One of the unexpected joys of being a pastor often comes to me when people get to tell me their favorite Bible story. It is a joy and wonder to behold and a riot to hear how children and adults so often hear a reading from the Scriptures only to repeat it… with a twist. Take, for example, the little guys who came across a dead robin on the ground out in front of their house. Feeling that a proper burial should be performed, they secured a small box and some cotton batting, dug a hole in the back yard and made ready to dispose of the deceased. The minister's 5-year-old son was chosen to say the prayer. So with great dignity, he intoned, "Glory be to the Father...and unto the Son...and into the hole he goes."Or how about these exquisitely fractured tales shared by a small group of Roman Catholic school children with a visitor when asked to share their favorite Bible stories: One little girl said, “Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day, but a ball of fire by night.” A little boy said: “The seventh commandment is that thou shall never admit to adultery.” Another announced that Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption. And still another said that the people who followed the Lord were known as the 12 decibels and the epistles were their wives. But my current favorite was the little boy who announced to the visitor that the “Holy Bible tells us that the Jews were a proud and spiritual people throughout history but wherever they went they had trouble with the unsympathetic Genitals.”
Today, in what is part two of a series of messages about the Signs of Discipleship for This Generation, I am going to ask you how it is we might make the Bible our own so that its wisdom can guide us and its spiritual truths shape our living? You see, a lot of contemporary people talk about getting back to basics – reclaiming the guiding truths that have helped others grow strong in faith and integrity – and then act like discipleship is a pill to be swallowed – something easy and accomplished without effort – only to wonder why nothing changes. Writing in a recent Christian Century magazine, Paula Huston, put it like this as she talks about why it took her so long to start practicing the commitments of discipleship:
Today, in what is part two of a series of messages about the Signs of Discipleship for This Generation, I am going to ask you how it is we might make the Bible our own so that its wisdom can guide us and its spiritual truths shape our living? You see, a lot of contemporary people talk about getting back to basics – reclaiming the guiding truths that have helped others grow strong in faith and integrity – and then act like discipleship is a pill to be swallowed – something easy and accomplished without effort – only to wonder why nothing changes. Writing in a recent Christian Century magazine, Paula Huston, put it like this as she talks about why it took her so long to start practicing the commitments of discipleship:
We live in a society
that is no longer capable of giving (the marks of discipleship) a home. Western culture has been deeply affected by the 19th-century Romantic belief that we are born naturally good and are ruined by society-inflicted moralizing. Freud helped convince us that training up a child in the way he should go means raising repressed, conventional automatons instead of vibrant, creative individuals. And the social revolution of the 1960s, with its focus on eliminating moral hang-ups in service of self-expression, increased our aversion to the notion of moral exemplars. Liberation certainly has had its benefits. The danger of moral scrupulosity has been pretty much eradicated. But we have also been walled off from the great adventure that was once Christianity – that deep struggle that comes with trying to become more and more like Christ who saved us. This is a struggle that young people are almost desperately longing to enter whether or not they can put a name to their urge to be better. (Huston, CC, April 8 2008 p. 35)
So what I would like to try to do this morning is broadly sketch a way of claiming the wisdom of the Bible for this generation – think together about how we can both learn and live into God’s grace as expressed in Scripture – so that creativity, compassion and commitment grows within and among us, ok? And one of the ways I think we can do this is to borrow the words “faith, hope and love” from St. Paul and allow them to become a living foundation upon which we might construct our understanding of the Bible.
You see, we live in a hyper-texted era where most people just don’t have the time to become serious scholars of the Word; and it doesn’t matter whether you are a working mom or a retired grandpa, a teacher, a business exec or a student working nights: at the end of most hard, earned days it is enough to find a few quiet minutes to pray for our loved ones and the world. In this generation of high speed Internet, 24/7 cable news and the demands of a shaky economy it is simply not likely that real people will take time for Bible study in their homes on a regular basis.
that is no longer capable of giving (the marks of discipleship) a home. Western culture has been deeply affected by the 19th-century Romantic belief that we are born naturally good and are ruined by society-inflicted moralizing. Freud helped convince us that training up a child in the way he should go means raising repressed, conventional automatons instead of vibrant, creative individuals. And the social revolution of the 1960s, with its focus on eliminating moral hang-ups in service of self-expression, increased our aversion to the notion of moral exemplars. Liberation certainly has had its benefits. The danger of moral scrupulosity has been pretty much eradicated. But we have also been walled off from the great adventure that was once Christianity – that deep struggle that comes with trying to become more and more like Christ who saved us. This is a struggle that young people are almost desperately longing to enter whether or not they can put a name to their urge to be better. (Huston, CC, April 8 2008 p. 35)So what I would like to try to do this morning is broadly sketch a way of claiming the wisdom of the Bible for this generation – think together about how we can both learn and live into God’s grace as expressed in Scripture – so that creativity, compassion and commitment grows within and among us, ok? And one of the ways I think we can do this is to borrow the words “faith, hope and love” from St. Paul and allow them to become a living foundation upon which we might construct our understanding of the Bible.
