Sermon: What Is Your Relationship to the Bible

Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel

Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

Deuteronomy 11:18-21                                                                                                                        

June 1, 2008

              What is your relationship to the Bible?  This is a question posed by Elouise Renich Fraser in her book, Confessions of a Beginning Theologian. She describes her journey of befriending the Bible.  As a grade-schooler, she loved it dearly, but then as she entered middle school she became embarrassed by her love of the Bible, as she suddenly realized that she was the only one bringing it to school.  In college, she experienced a growing frustration that Bible interpretation and translation was not as cut and dried as she once thought.  Her relationship to the Bible became marred by guilt and anxiety.  She felt guilty that she wasn't reading it often enough, and anxious about how to interpret it – until she realized that the Bible is a means of grace.  She now considers the Bible a close life-long companion, woven through her life, that gives her strength for the journey. In Deuteronomy 11, we hear God speaking through Moses to the people, after they have received the 10 commandments.  We read, “You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.”  They were instructed to weave God's words into the fabric of their daily lives.  

              What is your relationship to the Bible?  What would you like it to be?  Barbara Brown Taylor wrote that her relationship to the Bible is not a romance but a marriage.  A romance is fun, but in a romance we have blinders on.  One only sees the beauty in the other.  In a marriage, or any serious relationship, any healthy friendship, we see one another and love one another, flaws and all.  In marriage, we are committed for the long haul.  We love for better and for worse.  We put time and energy into the relationship.  We make it a priority.  When we weave the Good News into the very fabric of our lives, it is a commitment.  It is a commitment to show up and be attentive to God's living word, even when it makes us uncomfortable.  It takes time and energy to build it into a habit.  But once the habit is built, we find ourselves enriched, our relationship with God renewed, and our interactions with others strengthened. 

              The Bible provides much comfort.  It is so wonderful to read, “Lord, you have searched me and know me,” and  “Lord, you have been our dwelling place.”  It is such a gift to read Psalm 46, “Be still and know that I am God.” Memorizing Scripture is invaluable.  It is such a comfort to be able to recite Scripture in our hearts when times are difficult.  It can be a profound act of ministry to say Psalm 23 to a friend or family member who is dying, to look right in their eyes to say, “The Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want.  He makes you lie down in green pastures, he leads you beside still waters, he restores your soul.” The Psalms also remind us that lament, complaint, is a normal, healthy form of prayer: “How long, O Lord?  My tears have been my food, day and night!”  In lament, we are able to give our burdens to God.  We are also comforted by the grace of God in Christ.  The gospel message of life in Christ is the ultimate gift we read of in the Bible.   

              The Bible is a source of wisdom and guidance.  Micah 6:8 “What does the Lord require of you?  To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”  and Ecclesiastes 3 “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” In the Deuteronomy text we hear God instructing the people through Moses, saying that they must remember the commandments.  The greatest commandment being the love of God, what is known as the Shema.  Hear O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD alone.  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Devout Jews say the Shema every morning and evening.  They put the words on their doorposts, on a scroll of parchment in a small container (mezuzah) and tie them to their bodies in leather boxes called tefillin.  Today's Gospel text is the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' words on loving God and neighbor, which boils Christianity down to the most basic and important message.  Jesus exhorted the people to hear it, and to build their lives on it. Psalm 119, the longest Psalm in the Bible at 176 verses, is about the delight and love that one finds meditating on Scripture.  It reads, “Your statutes have been my songs wherever I make my home” and “I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you” and “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

              The Bible can pull us into a deeper reality, by opening our eyes to the sacred.  One scholar describes the iconographic nature of Scripture.  An icon, not the kind on your computer, but the painting of a sacred figure, serves as a window into a deeper reality.  They are stylistic representations of Jesus and saints, that serve to remind the viewer of the holy.  “They are sacred friends and events representing a world regenerated by divine grace. . .”   In many icons, the background of the picture is larger than the foreground.  Instead of looking into a scene, one is invited into the experience of being pulled into it.  It is the reverse of what we are used to.  Usually we look at an object as something out there, but with icons, in seeing the object, we realize that we are part of it.  Many of us are not accustomed to looking at icons.  In thinking about a cultural equivalent, perhaps we are more familiar with 3-D movies.  When we put those glasses on, the objects come right out to seemingly touch us.  We find ourselves pulled into the scene.  Without those specially made glasses, the picture would be just a blur.  Holistic reading of Scripture gives us a window into reality, much like 3-D technology pulls us into a scene of a movie.  It gives clarity, demands attention, and addresses us personally.  As Tony Robinson has written, “Scripture tells the story of God's intrusions into our settled worlds, of God's determination to turn over the world as it is and to form a people for God's glory.”

