Library
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Taking The Bible Seriously
3rd in a series on The Heart of Christianity; What is the Christian Life All About? Final Service at 6325 S. University
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
II Timothy 3:16-17 Good New Translation **16** All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instructions for right living, **17** so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed.
The Bible was in the news twice on one day last week. USA Today reported on a new translation of the Bible that is causing controversy among evangelical and conservative churches. It is an update of the New International Version but the difference is that it uses more inclusive and gender-neutral language just as the New Revised Standard Version in your pews does. So that where the old version might talk about “sons of God” the updated translation uses “children of God” which is actually a truer rendering of the original language in Hebrew or Greek. The uproar was because some people saw those changes as tampering with the words of God because they see anything in the book as directly dictated by God. It is not tampering; it just shows that the meaning of words can change over time. The other controversy reported in the same newspaper was over a proposed ad that was submitted by a Bible publisher to Rolling Stone magazine, advertising a new youth oriented edition of the Bible, and Rolling Stone refused to run the ad saying that it did not fit with its advertising philosophy. And, of course, week before last, the newspapers had another controversial story that was indirectly about the Bible. A judge in Georgia ruling unconstitutional the little note that one school system had put on each high school science textbook saying that the discussion about evolution in this book should be discounted because it was just a theory, not noting that most of the scientific discussions in such books are also theories because in scientific dialogue to call something a theory does not mean that it should be doubted or treated casually. The little note on each book was put there because of pressure from parents who believe that the book of Genesis has to be read literally and that God created the universe in six 24 hour periods, probably about 6000 years ago and that if you do not believe it happened that way, then the Bible is just useless. It is a very narrow way of reading the Bible and it reminds me of the story that I have told some of you about former members Mark and Kristin Gonzalez who came to this church after leaving another very large church in south Denver. Mark was teaching geology at DU and Kristen was finishing her Ph D in biology at DU. In the church they had tried for a while, they were in a Sunday school class where the teacher said to the class, “You cannot believe in evolution and be a Christian!” You cannot believe that God took a long time to create the universe and be a Christian. I do not agree with that approach, neither does the United Methodist Church, nor neither does the Catholic Church where the Pope ten years ago said that science and religion are not enemies but different ways of discovering truth. Mark and Kristin did not agree with that shallow idea either and came and found this church where science and religion are compatible. The point is that many of us are familiar with a very simplistic approach to the Bible that says it is either all literally historically true or it is useless; we have heard that idea that the Bible is “inerrant” and “infallible”, words the Bible never uses incidentally, and we know that does not make sense to us. But we are not sure what to hold onto in place of that. And, tragically, many of us after we have decided that literalism does not work for us, have put our Bibles down and failed to let the stories and images and truth of the Bible form and inform our lives. We have remained ignorant of what is in our book and we are the worse off for that. This is where Dr. Borg’s approach in his best selling book can help us chart a new course. He says for instance that people can decide their own approach to such stories as the ones in Genesis about the first man and woman and the garden with the talking snake. People can read that story metaphorically or literally (of course if you read it literally you are faced with the question any smart fourth grader asks: if these are the only people around and they have a son and their son gets married, where does his wife come from?) What is important, Borg says is that we find out what all of these stories mean. Genesis says that we are created not by accident but with a purpose in mind, that the creation is good not evil, that we are charged with caring for the environment, that we are accountable to God and not just to ourselves, and that when we fail God and ourselves, God gives us another chance but we also lose something in that transaction. And this chapter in the book helps us see that the Bible is true but it is a more than literal truth. Jesus says he is the bread of life. We know that does not refer to a process of baking with some wheat. It means that our relationship to Christ can be the basic and best nourishment we can find. The Christmas story we just celebrated is full of deeper meanings and metaphors as well. When we learn that the first people to hear about Jesus birth were skuzzy, mangy shepherds we are to see that God’s good news is especially for the least and last and left out of our world. The angels’ song says that Jesus is to be the Lord and Savior-and that is more disturbing than we see today because back then those terms were only used for the emperor. And the story of astrologers coming from Arabia to see the newborn child means that this messiah is to be the light not only for Israel, but for all the nations and all the people. The difference between how mainstream Christians see the Bible and how literalists see the Bible is that literalists say that the Bible is the word of God-inerrant and infallible. Mainstream Christians would say that Jesus is the word of God and that when the teachings of Jesus disagree with parts of the Bible, it is Jesus’ words and examples that are most important. If you do not believe that slavery is acceptable you are an example of what I just have said because there are parts of the Bible, even in the New Testament, that approve of slavery. The challenge for us centrist Christians who have learned that there are parts of the Bible that are not the word of God is that we have often ignored our book and do not do what this Borg chapter asks of us, to be in constant dialogue with our book so we can be shaped and formed by it. Pollster George Gallup says that the number one problem in American Christianity is biblical illiteracy. Do you think he is right? We do not cherish this as sacred scripture and we need to learn to do that. We need to have a closer attitude to the one that Rabbi Harold Kushner had when I was with him for several lectures a while back. Dr. Kushner has written the commentary for a new edition of the Hebrew Torah, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It is a wonderful new treasure that we purchased for our church library and I took our library copy with me to see if Rabbi Kushner would sign it for us since he wrote the commentary for each Biblical book. Do you know what he said? He was not comfortable writing in a Bible-because he sees the Bible as such a sacred book. I think it is OK to write in your Bible –I encourage it – but I like the fact that he sees this as a very important and sacred book. I want us as United Methodists to not just revere it but to know that it holds the key to life if we will read and study. The stories here are important and I want to lift up a couple of them on our last Sunday in this building. The story of God calling Moses to liberate God’s people can speak to us. When God addresses Moses, he tells Moses out there in the desert that Moses is to take off his shoes because where he is standing is holy ground. The space we are leaving today has been holy ground for thousands of people over the past 45 years. This four and a half acres of land we are on was given as a church site by Mr. Leonard Grant of Littleton over 45 years ago. What we have celebrated here has made it holy ground as we have witnessed baptisms and marriages and funerals and sendoffs for mission trips and youth auctions and spaghetti dinners and potlucks and other sacred events. It is hard to leave a place where these walls have witnessed so much. Cindy Bates’ excellent sermon from several months ago, which is on the foyer table, is a great reminder of what it feels like to move and to leave one place and go to another. What we especially remember today is that what has happened here that has made this holy space and that the church is not the building, the church is the people and as we process from here to our new building, God will make that a holy space for us as well when we begin our worship there today. The Bible tells us that for the first 300 years of our life as Christians we had no permanent buildings to meet in!! People met in synagogues until they were run out. They met in the living rooms or outdoor patios of a residence. The church was the people, the community of faith, and they changed meeting places as they grew and expanded. The church still is the people and we are the same people whether we meet at 6325 S University or at 9300 S University. Our Bible also tells us one other important thing, and Dr. Mason Willis reminded us of it a couple of weeks ago: when the people of God have been on the move is when they have been most faithful and when they have been closest to God. When the Israelites left Egypt for the Promised Land they were in a time of change and transition and some tremendous growth happened for them. It is when we are in movement that we can be most open to God and it is when we get settled and become complacent that we can lose our relationship to God. I am grateful to be part of a church that takes the Bible so seriously. Over the past almost 11 years now 1200 people have been in our Disciple Bible study classes and have begun to make the Bible more fully their own book, to let God form us and change us as we read scripture and as we meet God there. And I think that it is very significant today that as we process from our current space to our new space that we will be carrying two things: our hymnals/songbooks to help us sing the Lord’s song in a new place – and our guidebook, our Bibles, because that is what gives us our identity and our marching orders as followers of Jesus Christ!!