In my last post I talked about the validity of reason and experience and why they are a legitimate part of the equation as we seek to deepen our faith and understanding.  Critics of the church, and, with a nod to Henry Peter’s comment on my last post I am including in the word “church” folks of all denominations and traditions who read the Bible the way that we do, would say that this is where we undermine or deny the authority of the Bible.  Let’s take a look at why we say that our critics are wrong.

We are not challenging the authority of the scriptures, those works that are included in our sacred canon.  What we are questioning is the interpretation of those scriptures that has become “canonized,” that for some has become as sacred as the scriptures themselves.   How does that work?  We have to start at the beginning.

We read the creation stories in the book of Genesis and we wonder.  How does this material align with what I have learned in school?  How does it align with that we have learned about the history, the geology, the biology of the earth?  If we accept a plain sense reading of those passages, if we take them literally, we seem to have a real problem.  There is a disconnect, a dissonance, between what the Bible, to which we grant authority, says and what our minds, our reason and experience of the world says.  So what to do?  Do we throw out one or the other?  Do we just turn our heads with an uncomfortable smile on our faces and ignore the fact that these two important parts of our lives don’t work together?   I think that to walk away from this moment of disquiet is to deny or undermine the authority of both our reason and our scripture.  We are in essence saying that the scriptures are not worth our time and attention and that we are willing to ignore them when to examine them head on would cause discomfort.  To walk away from this moment of disquiet is to infect our faith with an intellectual dishonesty that will undermine it and lead to its irrelevance in our own lives and in the life of the world.  We must ask the question, “Can our experience of the world be reconciled with what the scriptures tell us?”  In this case they can.  Here is how that might look.

When we look at the two creation stories in the book of Genesis we begin to realize that they share things in common with other ancient traditions and stories from the Near East.  The people who told the stories that are now written down in the Book of Genesis were responding to a very human need to explain our origins and beginnings.  It is also important to acknowledge the reality that these stories were told by generations and generations of people, sitting around their campfires at night.  They told them to one another and they told them to their children.  “Where did we come from Mommy?  Well dear, in beginning God made…”  Biblical scholars do not believe that Moses wrote the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.  They are the product of whole communities, generations of people, who were trying to explain things that they knew to be true, that their experience of the world told them must be true, and they were using the cosmology, the images and metaphors, and the language that was available to them to tell that story.

Further analysis of the text helps us to see that these ancient people weren’t as interested in telling us how the earth was made as they were in telling us about our relationship with the one who created it.  We don’t learn from the Book of Genesis how all of the stuff really came to be.  If we are reading the book of Genesis as a science textbook, even if we read it as a science textbook that would have related the ancient Near East’s understanding of the physical world,  we are going to be very disappointed.  That is because the book of Genesis was never intended to be a scientific treatise on the creation of the physical world.  It was a book that describes who we are in relationship to one another, to the created world, and to the God who created us.  And it is a book that talks about those fundamental relationships by telling stories.

When we approach the stories in Genesis in this way we are not challenging the authority of the scriptures.  We affirm the nature and depth of the relationships that the scriptures depict.  We affirm the deep sense that somehow, in ways that we cannot articulate, God is responsible for who and what we are.  And that reality establishes our relationship with God and with one another.  What we have let go of is an interpretation of these scriptures that tells us that God created the world in seven days, that the dry land holds back the deep and turbulent waters of chaos, and that the moon the sun and the stars are suspended in a dome that holds back the waters above us.

So have we allowed reason and experience to trump the scriptures?  Here is the final test.  Can we read the scriptures, the stories of creation in the book of Genesis in the way that I have described and still be faithful to the text?  Have we distorted the meaning of the text to suit our own needs or can we read them in this way, with integrity, and still find that the scriptures are powerful, authoritative and life giving?  The answer to this final question is “yes.”

