -- probably the late first century or early second century when this letter to Timothy was written.
Here's a little more background on this letter: even though it is called the second letter of Paul to Timothy, more than likely it wasn't written by Paul. Scholars who study vocabulary and language could see that the style of this letter was very different from Paul's other writings. But it was perfectly acceptable in that time to credit something to someone else if you were one of their followers. This letter and the other two nearby -- 1st Timothy and Titus -- were probably written in Paul's name a generation or two after Paul died. Something else worth noting is that the letters -- even though they are written to someone named Timothy -- are actually all in the plural. Because they offer advice to the church about all manner of things, they are sometimes called the Pastoral Letters. But the overriding concern of these letters is sound teaching -- the word used here literally means teaching in such a way that makes people healthy, makes people well.
The writer tells the church that all scripture is inspired by God -- the word means breathed from the mouth of God. This is what corrects, teaches, forms, shapes and guides our lives. When that happens, we're equipped for God's purposes.
The writer goes on to warn them that this sound teaching -- this healthy teaching -- isn't always something people want to hear. Let me read vs. 3 and 4 for you from another translation of the Bible -- a modern translation called The Message by Eugene Peterson. "You're going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food -- catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They'll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages."
You've probably been to a party before where they serve heavy hors d' oeuvres. You can pick and choose all evening from chips and salsa, cocktail sausages, cheese and crackers, and more. But when you go home, even though you may be full, you feel like you've not really had dinner.
The same can be true of the way we read the Bible. A verse here, an effort at reading a chapter there. A bit of a devotional reading once in a while. The trouble with this approach to the Bible is that it's not really enough to feed -- to nurture -- our relationship with God. Plus, that's the lazy approach to the Bible. Understanding the Bible takes more effort than that.
Many people who were raised Christians don't have a clue about what's in it because they've never read it in a disciplined way. I know someone who is very well read, and has studied many different philosophies, world religions and more. But she has barely looked at the Bible of Christianity. When I mention a verse from scripture, she says, "That's good stuff. Where did that come from?"
There is a story told where a young man who was raised a Christian began to study and learn more about other world religions. He found herself drawn to these other ideas, and could see the truth in many of them. Yet he was confused, so he went to a Hindu holy man to talk it over. After listening to him, the holy man simply offered this advice: "It is better to dig one well 60 feet deep than 6 wells 10 feet deep."
If we never dig deeply into the Bible, we are missing some powerful truths. Even Christians who come to church every Sunday don't always read the bible in a disciplined way. My own story is a case in point. I had been a churchgoer my whole life, but I never really read the Bible until I was in my mid-30s. Maybe you're one of those people who has been saying for a while, "yeah, I need to read the Bible." I invite you to resolve to do it this year. And there is an insert in today's bulletin that can help you stick to it. This church also offers frequent opportunities to study the Bible -- we'll begin a Wednesday night Bible study in February with Stan Saunders teaching what people always want to study -- Revelation. I also will be teaching a women's Bible study beginning in February. Plus, we are committed in this church to teaching children the Bible in a way they can understand it -- through story and multiple learning experiences. We always need teachers to help with this.
Besides laziness, there are a couple of other threats to understanding the Bible -- the enlightenment and literalism.
The enlightenment is a historical period that began in the 1700s and it's influenced us since then. Up until this time, truth was never understood as facts and figures, realities that we see and touch. But as science advanced, we became more preoccupied with scientifically verifiable and historically reliable facts. According to Marcus Borg, a professor of religion and culture, modern western culture is the only culture in human history that has identified truth with factuality. Until just a couple of hundred years ago, truth was always something larger than mere facts.
A third threat to understanding the bible is literalism. The problem with reading the bible literally is that it never goes beyond the surface meaning, and too often the surface meaning gets used as a hammer that pounds down anyone who has a different understanding or interpretation of the Bible.
So how do we read the Bible in a way that guides our lives? A helpful way of understanding the Bible is to think of it as a lens. Marcus Borg, the religion professor, recalled one of his students who was taking an introductory level course on the Bible. About 2 weeks into it, he said, "I think I'm beginning to get it. You're saying that the Bible is like a lens through which we see God, but some people think it's important to believe in the lens." Christians who take the Bible seriously use the Bible as a lens to see what is beyond the lens -- God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
Christians who take the Bible seriously need to read past a surface understanding. First, they read to understand what the text meant in the time it was written. Second, they read the story to understand its meaning beyond the historical facts.
Sometimes it takes some tools, like a Bible commentary or a dictionary to understand these ways of reading. Then finally, Christians who take the Bible seriously read and ask "How does this touch my life?" and "Lord, what are you calling me to do?"
When Christians go by the book -- when we take the Bible seriously -- we can't help but be shaped by the book -- wherever we are living out God's purposes -- at home, school, workplace, neighborhood, even church. The world needs this kind of shaping now more than ever. Amen.
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