Sermon Scraps from Feb 5, 2012 Mark 1: 29 - 39

This Sunday I preached on Mark 1: 29 – 39, which, in the NRSV, reads:

As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

I chose to focus on the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, and I think that was the sermon I was supposed to preach. Still, I cannot seem to get something out of my head about this pericope. Mark says that Simon and his companions hunted for him (Jesus) when he had gone to pray in the deserted place.

There are a few common themes to Mark’s gospel that are important to note. The two words that appear most in Mark are “and” and “immediately” (kai andeuthos). Mark is a series of run-on sentences, which apparently are fine in Greek. And everything happens immediately. But every so often, Jesus steps away from everyone and everything to pray. When he does, they always find him and bring him back.

This leads me to ask a few questions:

• Why do people feel the need to seek for Jesus and not as much now?
• Was the gospel he proclaimed different than the gospel we proclaim?
• Why are we chasing people to come to us, when the people were chasing Jesus?  

I do not have answers to these questions, but I still ask. I think there is something in the immediacy of Jesus’ ministry. People needed healing; they needed the Kingdom of God to be real. They needed and they needed now.

I do not believe that we are any less in need of healing, but I am not sure we are acting with the same immediacy. The Kingdom of God can wait? The healing you need, you can wait until next week, when I have more time, right? Maybe we as the church need to try something different. Maybe if we present the gospel with the immediacy of the Kingdom of God being at hand instead of come to my church, we have a good pot luck, maybe . . . These are people’s lives we are talking about. But I wonder if we even believe that the Kingdom of God is at hand. We certainly do not always act like it. The Kingdom of God, it is coming someday. But Jesus began his ministry saying the Kingdom of God was at hand. The love, we have to offer through Jesus is right now, immediately.

Again, I do not have the answers, but I think chasing people and begging them to come to our church service is not the same as initiating them into the kingdom of God (for more on this understanding of evangelism, see William Abraham’s The Logic of Evangelism). Maybe if we really got involved, got touchy-feely, and stepped into the reality of the everyday-life of others and the messiness of others, and loved our neighbors in such a way that God’s love would shine forth through us and change their lives . . . Maybe  . . .

My sermon was about our need for touch. Touch heals, but it is not safe. When you lay hands on another, you are not unaffected. When you hug another, you may get dirty too. When you walk alongside another, you may be ridiculed, mocked, and hated too. When you love others, you may experience a miracle. I am convinced there is no other way to show the love of God except to let God love the unloveable through you. If we were doing this, maybe . . . Just maybe we, the Body of Christ, would be hunted too.

Sermon Scraps Mark 1: 21 - 28

Once again I have been called to repentance for neglecting my blog. I will do my best to keep it up. I do not promise a weekly post, but I will (once again) try not to forget about it entirely. Thank you for your patience with me.

Yesterday I preached on Mark 1:21 -28. In the NRSV, it reads:

They went to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. ‘But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ ²⁶And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He^* commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. ‘At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

In my sermon I said that anything that comes between God and you, God and God’s love for you, or God and God’s will for your life is not of God. Anything that separates us from God is not of God. This leads me to ask, what is it that we allow to come between God and us?

God has a purpose for us, a mission or a job that we are specifically designed and made to do. This is not to say that God has only one plan for us. The book that the Bend UMC’s Bible study group just finished last night discussed what it means to be in or out of God’s will. The author described a time in his life when he felt he was outside of God’s will. He left Austin, left his church and moved to Ft. Worth to work on his DMin. He felt that during those three years he was outside of God’s will. He said eventually God brought him back to Austin.

I am not sure that God’s will is ever that specific. Is it not just as likely that God will use what we give God? Here’s my logic: I have felt that answering my call to ministry was somewhat inevitable for me. I was made to be a pastor, and God has been preparing me for this vocation as long as I can remember. One of my former parishioners has told me when she was younger, she also felt called to ordained ministry. We have talked about it a great deal, and I can see such gifts and graces in her life, but she was reared in a denomination where women were not given the opportunity to serve as ordained clergy. Now that she is in the UMC, a denomination that would welcome her gifts, she feels she is just ‘too old now.’ Yes, she is near to retirement age. That she has not answered this call on her life the way I did does not mean she is any less faithful. Instead of becoming a pastor, she is a vibrant and enthusiastic church volunteer and leader. She has reared two boys and is now enjoying a beautiful granddaughter. She is a brilliant and dedicated public servant, and she can offer the church gifts of which I could never dream. Here is what I think: She was offered the opportunity to serve God in one way. She chose a different way, and God still used her gifts for the church, and still blessed her.