              How do we engage the text?  To really digest the richness that Scripture has to offer, we first need to listen to it.  We need to read it.  How we can engage with the Bible depends largely on understanding what kind of literature we are reading.  This may mean singing the Psalms, studying the history books, preaching the sermons, being inspired by the evangelists and provoked by the prophets.  Then, to let the text ask questions of us.  We gain strength and guidance for life by listening to God's voice through Scripture.  We let it provoke new ideas in us, inspire us to action.  Our Spiritual lives are enriched by a holistic engagement of Scripture, strengthening our inner thoughts and outward actions. Psalm 19:14 “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.  Prayer practice developed by St. Ignatias, imagining oneself in a scene from the Bible.  Imagine that you were there listening to the teaching of Jesus that we heard today, gathered with the crowd at the base of the mountain.  Imagine smells, tastes, sights and sounds.  You can imagine yourself as each person in a story, the disciple and the Pharisee, the healed and the healer, the rich, the poor, the main character and the by-stander, and ask how God is speaking to you through that story.  Savoring words of Scripture, like tasting a well-prepared meal with complex flavors.  Eating the text – common metaphor in the middle ages. 

              Sometimes we skim over words without letting them sink in, especially if we have heard them many many times.  Thomas Merton once said that “God is love” can be akin to saying “Eat Wheaties.”  There is power in God's word, but that power can strengthen and move us only if we chew on them, letting them fully digest instead of distractedly letting them slide down our throats.  Story of Augustine's conversion:  After years of loose living and disillusionment with religion, Augustine was in the garden, and suddenly heard a child's singsong voice.  It was drifting over from the neighboring yard, repeating again and again, 'Take, read.  Take, read.' Believing the child's voice to be God's instructions, Augustine picked up the Bible and read the words of Romans 13, the page where it fell open:  “Let us live honestly as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery or licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.  Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Augustine was transformed, and came to be one of the most influential theologians in history.  There is power in Scripture. 

              Our relationship to the Bible can facilitate our praise.  Walter Brueggeman wrote, “The words with which we praise God shape the world in which we shall live.”  Scripture can change our perspective, change our hearts, and move us to loving action.  During her son's first year, a friend of mine often remarked that she felt like she was continually on a treadmill.  One day of changing diapers, nursing, and being wrenched out of deep sleep would blur into the next day of the same.  At times we are weary.  Those who suffer from clinical depression or are in the midst of grief know what it is like to see no point in showering or brushing their teeth. Why bother, it is just another day?  “This is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it”, then, said from the depths of despair, can be an act of trust, of hope.  We join with the Israelites who first sang it, the Psalmist who put the words to paper, the generations of faithful people who have not always been able to say the words cheerfully, but even still, in hope, make it their morning prayer. When we begin our day with Scripture, then in the words of Tom Long, “the daily treadmill has been disrupted by the presence of the holy.”  

              Our relationship to the Bible is one of learning and teaching. There are always more passages to re-read, more verses to reflect on, more stories to move us.  At different times in our lives, the same passage may carry hugely varying messages to us.  There is such power in the Word.  It is an Ancient book that can be hard for us to understand, written in much different eras and cultures, and yet it has a God-inspired way of speaking directly into our hearts. It is one of the primary ways we are invited to sit at God's knee, to listen, to be transformed.  As we become more and more familiar with the Bible, then also are we able to teach it.  We can introduce the Bible to others both if we have been reading it our whole lives or if we've just begun.  Deuteronomy 11 says to teach the word of God, to talk about it, and that this conversation begins in one's family, and should be integrated into all daily activities.  Teaching the Bible to children is a blessed experience.  If you don't have children as part of your daily routine of life, you may want to befriend a little one.  Talking about the reality of God's realm with a child allows us to teach and learn simultaneously.  Kids don't have trouble believing in the extraordinary like so many grown-ups do.  Their imagination and openness can rub off on those of us who tend to be too one-dimensional in our approach of the Bible.  Talk about what you hear in the Bible with others, and how those words challenge you, move you, or even frustrate you.  Deuteronomy says that those who savor Scripture together will be blessed.  Nurturing our relationship to the Bible nurtures our relationship with God.  It gives us strength to follow the will of God, to continue on the journey.  Ultimately, Scripture leads us into communion with the true Word, which is God made flesh.

              What is your relationship to the Bible?  Is it a stranger or friend?  Does it move you?  Are you open to letting it?  Hear the words, let them form and transform you.  Let God's Spirit weave them into the fabric of your being.  Let them give you the strength to do what God is calling you to do.  Let them stir you to action, and guide you to rest and peace. 

      Tom Tsagalakis, Iconographer.

      Transforming Congregational Culture, p. 23

      The Practice of Testimony, p.59