Of course the stories of creation in the Book of Genesis are an easy place to start.  While there are clearly people who still want to claim that the Earth was created in seven days, witness the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, most people are not so comfortable letting go of the years of accumulated science that has shaped our understanding of the physical world around us.  So demonstrating the interpretive shift that allows us to reconcile our reason and experience with scripture is, in this case, more of a relief than a challenge.   There are however, other understandings that our reason and experience have revealed to us, that have challenged and are challenging historic, canonized, interpretations of scripture that I would like to deal with.  I mentioned them in my last post and in my next post I will address the fact that for the Episcopal Church, and for progressive Christians of all traditions and denominations, ordained ministry is no longer reserved to men alone, and that we no longer view homosexuality as a sin.  One revealed truth that is not so contemporary, another that continues to shake some parts of the church today.

I look forward to your comments and responses.

Peace,

Andy+

You may have seen comedian Robin Williams’ Top Ten Reasons to be an Episcopalian. Williams lists as the number 7 top reason, ” You don’t have to check your brains at the door.”  Well if you ask me, his number seven reason should be listed much closer to the top.  I think that the Episcopal Church would agree because they used it in a national ad campaign!

Ours is an “incarnational” faith.  In other words we believe that God is present and discernable in the world.  God is made manifest in the world around us.  God is incarnate in the world.

That means that the things that we have learned about and through the world around us are a valid part of the equation when we seek to understand God, the scriptures, and who we are and the lives that we are called to live.

Some religious traditions and philosophies will tell you that the world is an illusion that we need to rise above, that it is a veil and a distortion from which we need to break free.  Other traditions and philosophies will tell you that the world is completely corrupt and that anything, any understanding, that comes from the world around is us bound to destroy us.

The Episcopal Church and Anglicanism affirm the reality and the relevance of the world around us and the reality and the relevance of the lives that we live.  The things that we have learned over the centuries, from the social and physical sciences and from one another are legitimate, and valid parts of the ongoing story of God and God’s beloved creation.

Sometimes Episcopalians are accused of abandoning the Bible, of rejecting the scriptures in favor of a social or popular gospel.  Sometimes Episcopalians are accused of rejecting the “authority” of the scriptures.”  If you look closely what you will discover is that it is not the authority of the scriptures that is being questioned but the authority of an “interpretation” of the scriptures that is being questioned.  That questioning often arises because of something that we have learned from the world around us or from one another.

We no longer believe that the earth is flat, or that all of the planets circle the earth.  We no longer believe that slavery is an appropriate state for those who find themselves enslaved.  We no longer think that ordained ministry should be reserved for men alone.  We no longer think that homosexuality is a sin.  There are lots of place where our increased understanding of the world around us, and our discernment of God through the world, has moved us to abandon previously held interpretations of the scripture and to re think what we have thought in the past.

I started with a line that the Episcopal Church borrowed from Robin Williams.  I will end with one that I think we should borrow from our brothers and sisters in the United Church of Christ.  “God is Still Speaking.”  The final argument for believing that God is still speaking, that revelation is ongoing, and that the things that we are learning need to be incorporated into our faith, our understanding of God and the world, comes from the Gospel of John.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:25-26).

“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 (John 16:12-13a NRSV).

God is still speaking and we will undoubtedly continue to discover ways and places where we have been wrong, where our understanding and interpretation needs to change.  S don’t check your brains at the door.  Bring your experience, your understanding of the world, and the things that you have learned to the table and add it to the mix.  Help us to increase our understanding by broadening and diversifying our collective perspective.    Help us as we work together, guided by the Holy Spirit, to discern God’s voice and live as faithful people in a world that is moving, living, breathing and alive!  Come experience the Episcopal Church!

This past Sunday, instead of preaching a sermon on the Gospel assigned for the day I gave the Annual State of the Parish Address.   There were quite a few people who told me they were disappointed that I had not used that time to address a part of Matthew’s Gospel that they have often struggled with.  I would like to take a moment to respond to their concerns and to use this moment to talk about the way that we, as Episcopalians, read the Bible.

Here is the passage that had people so unsettled:

Jesus said, “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, `Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, `Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, `Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, `Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, `Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, `You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ ” (Matthew 25:14-30 NRSV).

 It was the last two sentences of this passage that had people upset.  To all those who have more will be given?   And to those who have nothing even what they have will be taken away?  Outer darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth?  Wow!  Those are difficult words to hear.  Jesus is using a metaphor to describe the Kingdom of Heaven and if the master in this story represents God, then this passage might be cause for some real concern.  At least it would if this passage represented all that we knew about God.  Fortunately for us it does not.