You see, we live in a hyper-texted era where most people just don’t have the time to become serious scholars of the Word; and it doesn’t matter whether you are a working mom or a retired grandpa, a teacher, a business exec or a student working nights: at the end of most hard, earned days it is enough to find a few quiet minutes to pray for our loved ones and the world. In this generation of high speed Internet, 24/7 cable news and the demands of a shaky economy it is simply not likely that real people will take time for Bible study in their homes on a regular basis.
“Our calendars,” writes Henri Nouwen, “are filled with appointments, our days and weeks are filled with engagements and our years are filled with plans and projects. 
There is seldom a period in which we do not know what to do, so we move through life in such a distracted and hurried way that we do not even take the time and rest to wonder if any of the things we think, say and do are worth thinking, saying and doing.” He concludes that most of us, “ simply go along with the many “musts” and “oughts” that have been handed to us and we live with them as if they were authentic translations of the Gospel of our Lord” without realizing how horrendously secular our sacred lives tend to be. (Nouwen, Way of the Heart, pp. 27-28)
Even Sundays, which used to be times of true Sabbath rest, are now filled to overflowing with things we have to get done and many of us have to go right back to work after worship. Which means, dear friends, that how we use our time at church has to change: It is not 1950 – or even 1984 – it is the 21st century and worship must reflect the way times have changed so that we help one another grow as disciples. To my way of thinking this means we must embrace a time for quiet in worship as well as song and prayer; we must carefully share tradition while weaving into the fabric of worship contemporary sounds of hope and justice.
And above all, we must claim Sunday morning as the central teaching moment in the life of God’s people because we are just too tired, busy and overwhelmed to do anything more. Don’t get me wrong: there is still a place for midweek conversation and study, but most folk just can’t participate in ways that use to be normative; so rather than accept spiritual and biblical illiteracy, Sunday has to change. Paul’s words of “faith, hope and love” can help: each offers us a path into the heart of Biblical wisdom – call it the USA Today short hand or crash course in the Gospel – but as he says in I Corinthians 13: faith, hope and love, these three abide – so why not organize our thinking around these three eternal truths?
Take faith: faith means trust in the Bible – most of us think that faith has to do with what we believe intellectually – but Biblical faith is not about ideas and doctrines. It is not intellectual assent as the scholars like to say; rather, Biblical faith is about trust. And trust – in real life as well as the scriptures – has to be… earned. I really believe that: trust has to be earned – there has to be real life evidence that I can count on – so how do you find out whet
her a person or a group or a bank or a car dealer can be trusted or not?
You do some research, right? You watch, wait and test – talk with others with experience – and go on the Internet and see what the reports look like. How did President Reagan put it with the former Soviet Union: Trust – but verify? That’s only common sense. Bible study is one of the ways we can trust and verify whether the God made flesh in Jesus Christ is the real deal. And let me say as an aside that it is okay – in fact, it is essential – to raise questions and argue with the God we meet Scripture. Faith is not about sheep being led to the slaughter or parroting the company line. No, faith is about finding enough evidence of God’s love over time so that in those other times when we can’t see the light or even discern if the Sacred Presence is still within and among us we can still hang tough.
That’s part of what the psalm explores: Psalm 37 invites us to learn how to wait and rest in the Lord – especially when it looks like evil is winning and hope is at a premium – in these moments (or eras) the wisdom of the Lord is to wait. To rest. To refrain from anxious activity... hmmmmm? What are you like when you are anxious? What do you feel like? What do you sound like? What do you tend to do when you are anxious and afraid? Does it help?