Here is another example. In our discussion last night, one of the Bible Study-ers said that she always felt called to be a pediatrician, but her brother talked her out of it. Instead, she became a music teacher. Were children any less blessed because she was a music teacher? I think not. I think God used her love for children to bless her and others in a new way.

I refuse to believe that there is only one path for our lives, and I refuse to believe that if wander off that path, there is no hope. The reality of our free-will is such that God does not interfere with our decisions, but instead God uses those decisions to work out God’s plans. Paul writes in Romans 8, “We know that all things work together for good^* for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (NRSV). That does not mean that everything that happens is good or in line with God’s will and purposes, but God can and does work good out of what happens.

So to circle back to my sermon and the beginning of this post, it is not that we could do the wrong thing and interrupt God’s will for our lives. Yes, we can and do sin, which is contrary to God’s will for our lives, but that’s not what I’m going on about here. Instead, I am talking about fear. It seems to me that we are afraid to do much of anything for fear we will do it wrong, fail, or worse find out it was not what God wanted us to do. More than anything, I think God wants us to try, just try, be willing to step out in faith with an attitude that says, ‘I don’t know if I’m doing it right, I don’t know if I’ll succeed, but I know I can do something.’ Not doing anything for the kingdom of God is simply unacceptable, and it is not of God. To that we should (to paraphrase Jesus) say ‘SHUT UP.’ We have a purpose and a job to do, and if we are willing, God will use us to build the kingdom.

Meanwhile back in Texas

In the last couple of weeks, I have found myself struggling. I am decidedly and firmly against the death penalty – not a popular stance in Texas, mind you. Still I believe the state is not God, however often we tend to confuse the two. Only God should pronounce such judgment on a person, not the state. I have been very comfortable in my position for a number of years now, that is until the last few weeks.

Each month I receive a list of people the State of Texas intends to execute. Last week, I struggled; I admit it. While the nation was talking about Troy Davis in Georgia, Texas executed Lawrence Brewer. Brewer was convicted in the death and torture of James Byrd. This is the kind of crime that makes me sick to my stomach. When I received his name, I admit, I didn’t want to do my usual work. I didn’t want to pray for him, though obviously I prayed for the Byrd family. I didn’t want send a letter on his behalf to anyone. But am I against the death penalty for everyone, or just those who committed a crime that doesn't make me sick? or that I don't remember?

As I struggled with my own heart this week, I came across an article in the Huffington Post. I’m going to try to include a link for it here. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jc-austin/troy-davis-and-lawrence-brewer-the-burden-of-care_b_977875.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

I don’t know how to resolve my own issue, but I think that I try, somehow pleases God, at least I hope so. That I try to find compassion for Brewer I think is pleasing to God; maybe not.

I normally wouldn't do this, but as I have been reading about what some preached yesterday, I feel compelled to share my sermon from 9/11/11. Yes, I preached about forgiveness, but what I believe is a more realistic, livable form of forgiveness.

Yes, I believe it is time for us to forgive our attackers. I have heard of others who preached that if we are not able to forgive those who have hurt us, we will not be forgiven. Hear this: our forgiveness (our salvation) does not come from our actions. We are forgiven (and saved) by God's grace. We cannot earn our forgiveness, we can only accept it.
That said, we need to forgive those who attacked us, not because they deserve, or even because we want to. We were hurt, terrorized, and that has held power over us -- violence has begotten violence. It's time to let our anger go.

So without further rambling, here is the sermon I wrote for Sunday, September 11, 2011. It's not exactly what I preached but it's close. It's a little strange that I'm letting others see my sermon manuscripts (they're usually only for my eyes).

Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?"

Prayer

When I say the word forgiveness, what comes to mind?

