Matthew 13:34
I was talking with some kids during the Children's Message time. I was on an internship year during seminary. I was living in Spearville and Dodge City, working at the Presbyterian churches in those communities.
So I'm talking with the kids in the Dodge church. It was just after the first of the year. I was talking to them about how important it is to read in the Bible each day. I asked them if their families all had a Bible. One little guy's hand shot up and said, "We do. But I think we put it away with the Christmas decorations." His parents slid, silently under the pew. They murmured something to me on the way out of church along the lines of, "I can't wait till you have kids and they sit up there."
We all have to deal with the Bible at some point. We have to decide what it is, this often leather bound book of weird actions of God and people storied inside. As well as rules and laws, songs and wise sayings, parables and cryptic end times visions.
The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, so there are all kinds of translation problems. In some cases there is no word-for-word, English word that will work for the Hebrew or Greek word. For instance, the word in Hebrew that is translated into English as "anger" literally means, "to be of wide nostrils." But I've never seen an English translation use that phrase. Usually, just some form of the word anger is used. So there is no literal, word-for-word translation. Don't let anyone tell you there is.
Is the Bible dictated by God word-for-word? Or is it a collection from the hand of men and women who just wrote down the stories that had been orally handed down from centuries? What do we mean when we call the Bible, the Word of God?
These are just a few of the huge questions people and scholars ask when looking at the question, "What is the Bible?"
I think the more important questions is, "What is the Bible supposed to do?" What is supposed to happen when a person sits down with and reads the Bible? What do people expect is going to happen?
Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish theologian who died in 1855 once said about the Bible, "...remember to say to yourself incessantly: 'It's talking to me; I am the one it is speaking about.'"
I think that's what we expect is going to happen. When we sit down with the Bible, we expect it to talk to us. If not it, God. It's not that the Bible is some magical book that talks on its own. But that's part of the answer to one of my previous questions, "Why do we call the Bible the Word of God?" We call it that because we expect the Bible's words are also God's words, and that somehow God will speak to us through them.
There's no magic to that either. Just because you open the Bible and start reading doesn't mean that God has to speak to you every time. God is free to speak whenever, however, to whomever God wishes. God is free to speak to us through the book Les Miserables by Victor Hugo as much as through the Bible. But we believe that there is something about the Bible that God has imprinted--so to speak--more of God's self into the Bible than any other book.
So, if we're going to hear God in the Bible, we need to read the Bible. The thing is, historically, the Bible has been heard much longer than it's been read. In Jewish worship, the scrolls of the Torah were unrolled and sung by the cantor. Hebrew is mostly a sung language. The people in Jewish worship heard the musical intonations and vowels. The cantor's voice gave personality and interpretation to the text.
In Catholic worship, prior to the Reformation, the scriptures had always been read out loud, albeit in Latin, that only a handful of people knew.
Today, we read scripture out loud in our worship. We don't say, "OK, everyone get out your Bible and read the scripture silently to yourself, and then we'll have the message."
So, reading scripture has always been more a matter of the ears than the eyes.
Think about the difference between talking with someone vs. reading a book. When I read a book, the book doesn't know if I'm paying attention or not. But when I listen to a person, that person knows very well whether I'm paying attention or not. In reading I open the book and attend to the words. I can read by myself. In listening, the speaker is in charge. In reading, the reader is in charge.
The believers interest in Scripture has never been just about reading the words on the page. Reading the Bible isn't about analyzing a moral code. Our interest in Scripture has always been about hearing God speak.
There was a party of explorers who were studying the dense jungles of South America. They wandered until their food supply dwindled to nothing. They came upon a clearing teeming with bright red berries. They ate and satisfied their hunger pains. After several days, even though the berry supply remained in abundance, the explorers began to die. When a search party finally arrived, none of the explorers had survived. The rescuers wondered why they died. There were plenty of berries to sustain them. But after analyzing the berries, they found them to be absolutely worthless as a nutritional source. Though the explorers appetites were satisfied, they actually starved to death.