Episcopalians see the Bible through an interpretive lens that is formed from the broader scriptural witness.  In other words, we don’t try to base our understanding of God on single passages of scripture but on the picture of God created by the whole of our canonical texts, from the two stories of creation contained in Genesis to the strange and poetic apocalyptic language of the Revelation to John. Bounding the story with the creation narratives and John’s treatise on the evils of empire make it clear that using the larger story, the broader narrative, to develop an understanding of God is by far the more difficult approach, but as Episcopalians, and as Anglicans, we understand that it is this larger narrative that provides the more comprehensive understanding of the God in whom we live and move and have our being.

Using a single passage of scripture to interpret the rest of the book is called “proof texting.”  Proof texting, using single or a few passages of scripture to paint a picture of God has allowed people to use the Bible to justify slavery, the war, the oppression of women, and the marginalization and a whole host of peoples whom we describer as “other.”  The truth is, we can find individual passages of scripture that will allow us to make almost any point, to further any agenda, to advance almost any cause that we want.  Episcopalians know that using the narrative created by the whole of our scriptural witness helps to prevent us from misusing our holy texts for our own purposes.

So back to the weeping and gnashing of teeth…  I really don’t believe that the most shocking part of this passage is the whole bit about taking the one talent away and giving it to the slave who had ten talents.  I think that the really shocking and scandalous part of this parable is when the slave says to his master,   “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid…”  This is the moment in the story when we should be outraged.  After all the master in this metaphor represents God and we know that what this slave has said is completely untrue… right?

Let’s go back and think some more about the big picture, the narrative description of God that is created by the totality of our scriptural witness.  There may be some passages of scripture that seem to indicate that this slave has given an accurate account of God, but those passages are few and far between.  And, when taken in the context of the larger story, the passages that describe God in the way that this slave describes God merit some further investigation and study because they just don’t make any sense.

There are lots of ways that people express the “big picture” narrative description of God as represented in the Bible.  There are lots of themes and ideas that need to be covered in that description.  But when I am asked to distill the message of the Bible into a clear concise statement I will say that God loves is so much that God came among us as one of us, allowed us to do our very worst, and continues to love us anyway, proving that nothing, not even the deepest darkest truth about what we are capable of, will ever separate us from the Love of God.  This, I believe, is the message of the cross and the crucifixion.  God knows exactly what evil we are capable of and despite that deep knowing God will never abandon us.

This narrative description of God has the power to change our lives.  It is also this knowledge of God that should make us suck in our breath in shock and say to this slave, “No!  You are wrong!  Don’t you get it?  You have been given a gift by a loving and generous master!  How can you say such a thing?”  Reading this text through the interpretive lens that is formed by the broader scriptural witness has the potential to change our response to this passage.  It has the potential to redirect our questions.  But there is still that whole business about weeping and gnashing of teeth…

The parable doesn’t really tell us what the three slaves did in the time between their master’s departure and return.  It only tells us what each of them produced in that time.  Here is how I picture the life of our “wicked and lazy slave” unfolding from the moment he received that fateful gift.  He takes this immense fortune home and buries it in the back yard, in the bare spot under his kids swing set to that no one will know that the earth has been disturbed.  Then every night, as he stands at the kitchen sink doing the dishes he looks out into the yard to make sure that the treasure is still there.  Pretty soon he starts going home at lunch time to check on his buried talent.  He is so worried that someone will discover it and that he might lose some of it that he finally leaves his job so that he can sit at the window and monitor it.  His family gets so fed up with his behavior that they leave him.  They even take the stray dog that sometimes kept him company during his long vigil!  Throughout this whole ordeal he loses weight, his hair begins to thin and turn grey.  He is tired all the time, can’t think straight, and always seems to be ill.  He loses everything that he had.  He didn’t have much to begin with, but even what little he had is lost.  What had been intended as a gift turns into a curse and in the end, owns him. He spends his days alone, in the darkness, weeping and gnashing his teeth…

In the end his master didn’t have to punish him at all!

In the end, the parable was really a metaphor to describe something that is all too easy to imagine.