Healing of a relationship, restoration of relationship, things going back to the way they were. Reconciliation. Forgive and forget, that’s what they say. I don’t know about you, but I’m still not ready to forgive and forget what happened to us on that bright sunny Tuesday morning.

When I tell people that I think Psalm 137 is one of the most beautiful and one of my favorite psalms, I get some strange looks.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we say and we wept. These words were written after the Babylonian exile, after the Israelites had returned to the promised land, and probably before reconstruction of the new temple had begun, that’s purely speculative on my part. By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept. On the willows, we hung our harps.

How can I sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? The psalmist asks. How can I sing the praises of God, when it seems to be that God is too far away? Does that sound familiar? I don’t know if any of you caught frontline this week on PBS. They had an amazing show about faith and doubt in 9/11. They interviews people from many faith traditions. I was moved by an Episcopalian priest who said, I lost my faith in the face of that evil, I lost my faith. God felt so far away, it was like God wasn’t there anymore.

You need to hear me as I say this, God was there. If it felt like God was absent on that day 10 years ago, it was because God grieved with us. God hurt with us. God was in the towers, in pentagon, in Pennsylvania. God sat with us by the rivers of Babylon and wept with us. And I think even God would have had trouble singing on that day.

Our psalmist gives us words to talk about real pain, pain that is indescribable. Horrors beyond what we can say out-loud. The psalmist has named our pain. And the thing about pain like this, about grief like this is that it tends to become anger.

Remember o Lord, against the edomites, on the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, tear it down, tear it down, down to her very foundations. Remember against the edomites o lord, those who conspired with our enemies to bring about our destruction. Remember Lord, what they did, as if God could ever forget.

Happy shall be they who pay you back. Happy shall be they who take your children and dash their heads against the cliffs.  We want blood. Not just the Babylonians, but the blood of anyone who had anything to do with it, even those who celebrated.

It should tell us something that we’re asking God to remember, to act against those who hurt us. It says to me, that maybe God isn’t acting the way we want. God is not bringing about the vengeance we feel we deserve in our timeline. If God is not acting against the edomites, perhaps it’s because God is the God of the edomites. Can it be true that one who created us also created them? Could it be that God is big enough to love me with all my pain and anger and the hatred that fills my heart, and sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep with me and still love those who hurt me, too? Is God that big? Is God’s forgiveness available for them, too?

I went to workshop a few months ago about forgiveness. Let me tell you, there’s a lot of things that forgiveness can mean and even more that does not mean. Forgiveness rarely means that everything goes back to the way it was. Forgiveness does not mean forget. It doesn’t even have to mean restoration of a relationship. I could spend hours talking all about the different kinds of forgiveness, but there’s one that I want to focus on today. The Hebrew word mechila is a forgiveness of debt, where there is no reconciliation, but the one who was hurt decides that the debt is no longer owed.

There’s not new relationship, but the debt is simply wiped away. There’s no amount of compensation, there’s nothing to be done that would heal the hurt we have experienced. There’s not payment big enough, there’s no act of contrition that will satisfy, and so we simply release it. Not for them, not for them, but for us. Because if we cannot release it, if we stay by the rivers of Babylon, weeping, sitting with our pain and anger and calls for vengeance, the temple will never be rebuilt.

In all of the destruction of 9/11, there was one church destroyed at ground zero. St. Nicolas Greek Orthodox church. Because of the red tape we put in place to block a mosque from being built near ground zero, we have also prevented a church from being rebuilt. We cannot be who God calls us to be with hatred in our hearts.  And when we think it’s too much, when we think we can’t do it, if we are even just willing to try, we will find that God with us, has removed our harps from the willows, and is ready to lead us in song. There’s another psalm written around the same time as 137 that may help.

Psalm 103

Theological Project Scraps . . . Question 4 continuned

As promised, I have read the articles from Jan Milic Lochman, and as I expected they affected my answer. Lochman emphasizes flesh. I am not enough of a creedal scholar to know the history of the Apostles' Creed. If memory serves, we don't know the exact origin or author of the Apostles' Creed. Which leads me to ask, in what language was it originally written. My guess would be Latin or Greek. I've looked at both the Latin and Greek versions, and they use carnis (Latin) or Sarxos (Greek), and both mean flesh. His emphasis, however, reminded me that no words in our creeds are unimportant. I hope you find the added paragraph enlightening. I'm opening for questions. I need to be able to defend my answers and I'll never be able to do that if I don't get questions. Without more delay . . .

