“The Word of the Lord”
Luke
4:14-21
It should not come as news to anyone here that
What is that?
Why am I comfortable resting my hand on the Bible, but not holding it
aloft? I think I am afraid of what it implies. I could imagine people in
What brings all this up is our text from Luke for this
morning, when Jesus visits his hometown synagogue and is asked to read from the
scroll of Isaiah and to comment on it.
It is that whole exercise that we engage in here Sunday after Sunday –
the reading and expounding upon sacred text – that I would like to comment on.
What we do here each week has ancient precedent. What we do, others have done before us. Many of us here have been doing it for a
lifetime. Like me, many of you can
recall coming to church as a child, perhaps drawing in a coloring books or
napping during the sermon. Some of us
here still nap during the sermon. In
some ways this practice of reading texts and then asking someone to expound on
them is an odd left over from an earlier time.
It smacks of an authoritarianism and dogmatism that in most other areas
of our lives we would not abide.
If we were to try to trace its origins, how far back
would we have to go? To the Reformation? Luther and Calvin, Wesley and Zwingly, certainly
put a great deal of emphasis upon this part of the service, the reading and
interpreting of the Scriptures. But it
goes back much farther than the Protestant Reformation. We find it in early days of the Christian church. Listen to this description of worship in the
second century as described by Justin Martyr:
And on the day which is called the day of the sun there is an assembly of all who live in the towns or in the country; and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then the reader ceases, and the president speaks, admonishing us and exhorting us to imitate these excellent examples.[1]
Of course in those days time permitted a lot longer
than time permits these days. But it was
the practice of our forbearers back in the second century! What we do today, they did then. But it is
much older than that even. To find its origins we have to go back to our spiritual
roots in ancient Israel, at least as far as the return of the exiles at the
time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the people gathered together in the square, and
Ezra brought the book of the law of Moses and read to the people from early
morning until midday. And as he read,
we’re told, he gave the interpretation, the sense, so that the people
understood the reading. The tradition was
well established in the time of Christ, as we see in today's Gospel reading. Jesus is invited to be one of the readers for
the day, just as here we invite people to be readers and liturgists.
In Jesus day there would have been seven readers in all,
who would read from the Torah, the law. Then
the Chazzan, the chief ruler of the synagogue, would take from the ark one of
the scrolls from the prophets and offer it to another reader, and this last
reader would also be expected to give a message, to speak about the meaning of
the text. This is what Jesus did.
He stood up to read.
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place
where it is written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed
me to bring good news to the poor....(and
so on).
And then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the
attendant, and sat down (the position for teaching) and “began to say to them, 'Today
this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'"
As commentator Fred Craddock says, "The time of
God is today."[2] Jesus took the ancient text and gave it a
present day application. He gave it an
immediacy, a relevance, to the lives and situation of the good people gathered
that morning in the synagogue. Theologian
Karl Barth said that the task of those who preach is to hold the Bible in one
hand and the newspaper in the other.
That is what we do here, or try to do, Sunday after
Sunday. To try to say what it means for
us here and now. And that requires some
study. It requires asking some questions
of the text. What did these words mean
to the one who wrote them? What was the
intent of the author? And what did these
words mean to those to whom they were written?
What were the circumstances under which they were written? What was the historical situation at the time
of writing? And then, after we have
asked those questions, then we are able to ask the questions of relevance: “what
do these ancient words say to us today?”
Part of the reason I am uncomfortable with that
trademark pose of Billy Graham is that, for me, anyway, it seems to imply that
one has got it all figured out, that one has got possession of it, a grip on
it, and that there are no questions left to answer.
Art Buchwald died this week. I don’t know when the world has had an
opportunity to witness someone so well known dying as he did, with dignity,
courage and grace. It was about a year
ago, I think, when he made the decision to go off of dialysis and enter a
hospice. He was expecting to go into a
comma and die within about three weeks.
But instead his kidneys, for some unexplainable reason, kept
working. So he began to hold court from
his bed in the hospice unit as people came to see him – Walter Cronkite and
other famous people, politicians, writers, dignitaries. And he started to write some columns again,
and to do interviews. Finally he moved
back to
At the urging of his family and friends, he had
written a column to be released after his death. He begins by saying: “I just died.” He talks about his life and about what he
felt he accomplished. Basically he said that if he was able to make people
laugh, that made him feel good. And he
said that he remembered that song from the 60’s, What’s it all about, Alphie?, and that that was how he felt. I appreciate his honesty. There are some unanswerable questions. I certainly don’t have all the answers.
So no, I really am not that kind of minister. As one who believes that the appropriate
stance in regard to these ancient texts is one of humility, I prefer to leave
the Bible on the pulpit or lectern. I
try to participate in this very ancient practice of reading and interpreting
from that stance of humility. These scriptures that we read each Sunday have
been regarded as sacred literature for thousands of years by millions of
people. They have been memorized,
quoted, inscribed on monuments, and treasured in the heart. I hold as one of my credos that I take the
Bible seriously but not literally. For
me that means that I have to have respect for the writers of the various books
of the Bible, for the times in which they lived, for the purpose and intention
with which they wrote, and for their literary style.
Most of the burden for what happens in this part of
the service lies with the interpreter, the one who speaks – most, but not all. Some of the burden rests upon those in the
pews. Often when Jesus spoke he said to his hearers: "Those who have ears,
let them hear." Another translation
says: "Anyone here with two ears had better listen."[3] In John Calvin's liturgy in
Before the reading of the Gospel each Sunday I say
something that I picked up along the way: "Listen for the Word of
God." For me, the word of God is not
a book, not something you can hold in your hands, but something that
happens. God speaks through the words of
the sacred text, and sometimes through the words of the interpreter. This requires a special kind of listening, on
a different level, with a different set of ears -- listening with our hearts,
listening not just to voices of the reader and the preacher, but for that “still
small voice,” as it is called in one place.
And you never know.
We may listen to a lot of Scripture readings and an interminable number
of sermons and not really hear much of anything that we would call a word from
the Lord. But then on some Sunday, in
some mysterious, unexplainable way, we do.
And the strange thing is that it may or may not have a lot to do with
the actual words that are being read or spoken.
They may provide the catalyst, but the real word of the Lord, that
living and active word of the Lord that is spoken of in Scripture as being “sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints
from marrow...." that is something that happens inwardly, mysteriously,
unpredictably.
It is not an uncommon experience for those of us who
preach to have people accuse us of having inside information into their lives. A family in our former congregation accused me
of bugging their car because what I was talking about during the sermon was
relevant to what they were talking about on the way to church. The truth is, though, that it is not a
bugging device or the cleverness of the speaker. Rather it is that “still, small voice” we are
encouraged to listen for. It is, if you
like, the Holy Spirit. It is that living
and active ingredient. It may happen
during the sermon, during a reading, a
prayer, a hymn, or it may happen somewhere
other than in church. God is able to
speak to us anywhere and any time. But
here is one of those times and one of those places that has been set aside
specifically for that possibility. Here
we try to position ourselves to be receptive – here we make a point of
listening with our inner ears.
And sometimes, by the grace of God, it happens. And when it does, it almost has that same
sense of immediacy as when Jesus said to his neighbors in