The Road to Redemption – The Five Part Story: Jesus is the Way to God

    We began our Five Part Story Two weeks ago by remembering that God Loves the World; that this universe and everything in it, were created by and are beloved by God. The story continued last week when we looked at the fact the We Wandered Far From God; that humanity chose to leave the paths of life God had established for them, choosing instead to wandered along ways that led to pain and death. The struggle for humankind then has always been how does it find a way off of the path of pain and loss and back onto a path of life and hope?

     As I noted in a sermon some weeks ago this journey from death to life, from failure to redemption forms the basis for some of the greatest stories of the human race. From Homer's the Odyssey, to Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, to Conrad's Lord Jim, to Star Wars (remember Darth Vader?) authors and movie makers have tried to offer us visions of redemption. The Biblical story is no different. The difference between the great tales of literature and the scriptures however, is that the former are dealing in fiction while the latter is dealing in reality.

    The New Testament is the story of redemption; a redemption which has been made possible by Jesus of Nazareth. Just as the Old Testament began with saga, so too does the New Testament. In Matthew, Luke and John we are offered glimpses of angels delivering messages, babies leaping in wombs, mysterious strangers from the East delivering gifts and an amazing poetic description of Jesus as the Word made flesh; of Jesus as God incarnate in our midst. These stories are intended to inform us of the unique character and mission of Jesus. He is the one, sent by God, to lead God's people back into right relationship with God.

    The manner in which Jesus accomplishes this mission and becomes the Way to God is twofold. The first way forms the heart of the Gospel of John, central parts of Paul's theology and portions of the Book of Hebrews. They all claim that Jesus is the Way to God because Jesus and God are mysteriously one. John 1:14 makes clear that in Jesus, God "became flesh and dwelt among us." Paul writes in Colossians 2:9 that "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form." Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Jesus "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature." These descriptions remind us that Jesus can lead us back to God because Jesus is connected to God in a way that the rest of us are not; that the rest of us cannot be connected to God. Jesus becomes then the bridge between heaven and earth; a bridge over which we can travel back into the heart of God.

    The second way in which Jesus is the Way to God is that Jesus deals directly with sin. Sin is the human condition which causes us to Wander Far from God. Unless sin is dealt with, humanity will never be able to turn away from its death dealing and turn to God's life giving ways. The heart of the New Testament story is that by Jesus going to the cross and being raised from the dead, the power of sin is finally broken. Through Jesus' death and resurrection sin and death have been defeated. What this means for humanity is that we can now both see the path back to God (Jesus being the bridge) and we can follow the path (Jesus has taken care of sin). Thus reconciliation and new life have become possible.

    As I noted above the difference between stories of redemption (literature and movies) and the Biblical story (the work of Jesus) is the difference between fiction and non-fiction. While stories can inspire us, Jesus changes us. For two thousand years more than a billion followers of Jesus Christ have found their lives transformed by their relationship with Jesus. Through their faith in him they have found forgiveness, redemption and new life. They have left brokenness behind and found new possibilities for full and inspiring lives. Their lives, our lives, are testaments to the reality that Jesus is the Way to God.

    

The Road to Redemption: The Five Part Story – We Wandered Far From God

    Last week we examined our foundational belief that God loves the world. This understanding allows us to navigate not only the rest of the Five Part Story but our lives with confidence. We are able to do so because we know that the God we worship is one that desires for us good and not evil; life and not death. With that in mind we proceed to the next portion of our story.

    Beginning in Chapter three of Genesis the story teller attempts to explain how humanity moved from the wonderful idyllic life in Eden described in the two preceding chapters to the situation in which God's people found themselves; a world of violence, difficulties and death. Most of us know the basic story. Adam and Eve, our prehistoric progenitors were hanging out in the garden when a serpent showed up. We are told that the serpent was crafty (a gift of God?). The serpent, without lying outright, plants doubt in Eve's mind that what God had told her about not eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was true. God had told the first couple that if they ate of that fruit they would die. The serpent implies otherwise. Adam and Eve decide to trust the serpent. As the story goes on, when they ate the fruit, their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked; in other words their choice to listen to someone other than God left them exposed. This is the first story of human beings wandering off of the path that God had laid out for them.