4. What is your understanding of the Christian eschatological hope expressed in the Kingdom of God, Resurrection from the Dead, and eternal life?



In the gospel accounts Jesus makes reference to the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven repeatedly. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed the good news of God, saying the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1.13). The Kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaimed it was and is radical, and even revolutionary. Just the phrase the kingdom of heaven implies that there is kingdom other than Caesar’s. It was a threat to the Roman Empire. Today it is no less revolutionary. When we proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God, we proclaim a promise of change. In our world, where Sin seems to be the only constant, where evil seems to reign, and injustice seems to be victorious, we proclaim that God’s kingdom has begun and will come and what seems will not always be so.

The Statement of Faith of the Korean Methodist Church reads, “We believe in the reign of God as the divine will realized in human society, and in the family of God, where we are all brothers and sisters.” Theologian Ida Maria Isasi-Dias coined the term the Kin-dom of God, in which we are all related and inter-connected. I believe this is the hope of the Kingdom of God – a kingdom where social divisions are non-existent, where all have enough, where we are as concerned for our neighbors as we are for our own families, because our neighbors are members of our family.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 37 – 39). Within those two commandments, there are three – love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. I believe that most of humanity does not know how to love themselves, which means they have no idea how to love God or their neighbors. In fact, Sin tells us that we are not worthy of love. As the Holy Spirit works in us, healing us, we find ourselves learning how to love. This work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and in our world moves us toward perfection, toward a full and perfect relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves, which is the hope expressed in the Kingdom of God. This kingdom has begun, in the Christ event and will be completed in the parousia.

Each Sunday in worship, I invite my congregation to affirm our faith. Regardless of which affirmation of faith we use, each Sunday we proclaim our faith in the resurrection of the dead. In Romans 6, Paul tells us that in baptism we have died with Christ, or we have taken on the death of Christ. He goes on to say in chapter 8, the one who “raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Charles Hartshorne states that after we die, what we have been continues to be, especially in God, but also in those we leave behind. Our influence of the lives of those we knew continues on, but they no longer influence us. What we have been continues but we no longer continue to be. In essence, for Hartshorne, when we die, we die, and we are no more – at least we have no future influence. While Hartshorne speaks to the rational and reasonable yearning within my theology, the faith I confess each Sunday disagrees. It may not be rational, and I may not fully understand how, but I believe that Christ will come in final victory, and my body will be resurrected, fully resurrected.

To clarify, in the Latin version of the Apostles’ Creed, this belief is expressed, “carnis resurrectionem,” and in Greek it is, “σαρκος ανάστασιν.” Carnis and sarxos are both translated as flesh. We confess our belief in the resurrection of the flesh. This is distinction is important for a couple of reasons. First, we confess to the resurrection of the flesh as opposed to the immortal soul. Jan Lochman makes the case that this is a specific argument against dualism and Gnosticism. It is important to note that these same heresies exist today. Still there is a tendency to denigrate the material and elevate the spirit. Secondly, in confessing our belief in the resurrection of the flesh, we reclaim the dignity of the physical and the material world. I believe that all of me, my whole being will be resurrected. Moreover, the writer of the John opens his gospel by proclaiming that that Logos became flesh (sarx). Even if our “flesh” represents our sinful and fallen nature, as is so often the distinction made in Pauline writings, the Christ event redeems our whole selves, even our flesh.

This is not to say that in the resurrection we will be the same, in the same form. I do not pretend to know what my resurrected body will be. The Gospel according to Saint John, where the resurrected Jesus makes the most appearances is unclear, at best, in describing what the resurrection looks like. In some places, he seems like a ghost. He walks through walls in John 20:19, and 26. In John 20:27, he tells Thomas to place his hands in his wounds, as if he is a resuscitated corpse. He cannot be both, so I would say that he is neither a ghost nor a corpse. In his resurrected form, Jesus is something entirely different, never before encountered. Therefore it is not unreasonable to hold faith in the resurrection of the body, without knowing exactly what that resurrection will look like.

