Rev. Teri Peterson
PCOP
Many Other Things
John 16.12-13,
20.30-31, 21.25
27 July 2014, Faith
Questions 6
Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to
you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will
guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak
whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
…
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence
of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so
that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and
that through believing you may have life in his name.
But there are also many other things that Jesus
did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself
could not contain the books that would be written.
Many of you know that I did not grow up in the church. When
I was 15, I had plans that involved studying both music and English Literature
in college. I figured I could easily double major, because I liked and was good
at both those things, and neither one would get me a job, so surely there must
be time for both. I spent a lot of time reading and writing. But it wasn’t long
into my journey with classic and important literature and music that I figured
out that I was missing something. I was missing the undertones, the subtext,
the metaphor, the language and background that authors and composers assumed
people would have. So I decided that I was going to have to read the Bible.
Otherwise, I spent a lot of time wondering what characters were talking about
or why things were important. So I started reading. At the beginning. And at
the rate of about 5 chapters per day, I read straight through this book from
beginning to end.
It was a weird book. Repetitive in parts, confusing in
parts, and downright disturbing sometimes. It had stories of lying, murder,
seduction, despair, hope, coming-of-age, and traveling adventures. One day it was
like Swiss Family Robinson, and the next day it was Agatha Christie, and the
next day it was worse than trying to read the Waterloo section of Les Mis in
French. Which, of course, is because the Bible isn’t just one book, it’s
dozens—more like a library than a novel. The story arc weaves in and out
throughout the history and mythology and weird social contracts to create
something I’d never experienced before. What made it even stranger was that by
the time I got near the end, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t just a good
story. There was something more to this God-story, but I couldn’t quite put my
finger on it, besides to say that I thought it might just be True.
Now, I’m one of those people who gets sucked in to a good
story. The worlds that authors create can be very compelling, and it’s
difficult sometimes to remember that there really aren’t wizards and witches
cloaking themselves from our eyes or Time Lords winging their way through the
universe…probably. So it wasn’t surprising to me when I first felt that the
story of God’s people was maybe more than just a good story. What was
surprising was that the feeling held on, even as I turned to other books with
other worlds and their stories. There was something about this library that
held this particular story of this particular people. It wasn’t just another
novel. When I eventually went to church, I used to say that I was Presbyterian
in part because I was converted by the scriptures—reading the Bible was the
beginning of my journey with God.
For the first 300 years of the church, there was
disagreement about what should be in the library—there are still a few books
that various denominations disagree about! And then until the printing press
and the Protestant Reformation, it was unheard of for regular people to read
anything, especially the Bible, for themselves. We lowly ones can’t be trusted
with the sacred words—they’re holy and full of God’s own writing! But then
along come Gutenberg and Luther and Calvin and Knox, and suddenly we can read
the word of God, and learn it, and encounter the Living Word in it, ourselves.
It’s out in the open, like any other book…but it isn’t just like any other
book. When Paul writes to Timothy that “all scripture is inspired by God and
useful,” which scripture is he talking about? Is he just talking about the
Hebrew Bible, which was pretty well agreed upon by then? Is he thinking that
the letter he’s writing might one day be considered Inspired—literally breathed
by God? Does he know about how confusing it will be for one page to commend the
women preachers and another to command women to be silent? If all scripture is
the very breath of God, the word of God, then what about the books and letters
that got left out? What about the stories that reveal just as much about the
time and culture and people as they do about God? How can it be the breathy
word of God if it reads more like it’s written by a bunch of guys perfecting
their family’s campfire stories than like lightning bolts streaming from God’s
fingertips?
Well, in short, because it can be both of those things at
the same time.
The Bible is the story of God and God’s people—through good
and bad times, through untimely relocations and strange family trees and
sibling feuds and inside jokes, through flood and drought and good ideas and
bad ideas, through times of widening the gap between humans and God and times
of God closing the gap sometimes slower than a snail and sometimes faster than
the sun can rise. Those stories are the stuff of every family reunion, and this
library is our set of family stories—it tells us who we are, and who God is,
and how our family has worked out a life with God and with each other in all
kinds of situations and circumstances. It’s written by people, like any family
story, but the breath of God flows through the words and makes them come alive
in ways that open up Truth and Love and Real Life that novelists can’t even
imagine. So it is all useful for learning how to be in right relationship and
for correcting our course, because each story points the way—there’s nothing in
there that is an end in itself. The written word points us to the Living Word,
about whom the world could not contain all the books that could be written, and
who came that all—whether we are in this sheepfold or another—may have abundant
life. Instead of more books to fill the shelves, that Living Word gave the
world something else—something living and breathing and moving…the Spirit, who
continually whispers God’s word to us, offering guidance and comfort and
challenge.
In scripture, God is telling a story of love speaking and
acting, calling together flawed people to create something beautiful, a story
of the Kingdom of God breaking into the world, little by little. It is a story
that reveals God’s purpose and calls us to trust God enough to participate in
that mission. Everything we need in order to see God in Christ is there.
Scripture is a complete picture. And yet God’s story is not finished—it is
still being told in every breath, every act of love, every word of kindness,
every hand reaching out, every voice lifted in song, every prayer said and
every loaf of bread broken. It is still being told every time we open the book
that is our foundation, and every time we build on that foundation. Just as
Jesus did and said many other things, so the Spirit is still busy sharing the
many other things God has to say through us. For the word of God is for every
time and every place—and sometimes we hear it through words on a page, and
sometimes we hear it through the voice of a child, and sometimes we hear it
through the scraping of plates, and sometimes we hear it in the silence of a
sanctuary.
Every week we use that
response after the scripture reading—for the word of God in scripture, for the
word of God among us, for the word of God within us. Every week we affirm that
we can hear the voice of God through stories told long ago and through
listening carefully in our own lives and relationships. Our God is one who
speaks—not just in the past, but in the present.
Or, as the United
Church of Christ advertising campaign says, “God is still speaking.”
As people of the
Reformed Christian tradition, we say it like this: “reformed and always being
reformed by the word of God.”
It’s amazing to think that every time we come to scripture,
God gives us something new, even thousands of years after the words were first
spoken or written. God reveals the truth to us, little by little, every time we
come to the word—maybe partly as an incentive to keep reading and listening! In
prayer, in reading, in seeking together in community, we can hear God’s voice
again and again, in our own heart’s language. Not just words on a page, not
just long ago in a place far away, but even right now, God is still speaking.
Or, as Jesus put it, The Spirit is still whispering through these ancient
words, in our ears and in our hearts, telling us God’s good news and God’s
plans.
May we listen, hear, and obey.
Amen.
