September 28, 2008

“Who Wants A Bible?”

2 Timothy 3:14-17

The particular Sunday when I received my first Bible—some 63 years ago—still clings to my mind and holds a special power in my heart. I received it from my parents after completing so much memory work: the books of the Bible; the 23rd and 100th Psalms; the Beatitudes; the Ten Commandments; and portions of Romans 8 and 12, Ephesians 6 and The Revelation to John. I brought that Bible with me this morning, and it reminds me of those persons involved in helping me to earn it.

Frances Bailey was Sunday School superintendent. A large woman, she had a beautiful smile and was as fine a Christian lady as a young boy might ever meet. I remember that she always called me by my given name—James—not Jimmy like others did, and somehow I felt that in her eyes I was a real person.

My pastor at the time was Seth Parker, who used to take us kids on picnics and play softball with us. He was the man who taught me first that ministers are not some kind of holy hermits but flesh and blood human beings. During one particular picnic he tore his pants while scaling a barbed wire fence, and I overheard him say, “Damn,” under his breath. Then and there I realized that this preacher loved us kids not because he had to or because he was so religious, but because he, as a real person, wanted to.

My Sunday School teacher, Bea Bronner, qualified for sainthood because she put up with us Sunday after Sunday, for often we were more interested in being demons to each other than in learning how Jesus exorcized them. I hope she realized how much she taught us about the Bible simply by being there week after week, staying with us even as Jesus stayed in love with people.

Through the years I’ve received other Bibles as graduation and ordination gifts, but no Bible is quite as precious to me as this first one which came to me at age seven. There’s something terribly, terribly important invested when we read and use our Bible.

Kathryn Koob, in her fascinating book, Guest of the Revolution, recounts her experiences as a hostage following the violent takeover of the American embassy by radical Iranian students. She tells about losing her Bible during the terror of her arrest and detention, and goes on to say how much she missed it during those long nights and days. She had to rely on Scripture passages that she’d memorized as a girl in a Lutheran confirmation class. She also tells of the day when a hand came through the door of her detention room and a voice said, “Does anyone want a Bible? Who wants a Bible?” Kathryn Koob cried out and before the Iranian captor had a chance to repeat the question, she answered with tears in her eyes and her voice, “Yes, I’d like a Bible.” So a Bible was shoved into her hands which became thereafter her constant companion and, held together with rubber bands, was carried by her off the plane that brought her home to freedom.

“Who wants a Bible?” It’s a good question. Why did I want one so much as a young boy even when I didn’t understand much of what it said? Why did Kathryn Koob want one so desperately? Why is the Bible still a best seller and one of the most stolen books from public libraries? Why do we need a Bible?

Apparently, some need one for pressing flowers and filing clippings and other memorabilia. I called in a home once when a family Bible was being used as a door stop (Bibles should keep doors open). In another home I found the Bible being used as a booster chair for a child at the table (and Bibles should give us a boost). I also remember being in a home once when the large family Bible was being used to prop up the Christmas tree. Indeed, some use the Bible only at Christmas, getting it out to read the Christmas story in the hush of Christmas Eve. Others dust it off to take to the hospital when they face serious surgery, and others retrieve it from the shelves when a crisis comes that devastates their life. We agree with James Black, a great Scottish preacher who said, “If the Church puts the Bible on the shelf, the Church will not be far behind.”

Does anyone really want a Bible—need a Bible? Why? The apostle Paul answers the question for me in his words to young Timothy, words that we heard from this morning’s reading from the Bible:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned . . . how from childhood you have know the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Who wants a Bible? I do! I need the Bible for reproof and correction, to keep me from fooling myself, to keep me honest, to remind me of what I am and what I’m not. It’s so easy for me to deceive myself, to delude myself, to hide from myself. Is it for you? I mean, we can get such distorted and exaggerated ideas about ourselves, both underrating and overrating ourselves. That’s why our world is in such a hellish mess today. Every tragedy in history that’s ruined hopes, deferred dreams and destroyed civilizations occurred because we humans mistook ourselves to be what we are not or not to be what we were meant to be. As Reinhold Niebuhr put it, “Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil men, but by good men who don’t know themselves.”

We need the Bible to keep us honest. We need the reproof of Scripture to remind us we’re not as good, clever or superior as we think we are. We also need it to remind us that we’re not as bad, inferior or hopeless as we often take ourselves to be. Where else are we going to find that kind of truth? Where else will we hear the telling word that all of our human systems—no matter how high-tech or foolproof—are not going to save us? What else will remind us that our wealth and sensual pleasure will not deliver the happiness we want? What else will sound forth the summons to moral greatness, to public trust, to world peace, to human dignity and justice, to love and solidarity? Where else will pretension and mediocrity be judged, sin and moral squalor, greed and exploitation be rebuked and the value of every human soul be exalted? When the center does not hold for us and madness is epidemic, where is the healing word we need? When the nations rage furiously and leaders take counsel to destroy the human family and devastate the earth, from which source comes protest to quit such insanity and mutual suicide?