 

Sermon Scraps . . . well, not really

Hey there, blog-o-peeps. I must apologize for neglecting you for the last 2 months or so. I have no good excuse, except that the holidays happened and then . . . well life keeps happening. Here's my proposal. I'm in the midst of preparing my theological project for ordination. How about I blog about it? Tonight I began working on the 4 theological questions all ordinands must answer for our project. They are:

1. What theological issue are you especially engaged in working out for yourself at this time?

2. What is your understanding of salvation with attention to the work of Christ in atonement and with attention to the human condition?

3. What is the meaning/significance of the sacraments? What is the meaning/significance of ordination?

4. What is your understanding of the Christian eschatological hope expressed in the Kingdom of God, Resurrection from the Dead, and eternal life?

Tonight, I've been working on number four. I don't think my answer is finished yet, not even finished with this draft, but I think I want to post it tonight anyway. I have an article to read tonight from, THE FAITH WE CONFESS, by Jan Milic Lochman about the resurrection of the dead and maybe one to read about the communion of the saints. I figure I'll read those before bed, and perhaps, they will influence my answer some. If so, I'll update my answer and post it again tomorrow. If I don't feel like they've added to my answer, I'll post on another question.

So here is what I wrote tonight:

4. What is your understanding of the Christian eschatological hope expressed in the Kingdom of God, Resurrection from the Dead, and eternal life?

          In the gospel accounts Jesus makes reference to the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven repeatedly. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed the good news of God, saying the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1.13). The Kingdom of God, as Jesus proclaimed it was and is radical, and even revolutionary. Just the phrase the kingdom of heaven implies that there is kingdom other than Caesar’s. It was a threat to the Roman Empire. Today it is no less revolutionary. When we proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God, we proclaim a promise of change. In our world, where Sin seems to be the only constant, where evil seems to reign, and injustice seems to be victorious, we proclaim that God’s kingdom has begun and will come and what seems will not always be so.

The Statement of Faith of the Korean Methodist Church reads, “We believe in the reign of God as the divine will realized in human society, and in the family of God, where we are all brothers and sisters.”[1] Theologian Ida Maria Isasi-Dias coined the term the Kin-dom of God, in which we are all related and inter-connected. I believe this is the hope of the Kingdom of God – a kingdom where social divisions are non-existent, where all have enough, where we are as concerned for our neighbors as we are for our own families, because our neighbors are members of our family.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 37 – 39). Within those two commandments, there are three – love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. I believe that most of humanity does not know how to love themselves, which means they have no idea how to love God or their neighbors. In fact, Sin tells us that we are not worthy of love. As the Holy Spirit works in us, healing us, we find ourselves learning how to love. This work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our world moves us toward perfection, toward a full and perfect relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves, which is the hope expressed in the Kingdom of God. This kingdom has begun in the Christ event and will be completed in the parousia.[2]

Each Sunday in worship, I invite my congregation to affirm our faith. Regardless of which affirmation of faith we use, each Sunday we proclaim our faith in the resurrection of the dead. In Romans 6, Paul tells us that in baptism we have died with Christ, or we have taken on the death of Christ. He goes on to say in chapter 8, the one who “raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Charles Hartshorne states that after we die, what we have been continues to be, especially in God, but also in those we leave behind. Our influence of the lives of those we knew continues on, but they no longer influence us. What we have been continues but we no longer continue to be.[3] In essence, for Hartshorne, when we die, we die, and we are no more – at least we have no future influence. While Hartshorne speaks to the rational and reasonable yearning within my theology, the faith I confess each Sunday disagrees. It may not be rational, and I may not fully understand how, but I believe that Christ will come in final victory, and my body will be resurrected, fully resurrected.