Patrick Henry Reardon writes: “In this psalm, one part of the soul admonishes the other, cautions the other, encour
ages the other… “I believe, yes, but help my disbelief”… it is an inner conversation of the soul communing in the presence of God. And this inner discussion is rendered necessary because of frequent temptations to discouragement. As far as empirical evidence bears witness, the wicked often seem to be better off than the just. By the standards of this world, they prosper.” (Christ in the Psalms, p. 72) So the soul quietly insists that we look deeper – discern the evidence of the heart – and here, more often than not, there is an emptiness and despair at the core of those who turn away from that which is good, noble and pure. How does the old folk song put it? “How many times have you heard someone say? If I had his money, I’d do things my own way. But little they know that it is so hard to find, one rich man in 10 with a satisfied mind.” (Check out Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkKOnS8J5GM
Quiet down before God, be prayerful before him. Don’t bother with those who climb the ladder and elbow their way to the top. Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes – it only makes things words. Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; God-investors will soon own the store. Before you know it, the wicked will have had it… and the down-to-earth people will move in and take over… Wait passionately for the Lord and don’t leave the path. God will give you your place in the sun. (Peterson, Psalm 37,The Message)
The faithful testimony of scripture and the wisdom of watching, waiting and resting in the Lord is clear: Yes, there is oppression and violence, but as Moses trusted in the Lord, he was empowered to lead his people out of the land of slavery in Egypt and in
to the land of milk and honey – that’s the Passover story which our cousins in Judaism have been celebrating this week – and it is part of the evidence of faith. The same evidence is clear with Jesus – yes, the Cross took his life – but the world’s “NO” was trumped by God’s eternal “YES” and Jesus was raised from the dead by the glorious love of God and continues to live within and among us now.
There is seldom a period in which we do not know what to do, so we move through life in such a distracted and hurried way that we do not even take the time and rest to wonder if any of the things we think, say and do are worth thinking, saying and doing.” He concludes that most of us, “ simply go along with the many “musts” and “oughts” that have been handed to us and we live with them as if they were authentic translations of the Gospel of our Lord” without realizing how horrendously secular our sacred lives tend to be. (Nouwen, Way of the Heart, pp. 27-28)Even Sundays, which used to be times of true Sabbath rest, are now filled to overflowing with things we have to get done and many of us have to go right back to work after worship. Which means, dear friends, that how we use our time at church has to change: It is not 1950 – or even 1984 – it is the 21st century and worship must reflect the way times have changed so that we help one another grow as disciples. To my way of thinking this means we must embrace a time for quiet in worship as well as song and prayer; we must carefully share tradition while weaving into the fabric of worship contemporary sounds of hope and justice.
And above all, we must claim Sunday morning as the central teaching moment in the life of God’s people because we are just too tired, busy and overwhelmed to do anything more. Don’t get me wrong: there is still a place for midweek conversation and study, but most folk just can’t participate in ways that use to be normative; so rather than accept spiritual and biblical illiteracy, Sunday has to change. Paul’s words of “faith, hope and love” can help: each offers us a path into the heart of Biblical wisdom – call it the USA Today short hand or crash course in the Gospel – but as he says in I Corinthians 13: faith, hope and love, these three abide – so why not organize our thinking around these three eternal truths?
Take faith: faith means trust in the Bible – most of us think that faith has to do with what we believe intellectually – but Biblical faith is not about ideas and doctrines. It is not intellectual assent as the scholars like to say; rather, Biblical faith is about trust. And trust – in real life as well as the scriptures – has to be… earned. I really believe that: trust has to be earned – there has to be real life evidence that I can count on – so how do you find out whet
her a person or a group or a bank or a car dealer can be trusted or not?You do some research, right? You watch, wait and test – talk with others with experience – and go on the Internet and see what the reports look like. How did President Reagan put it with the former Soviet Union: Trust – but verify? That’s only common sense. Bible study is one of the ways we can trust and verify whether the God made flesh in Jesus Christ is the real deal. And let me say as an aside that it is okay – in fact, it is essential – to raise questions and argue with the God we meet Scripture. Faith is not about sheep being led to the slaughter or parroting the company line. No, faith is about finding enough evidence of God’s love over time so that in those other times when we can’t see the light or even discern if the Sacred Presence is still within and among us we can still hang tough.
That’s part of what the psalm explores: Psalm 37 invites us to learn how to wait and rest in the Lord – especially when it looks like evil is winning and hope is at a premium – in these moments (or eras) the wisdom of the Lord is to wait. To rest. To refrain from anxious activity... hmmmmm? What are you like when you are anxious? What do you feel like? What do you sound like? What do you tend to do when you are anxious and afraid? Does it help?