I find it in God’s Word—in the urgent command, “I have set before you this day good and evil, life and death; therefore choose life.” In the soaring words of the prophet Micah, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” I find it in the sobering words of the Psalmist, “You desire truth in the inward being, therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart … Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” I find it in the encouraging word of Jesus, “You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world … Greater things than these you will do … Love one another; love even your enemies … Go and do not sin again … If you would find life, lose yours for my sake and the Kingdom … I am the way, the Truth and the Life.” I find it in Paul’s ringing certainty, “In everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” I find it in the vision of John in The Revelation, “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”

Who wants a Bible? I do! I need the Bible to keep me honest, to keep me involved, to show me that the present chaos of our world is not the whole story, that though the cause of evil prosper and darkness descends, God stands within the shadows, speaking God’s word of resurrection through Jesus Christ, working out the purpose of God’s Kingdom and inviting us to share it.

Carl Jung inscribed over the entrance to his home the Latin words which interpreted say, “Summoned or not, God will be present.” I need the Bible to remind me of that—for myself and for our world!

Who wants a Bible? I do, to increase my faith and to keep growing on. Like the disciples of old, I cry out, “Lord, increase my faith,” or like the father of the epileptic son, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” Today my faith may be vital and my trust in God so strong that I can face any challenge and cope with any crisis. But tomorrow that same faith may suffer as doubts come and I am troubled by fears without and fightings within. Today God’s presence is a power moving with me and in me, and I feel it as I feel my own breathing. But tomorrow such spiritual awareness vanishes in the struggle, confusion, the frustrations and the work of staying alive in a world become flat, stale, and empty.

What generates faith and nurtures belief? What brings us to the consciousness of God that Jesus had, the reality of God that inspired the prophets and apostles? It comes to us, in large measure, through the holy persuasion of their example. That’s why we need the Bible: to keep company with Jesus, to climb the mountain with Moses, to converse with the Psalmist, to walk with Jeremiah, to sit for a while with Peter, to ponder with Mary Magdalene, to venture with Paul, to anguish with Job. When we spend time person to person in the Bible, we start to believe. And then we risk that belief in life, and faith comes and grows. Paul didn’t know just how far God’s grace reached until he needed it. Mary Magdalene didn’t know how much God loved her until Jesus reached out to her and she knew she was lovable. So with us.

In this age of skepticism and secular irreverence, we need great faith; and that’s why we need the Bible and the living Word of God in Jesus Christ alive in us. The price of a great faith is a great and continuous struggle to get it, to keep it, to share it.

My nephew Michael enjoyed a close relationship with his pediatrician. Long after Michael’s friends had graduated to a regular physician, Michael continued to rely on his pediatrician. A large boy for his age, Michael went to see his pediatrician one day for a school check-up and found himself sitting in a room full of toddlers and infants. While they were waiting, a little child, just beginning to learn to speak, started walking around the circle of patients, touching each baby on its knee. As the toddler touched each child, he would say in that beautiful child’s voice, “Bay Bee, Bay Bee.” One after the other he touched the infants until he came to Michael. When he saw a tall, gangling twelve-year-old boy, he touched his knee as well and said, “Bigggg Bay Bee!” Michael promptly got another doctor!

If we are to grow as a Christian into the full stature of Jesus Christ, we must attend to one of the ordinances of God that John Wesley considered necessary for Christian living—the daily practice of reading the scriptures. Spiritual maturity comes only when we grow, when we are reachable and teachable. Who among us has all the answers? I know I don’t. Who has resolved all the problems? I know I haven’t. And neither have another one hundred or more persons in this church who have been involved in the DISCIPLE Bible Study program offered earlier in the life of this congregation. That’s why I need the Bible, which reveals to me the God who is not mocked or deceived, and also the God who in love and mercy offers us new beginnings and beckons us to new horizons.

To read the Bible and hear God’s Word is to experience God’s love, love that changes us and makes us complete, love that enables us to put the pieces together and to live this moment well. When we listen to God’s Living Word in Jesus Christ, we learn of him and are moved to live out his love. When we believe and act on God’s Word that we hear, we know why we were born, and we find tomorrows that beckon with excitement and joy.

Who wants a Bible? Take it up and read it. Listen to God’s Word and trust it. Read it and keep reading it, so that we might become the persons God intended for us to be, so that we might preserve the world that God created, and so that all persons may dwell in dignity and peace. We don’t need a degree in theology to read and hear God’s Word. We only need a ready and reachable heart. Let us pray:

O God of Truth, your Word has reached us through the mouths of your prophets, the pen of scribes, and the witness of your faithful community down through the ages. May your Word be written on our hearts and spring forth from our mouths. May it become alive in our acts of love, of caring for the weak and powerless, of healing broken relationships and broken hearts. May the good news which we have heard and read be shared with others that they too may experience your liberating hope. Make your prophetic message heard through what we say and do in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen!