You, Me and the Bible
July 19, 2009

A sermon by

The Rev. Dr. Laura Barnes

I hope all of you either brought your Bibles or have one in front of you, as we will be using them throughout my sermon today. I want you to keep them open as I will frequently be referring to our scripture text.

How are you with this book?

I guess, I really should say, where are you in this book?
This is our story, you know. The Bible is simply the story of the people of God, their relationship, or sometimes...their lack of relationship to God, their time in the wilderness of life and their return, time and time again, to God.

As you now know, The Godly Play story last week was on “The Books of the Bible”. It is considered an “enrichment lesson” or a story that is not directly from the Bible, but rather it is about the way we practice our faith. It is designed to give the children some basic information about our sacred text, to introduce the structure of the Bible to them and to make it a little bit less intimidating for them.  I thought this might work for adults too, so I wanted to share a bit of the Godly Play story script with you this morning...I quote:  “This is the Holy Bible (hold it up).  It wasn’t always a book. A long, long time ago it was stories around campfires in the desert and later in people’s homes.  Then the stories were written down on pieces of soft leather, then on a kind of paper made from reeds called papyrus.  Finally the printing press was invented and the Bible became a book.  Here is the front door (demonstrate on the story model) and here is the back door.  Here we open up both doors and let the stories out!  They are all over our classroom. We still tell them in a circle, like around a campfire.  Sometimes parts of the Bible are in a video or a movie, but here we like to tell them the old, old way.”[1]

I thought that would be a good idea for us to review our biblical text as well this morning. So, I invite you to turn to the front part of your book, to the index of books that are included in the text. There you will see the two standard divisions, the Old and New Testaments, or the Hebrew or First Testament and the Christian or Second Testament.  Within the Hebrew section there are 39 books, which represents over two thirds of our Bible. It begins, of course, with the five books of Moses, or the Torah. Torah means “the teachings”.  This is the most sacred text of our Jewish brothers and sisters. 

Following the Torah, comes our historical section. In these books we get the history of the Jewish people, their judges, their kings and their temple…such as our text today from Second Samuel. My favorite story within this section is the story of Esther.  Carolyn Fox, one of our master Godly Play teachers, has developed a special Godly Play story about courageous Queen Esther that will be shared with our children in late August. I encourage each of you to read this story sometime. It is one of the few books of the Bible where God is never mentioned, but is certainly present.  Following the historical books are our books of Wisdom. Here is where our precious Psalms reside, along with books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.  Then come the Major Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Minor ones like Micah and Jonah.

In between the Hebrew and Christian testaments, some Bibles include the Apocrypha. Our Roman Catholic and Episcopalian brothers and sisters use part of the text.  This third section is considered by some not to be a part of our sacred canon. The King James version usually includes these books, our own New Revised Standard translation, does not.  Apocrypha means “hidden” and some Protestant Bibles, including the text you have before you, do not even include them in the canon.  These are also called the “inter-testamental” books, or “between the testaments”.

Within the Christian testament, there are 27 books. You will see that this testament begins with the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Synoptic simply means “similar” or “from the same place”.  We then have the gospel of John, followed by the historical book of the church, written by Luke, called “the Acts of the Apostles”. These are followed by the Pauline letters, written by the Apostle Paul, or one of his disciples. These letters, or books, make up the majority of our Christian scripture.  This testament concludes with letters from other apostles, like John and Peter, then ends, of course with the Revelation to John, or the Apocalypse.

So, we now have a snapshot of what our book looks like. What is the best way to approach it? How can we best familiarize ourselves with its contents? Why would we even want to study this book?

What I often tell the youth to do is to make an attempt, no matter how feeble, in reading the text on a daily basis. Even if you just read a verse a day, there is a rhythm to reading the text that is important. Most of all, open it. Open this book, dive in and start reading. If what you are reading is confusing, or not helpful to your daily spiritual journey, then turn the page...or find another book within the collection to read. I recommend starting in Genesis, to get an overall feeling of our beginnings and the history of the family of Abraham. Then I recommend the Psalms, there are 150 of them, and perhaps a book that is a story about a person, like Esther or Ruth.  I prefer the narrative style books, but there is beautiful poetry, history and prophetic books as well. Find what you like and read it. Mostly hear me say, just read it! Then turn to the Christian testament and I always suggest starting with a gospel (Mark is the most succinct) and then the history of the church in Acts. 

So, last week we talked about how the music of our tradition can support our biblical studies. Today we are exploring the impact that prayer and meditation can have and next week, The Rev Doug Howell, will emphasize the historical and social context of our scriptures.

The question arises then, why do we want to study this book? First of all, it holds the story of our faith tradition. Perhaps you do not feel a deep connection to the Israelites, but they are our spiritual ancestors. The twelve tribes of Israel are foundational to our belief system.  Within this book are the stories that are deeply imbedded into our religious practice – the Garden of Eden, Noah’s Ark, the Ten Commandments, the 23^rd Psalm, the story of Jonah and the whale – and so much more. Within the Christian testament we have four versions, or gospels, which share the story of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his ministry here on Earth. Learning more about the life and the teachings of Jesus is central to our development as Christians.