Maybe that's a little parable about how some people connect to the Bible. They read the words. But like eating the berries, just reading the words is not enough. The nutrition, the value in the words can only come when the voice of God is heard amidst the words. It's only by hearing God speak through the words that we are sustained and kept alive. Just as Jesus said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
As a boy in Missouri, Mark Twain remembered when the town drunk was dying in the street. Someone came by, opened a big Bible, and laid it on the drunk's chest. Which hastened the man's death.
It isn't the words themselves that save us, as if the Bible in its printed form is some kind of magic talisman. It is in hearing the words, which open up a relationship with God that allows us to hear that God behind the words.
So, what I want to do with the remaining time of this message is to lead you through an ancient Scripture reading practice called Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina means "divine reading." It is a practice where by you don't just read scripture, as if you were reading a novel. It's a way to read scripture and listen more attentively for God's voice to you. We go through this discipline as a Session, every time we meet. It is a way of listening to Scripture that helps listen for God when Scripture is read. It is a practice that involves the ears, not the eyes.
The Benedictine monks go through the discipline of Lectio Divina twice a day: once in the morning and once in the evening. The Lectio can be done individually as well as in a small group. You can keep a Lectio Divina journal, in which you write down what you hear from God in the three phases of doing the Lectio.
THE ART of lectio divina begins with cultivating the ability to listen deeply, to hear “with the ear of our hearts” as St. Benedict encourages in his Rule. When we read the Scriptures we should try to imitate the prophet Elijah. We should allow ourselves to become women and men who are able to listen for the still, small voice of God (I Kings 19:12); the “faint murmuring sound” which is God's word for us, God's voice touching our hearts. This gentle listening is an “atunement” to the presence of God in that special part of God's revelation of God's self which is the Scriptures.
In order to hear someone speaking softly we must learn to be silent. We must learn to love silence. If we are constantly speaking or if we are surrounded with noise, we cannot hear gentle sounds. The practice of lectio divina, therefore, requires that we first quiet down in order to hear God's word to us. Allow yourself to become silent.
If you were doing the Lection by yourself you would turn to the text and read it slowly, gently, out loud. Savor each portion of the reading, constantly listening for the "still, small voice" of a word or phrase that somehow says, "I am for you today." Do not expect lightning or ecstasies. In lectio divina, God is teaching us to listen to him, to seek him in silence. He does not reach out and grab us; rather, he gently invites us ever more deeply into his presence.
(Read the Scripture: Matthew 5:3-10, MSG
3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.)
What word or phrase caught your attention?
With the second reading you are listening for how your current life is crossing paths with the words of Scripture. ONCE WE have found a word or a phrase in the Scriptures that speaks to us in a personal way, we must take it in and “ruminate” on it. The image of an animal quietly chewing its cud is a symbol of the Christian pondering the Word of God. Ruminating on scripture means allowing it to interact with our thoughts, our hopes, our memories, our desires, our daily actions and activities.
(Have someone read the scripture out loud a second time.)
How is this teaching of Jesus intersecting with what's going on in your daily life?
THE THIRD reading will call us to prayerfully hear what God is nudging us to take care of immediately--not next week, or some time in the future. In this prayer we allow the word that we have taken in and on which we are pondering to touch and change our deepest selves. And take us to a deeper level of commitment to our relationship with God. We allow our real selves to be touched and changed by the word of God.
(Have someone read the scripture a third time.)
I'm not going to ask you to share what you think God is nudging you to take care of. That is between you and God.
Lectio divina has no other goal than spending time with God through the medium of His word. The amount of time we spend in any aspect of lectio divina, whether it be rumination, commitment, or contemplation depends on God's Spirit, not on us. Lectio divina teaches us to savor and delight in all the different flavors of God's presence, whether they be active or receptive modes of experiencing Him.
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