Patrick Henry Reardon writes: “In this psalm, one part of the soul admonishes the other, cautions the other, encour
ages the other… “I believe, yes, but help my disbelief”… it is an inner conversation of the soul communing in the presence of God. And this inner discussion is rendered necessary because of frequent temptations to discouragement. As far as empirical evidence bears witness, the wicked often seem to be better off than the just. By the standards of this world, they prosper.” (Christ in the Psalms, p. 72) So the soul quietly insists that we look deeper – discern the evidence of the heart – and here, more often than not, there is an emptiness and despair at the core of those who turn away from that which is good, noble and pure. How does the old folk song put it? “How many times have you heard someone say? If I had his money, I’d do things my own way. But little they know that it is so hard to find, one rich man in 10 with a satisfied mind.” (Check out Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkKOnS8J5GMQuiet down before God, be prayerful before him. Don’t bother with those who climb the ladder and elbow their way to the top. Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes – it only makes things words. Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; God-investors will soon own the store. Before you know it, the wicked will have had it… and the down-to-earth people will move in and take over… Wait passionately for the Lord and don’t leave the path. God will give you your place in the sun. (Peterson, Psalm 37,The Message)
The faithful testimony of scripture and the wisdom of watching, waiting and resting in the Lord is clear: Yes, there is oppression and violence, but as Moses trusted in the Lord, he was empowered to lead his people out of the land of slavery in Egypt and in
to the land of milk and honey – that’s the Passover story which our cousins in Judaism have been celebrating this week – and it is part of the evidence of faith. The same evidence is clear with Jesus – yes, the Cross took his life – but the world’s “NO” was trumped by God’s eternal “YES” and Jesus was raised from the dead by the glorious love of God and continues to live within and among us now.Bible study – making the scriptures our own – is about faith: it is finding the evidence of God’s grace now so that we might rest, watch and wait when grace is obscured. First, there s faith; then there is hope: the key Bible passage in our tradition about hope comes from Romans 8 – and if you want to look at it now I will share a few quick thoughts – traditionally it goes like this: We believe that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because we know that in everything God works for good with those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose. Not that everything that happens IS good – we know that – and not that everything that happens always works out for good – we know that, too. The Bible isn’t a sappy collection of sentimental aphorisms and affirmations; for what the Scripture says is that God can and will take even the worst situation – the Cross – and turn it into a blessing IF we allow God to be God in trust and love the Lord patiently.
Peterson’s translation in The Message brings this alive: Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. And the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what
to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. God knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good So…with God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.This is what Christian hope is all about: it is grounded in Christ’s resurrection, born of God’s love and experienced through the evidence of faith. What’s more, nothing – absolutely nothing – can separate us from this hope because it starts and ends with God. Do you know the corollary to Romans 8? Look at Romans 5 - is golden - and reads: We can boast in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because hope is God's love being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
First there is trust and evidence - faith - then there is God's love being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit - hope - and that leaves... what? Love – Jesus spoke of his love like this in John 15:
I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in this love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love. Now I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the
things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything…
What is this story’s context, do you recall? It is the Passover supper – and Jesus has just washed the feet of his friends – he has shown them the love of a servant – and what had they been talking about and arguing about before the foot washing? Who was the greatest? They were interested in status and power – they were obsessed with themselves – but rather than scold them or shame them he took a towel, got on his knees and scraped the crap off the soles of their shoes. This is how you love – this is how you live – this is how integrity, joy, faith and hope become flesh he said.
I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in this love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love. Now I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the
things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything…What is this story’s context, do you recall? It is the Passover supper – and Jesus has just washed the feet of his friends – he has shown them the love of a servant – and what had they been talking about and arguing about before the foot washing? Who was the greatest? They were interested in status and power – they were obsessed with themselves – but rather than scold them or shame them he took a towel, got on his knees and scraped the crap off the soles of their shoes. This is how you love – this is how you live – this is how integrity, joy, faith and hope become flesh he said.
Biblical scholars are clear that in the Mediterranean society in which Jesus ministered, every internal condition "entailed a corresponding external action; love always meant doing something that revealed" the state of your heart. In Malina and Rohrbaughs, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John, they write:
(In the world of Rabbi Jesus)... love takes on the value of enduring personal loyalty, of personal faithfulness to the (community)... the phrase 'love one another' presumes the social glue that binds one person to another... it is social, eternally manifested and emotionally rooted in actions of commitment and solidarity. (p. 228)
And what is the scripture that most clearly expresses the contours and commitments necessary to make these words flesh? I Corinthians 13 – and let me share it with you from Peterson’s translation because so often the ancient words of tradition become lost in habit and familiarity:
Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have… doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first," doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, looks for the best and never looks back, because love keeps going to the end. Today we don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! W
e'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! So until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward the Lord: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly and love extravagantly. And know that the best of the three is love.
And what is the scripture that most clearly expresses the contours and commitments necessary to make these words flesh? I Corinthians 13 – and let me share it with you from Peterson’s translation because so often the ancient words of tradition become lost in habit and familiarity:
Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have… doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first," doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, looks for the best and never looks back, because love keeps going to the end. Today we don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! W
e'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! So until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward the Lord: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly and love extravagantly. And know that the best of the three is love. Faith, hope and love – these three things remain – abide – or last forever. I have been persuaded, sweet people of God, that if we let these three truths guide our scripture study on Sunday morning (and at other times, too) the Lord will lead us into the realm of trust and patient, healing love and we will make the ancient words our own.
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