Beginning at a very early age, we teach our children the Christmas story, or birth narrative and we tell this story in great detail every December. At Easter time, we go through one of the passion narratives, or the story of Jesus’ last week here on Earth in human form. We share the tragedy of the crucifixion and the glory of the resurrection every spring.  The repetition of these stories alone tells of their central importance to us.  Studying the Sermon on the Mount, the parables of Jesus, his conversation with the woman at the well in John 4...all are crucial to our growth and understanding of Christ.

Turn back to the scriptures for a moment. Let’s begin with the very familiar Psalm 23.  This text is taught to us from the start, we hear it through the Revised Common Lectionary and we often use it during memorial services for those who have passed away. I know many of you join me in honoring the life and memory of our dear Joseph Acorn, who passed away Monday night. We have had far too many memorials here at DCC lately and I pray that trend ends very soon. The celebration of life that happens here is wonderful, but it takes a toll on the Diaconate, your pastors and our congregation as we mourn the saints that have left us in this past year. We will miss Joe and hold Marylou and thier entire family in our prayers. In honor of Joe and his love for history and all things which surround our biblical text, I want to share with you the history of a form of reading the text called lectio divina. I believe it is one of the best ways to study, or to absorb, sacred texts.

Lectio Divina is a reading, on an individual or communal level, of a passage of scripture, received as the Word of God and leading, at the prompting of the Spirit, to meditation, prayer and contemplation.

This custom dates back to the Early Church, during the time of Paul.  In Phillipians 3:8 Paul challenges the church in Philippi to acquire “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus” which he himself has obtained through frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. As a group practice this has been attested (proven) as far back as the 3rd century during the time of Origen, one of the early theologians of the Christian Church.  Origen would preach based on the assumption that his listeners had been engaged in the daily practice of reading scripture.  During this century there was a practice of meeting together daily and reading from the Bible. 

Although Lectio Divina has been around for centuries, it has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity among the Christian denominations because it is a contemplative and spiritual discipline.  Prayer is often part of the meditation as well as the scriptures themselves. This involves three readings of the scripture.  The first includes simple listening and receiving.  The second reading is designed to initiate the listener with all of their senses - they are encouraged to see, smell, feel, taste and hear the Word of God.  The third reading is for gratitude.  Each participant is encouraged to give silent thanks for the message she or he has received from the three readings.

Though simple in nature, Lectio Divina is designed to awaken our senses and our souls to respond to the Word of God on a deeper and more spiritual level than one normally would in one single reading with discussion.  The intent is to encourage all participants to approach the Scriptures on their own with a more open mind and contemplative spirit than ever before.

This morning, I thought we would practice a shortened version of lectio. So, let us listen to the text, then meditate and perhaps share for a moment or two about what we experienced. I will read the text, invite you to meditate, then I will read it again.  Let’s try it.

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. (Pause)

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. (Pause)

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. (Pause)

Now, if you are willing, turn to a neighbor and share what came up for you in this brief meditation. (Pause) Thank you, it is such an incredible experience to study the biblical text and so much can be revealed to us through that study if we invite it into our lives and give it the time and thought it deserves.

In our scriptures for today, from the Revised Common Lectionary, I discovered several passages that stood out for me in my own time of meditation. First of all, in the text from Second Samuel I was struck by the prophesy of Nathan that David’s offspring, or King Solomon, would build the Temple of Jerusalem and glorify God in the process. Of course, I felt a parallel to our own building project and our goal of glorifying God in that process. The verse that popped for me was v. 13, “He shall build a house for my name”.  I love that idea and pray our new “house” shall be built in God’s name and for the glory of the kingdom of God right here in Danville. I cannot imagine a better way of doing that than building a house that welcomes and invites children and young families into our midst.

The other text that I meditated on was from the gospel of Mark, where Jesus is in the middle of his ministry to the people of God and calls the apostles to pause and to rest.  Let us look at verses 30 and 31 again:

30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

I believe that many of us forget to eat, literally, at times. There has been such an incredible amount of activity here at DCC for a long period of time. My prayer is that each of us heeds this reminder from Jesus himself to pause, pray and rest for awhile.  I know that I have had time to recharge my own spiritual “batteries” in a recent sabbatical and would encourage each of us to take “mini-sabbaticals” from time to time from our work together. Each of us needs to read the Bible daily, pray, meditate and rest on the Word of God. Even if we just take 30 minutes of our day to do this, we will all be better informed, better prepared and more spiritually grounded as we move forward in our common work together.

May each of us pause daily, thank God for the gift of each day and honor God by the study of the Bible throughout our journey together.

May it be so. Amen