The Gospel according to Saint John, where the resurrected Jesus makes the most appearances is unclear, at best, in describing what the resurrection looks like. In some places, he seems like a ghost. He walks through walls in John 20:19, and 26. In John 20:27, he tells Thomas to place his hands in his wounds, as if he is a resuscitated corpse. He's spirit and he's material, or bodily. He cannot be both, so I would say that he is neither a ghost nor a corpse. In his resurrected form, Jesus is something entirely different, never before encountered. Therefore it is not unreasonable to hold faith in the resurrection of the body, without knowing exactly what that resurrection will look like.       

---

[1] United Methodist Hymnal, 884

[2] Sampley, J Paul. Walking Between the Times.

[3] Hartshorne, Charles. Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. 44 – 49

Sermon Scraps from 11/21 -- Christ the King Sunday and Biblical Authority

In my sermon on Christ the King Sunday, you might have missed that I was actually picking apart my understanding of Biblical authority. I said, in the UMC we have no specific doctrine to say what we believe about the Bible. Yes, we hold that it "contains all things necessary for salvation," (forgive me if I'm not quoting properly -- I have no books with me), and we hold that in the epistemic quadralateral, scripture is primary, sort of above tradition, reason, and experience.

As I discussed a narrative of salvation, or story of our salvation, I was touching on Narrative Theology. Being the English major I am, narrative theology tends to speak to me. I tend to find myself thinking in narrative terms. My story is taking place within the story of others, and those stories are taking place within an even larger story. This is comfortable for my mind. It's kind of Fulgum-ish (All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarden) way of thinking. The problem is, narrative theology is inadequate. As a Francesca Aran Murphy says, God is Not a Story (see the book by the same title). And truthfully, the Bible is not a story. Narrative theology speaks to the reasonable part of me, the part that craves logic and understanding. God, however, is rarely logical or reasonable -- seriously why would God chose to come to earth as a baby to an unwed teenage girl?

So if God is not a story, and the Bible is not a story, what's going on? I believe the question I am asked for ordination is, "What is meant in the claim that the Bible contains all things necessary for salvation?" or something to that effect (it's been a year since I answered my commissioning questions, and I haven't yet pulled out my ordination questions). Anyway the question comes down to Biblical authority. I don't know that I'm going to answer that question here today, unless you view my answer through the lens of sanctification.

During my last semester of classwork at Perkins, I foolishly decided to take a class called the Authority of the Bible as a Source for Theology. It was foolish for many reasons, one -- I didn't need it (I graduated with 3 extra hours), and 2ndly this class really messed with me. I wanted to take it because Charles Wood and Roy Heller were team teaching and when presented a class like this from GIANTS in their fields, it's hard to pass it up. About mid-way through the semester, while eating lunch with Dr. Wood, I told him that he had destroyed my faith. I didn't know what I believed anymore, but I was pretty sure the Bible didn't have any authority. His response was, 'Good, let's get to work.'

As I begin with my answer, a brief disclaimer -- please remember me that I have none of books with me and I'm doing this from memory.

The Bible  is filled with beautiful writings of the people of God who have spent generations upon generations trying to be open to God's continuing self-revelation. Sometimes God's self-revelation comes through brightly--think of the repeated OT description that God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Even better, read Psalm 137, and ask yourself, why is the psalmist reminding God to remember the Edomites? Sometimes what God does not do reveals more than what God does. And sometimes, we have to search or struggle to understand the revelation. God is tricky that way.

This collection of writings came together over centuries. Many of the early stories began around campfires, with elders telling the tribal stories to the next generation. Think of the liturgy of the Passover -- Papa why is this night different from all other nights? Anthropologically speaking, it is probable that there were other stories, beyond those that were codified and bound together with our Bible. In the Jewish tradition, we have the Tanakh, (Torah, Nevim or prophets, and ketuvim or writings), we have centuries of Midrash, and the Talmud. In the NT tradition, we're discovering texts still that we did not include in our Bible for one reason or another.

Schubert Ogden says that there was a certain kerygma of God or even of Christ that drove the creation of the canon. The canon created the text. Delwin Brown says that may or may not be a central principle or kerygma which drove that process, but that there are boundaries or canons that guided that process -- for instance, we don't know exactly who God is, but there are things we know God is not. Over time, those writings that did not play within the boudaries or traveled too far over the canon line, (or maybe even there were other reasons), those writings fell away. Sometimes, people just stopped telling those stories, they were forgotten, and in our more recent NT history, sometimes we burned the writers at the stake as heretics. For Brown, the text played within on the boundaries of the canon.

As a christian and a United Methodist, I really do believe that Holy Spirit works in groups (or committees). I believe that the Holy Spirit was involved in the writing of what became our scriptures, in maintanence and its inclusion in our current protestant canon. The Holy Spirit spoke to and through the prophets. Hear this, there were other prophets outside of those we know as the Biblical prophets, but the test of a prophet is did what he said happen. Those who could not pass this test, fell away. I believe that the Holy Spirit, as the Triune vehicle of revelation, speaks to our spirits and shows us what is of God and what is not. Think of the gospels according to whoever that have been discovered in the last century. Contrary to the fascinating stories contrived by Dan Brown, many of these gnostic gospels were excluded because they were inconsistent with God's self-revelation. These gnostic gospels describe secret wisdom, but the Hebrew wisdom tradtion tells us that Wisdom stands on the streets calling out to anyone who passes. The wisdom of God is not a secret. These gnostic gospels were inconsistent with the revelation we have previously known from God -- not just inconsistent, but opposed. God does not hide but wants to be known.

But still, there are writings in the Bible that I absolutely hate -- Judges 19, the haustafeln (The household codes in jazz-fusion Pauline writings). What do we do with those? If God has been involved in the creation and preseveration of these writings, why are these texts excluded? Or said another way, if they are still in the Bible, why do I get to treat them the way I do-- with distain. Do they not reveal something about God? Who are we to know how God feels about Judges 19? How do we know this is not a consistent revelation of what God would want us to do in a similar situation?

I've been trying to remember the scholar, and I believe it is Ellen Davis who wrote about the virtuous reader. If not, I'll correct this later. She wrote that the way we approach these texts makes all the difference. If we come with humility, with charity, with patience (other virtues as well), then we come prepared to struggle with our Scirpture. And we SHOULD struggle with all of the scriptures. All of them. We should never simply accept them at face value. First of all, we can't. We're incapable of unbiased readings. Secondly, it's not just the words that reveal God to us. It's the struggle as well, if not more -- the struggle breaks our hips and renames us. I'm not sure I know who to explain this any better, but I would recommend trying it. Find a scripture that you really love or that you really hate and read it. Read it again and again. Then read about it. Pray over it. Pray about it. Read commentary. Invite the Holy Spirit into the struggle, and see if your understanding of God is not broadened, and see if you're not changed in the process.

I'll tell you, the other day, in our Bend Bible study on the gospel of John, I read something I had never read before in the account of Jesus' arrest. When the guards first come to arrest him, they ask for him, and responds I am. They all fall down. I'm turning this over and over in my head. Jesus spoke the Divine Name, and they fell to their knees. I'm struggling with this old and new part of the story I thought I knew. The more I pray, the more I read, the  more I think about it, my understanding of the power of God is in motion.

So what does all this mean about the authority of the Bible? In Ellen Davis's explanation of the virtuous reader, the Bible has defacto authority -- its all in the way I approach it. While there is something to this, it's not fully adequate. It's not just the way I or we approach the text, but also it's testimony. Generations of church mothers and fathers, of scholars and pastors, and friends whom I trust have testified to its dejure authority. Morever, the revelation of God testifies to the Bible. I experience God when I come to the Bible. We might even say, though I am not at all comfortable with this language, that the Bible testifies to itself. Let me put it in United Methodist terms.

If we hold the Outler quadralateral of scripture,tradition, reason and experience as a basic epistemic frame (Br Scot will be all over this -- I can feel his argument already), then what we read in scripture should testify to our tradition. It should be consistent and even expand our reason. It should be consistent with our experience and expand it. Our reason should testify to it, and so on and so forth. And the Great Cloud of Witnesses (saints militant and triumphant) stands with us as we approach the text. And in all, God is revealing God's self to us -- which really is the whole point. Our whole purpose in study is to learn more about God, to learn more about ourselves, and to learn who we are as children of God. I should say, not just learn in a gathering-knowledge way, but learning in a way that fosters growth.

I welcome your questions. I know there are holes all over this, so please bring it.