    The Genesis story continues with a series of further wanderings in which people move farther and farther away from God's desires for them. These include the tale of Cain and Able in which murder (fratricide to be exact) enters the world. This is followed by the acknowledgement that humanity quickly became so evil that God decided to start over; the Noah story. While God does begin again the results are basically the same; after Noah is saved he plants a vineyard, gets drunk and one of his sons takes sexual advantage of him while he is inebriated (Genesis 9:20-27). The initial saga is completed in Chapter Eleven with the Tower of Babel story. In this tale all of humanity refuses to do as God asks (be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth in order to care for it) and instead decides they will stay together, build a tower to heaven, invade God's home and force God to do as they desire. God has other ideas and sends them on their way to fulfill God's plan.

    By the time the New Testament rolls around the metaphor of wandering far from God had been replaced with the word, sin. The two most basic meanings of the word sin are: 1) to miss the mark, as when an archer misses the bullseye and 2) to break a law. Notice how each of these definitions is based on the concept of wandering far from God. Missing the mark reminds us that God has a "target" of behavior for which we are "shooting." Violating a law reminds us that God has established rules which serve to keep us on the right path toward the "target" set by God. Thus sin, which has often been associated with a limited list of certain actions (adultery, murder, greed, theft, etc.) is more than that. Sin is the disease which has infected humanity; meaning that human beings are inclined to wander off of God's path which leads to life, and onto paths which lead to death. Individual actions (adultery, murder, greed, theft, etc.) are merely symptoms of the disease.

    The issue for the New Testament writers then was two-fold. First they had to name the symptoms of the disease. Jesus does this in subtle ways through many of his stories and parables, while the letter writers (Paul, Peter and James) name the symptoms outright. Secondly though, the writers needed to address the disease itself. They needed to tell the church how God had dealt with sin in such a way that human beings could find their way back to God; how the disease of sin could be put in remission enough so that they could live the lives God intended them to live. This will be the focus of our next article.

    

The Road to Redemption – The Five Part Story – God Loves the World

This coming week, on eBay, you could bid on a 1954 letter from Albert Einstein in which he declares that the "the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." There are many people in world today which would appreciate that description. For others, those would be "fighting words." Conservative Christians see the scriptures as the very Spirit breathed words of God; perfect in every aspect. Still others see the scriptures as a long historical and theological record of God's people and their spiritual journey. Regardless of how one sees the scriptures they are at their heart a singular story with a beginning, a middle and an end. They are the story of God's work in the world; told in saga, history, poetry, letters, and lament. This strange amalgam of components can be confusing and confounding. Nevertheless if we allow them to speak to us as a whole we will hear a five part story emerging from them. This article will address the first part of that five part story; God loves the world.

    The Biblical story opens with two stories of creation in Genesis chapters one and two. In Chapter One we are told that God created the heavens and the earth. Additionally we learn that those initial heavens and earth are a chaotic mess. There is no light and dark, night or day or even heaven and earth. God then proceeds to bring some order out of the chaos (remind anyone of the long evolutionary process from the Big Bang to the present?). For six days God goes about speaking order to the disorderly universe. At the end of each day God declares God's work to be "good." Finally at the end of the sixth day, when all is completed God decides that creation is "very good." (Genesis 1:31) This story makes clear that creation is God's very good thing that God has made. God not only has a vested interest in what happens on this blue-green planet, but will be intimately involved in its ongoing life.

    This sense of God's love for creation continues in God's work to bring this creation back to its former glory (next week we will look at how creation lost its way). These stories are replete throughout the Old Testament. When humanity becomes too wicked God begins the human experiment over again with Noah and his family. In the Tower of Babel story God insures that humanity will go forth and care for creation. Next God chooses a family, Abram's, through whom the entire creation will be blessed. When this family finds itself in captivity in Egypt God sets them free with mighty acts of power. Once they are free God not only provides for their physical needs, God gives them a set of rules which are to guide their interpersonal, intercommunity and religious lives. These rules include many that protect the weak and powerless. As time goes by and the people refuse to follow these rules God works with them (sometimes in rather tough love kind of ways) in order that they continue to be a blessing to the world (these are the stories of the prophets, exile and return). In all of these of stories we see God loving the world.

    The penultimate demonstration of God's love for the world comes to us in the Gospel of John where we read about God becoming one of us. John makes it clear that God's love for the world was so great that God, rather than abandoning the world, becomes enfleshed in it and then dies for it. In the work of Jesus, the "Word made flesh" we see God's absolute unconditional love for all of the created order. This love in and through Jesus does not end with Jesus' resurrection and ascension but is made real to and for us through the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. The story of God's love for the world is completed in the Book of Revelation where we witness God recreating the world in such a way that once again God can say that creation is "very good."

    God loves the world is the foundational conviction upon which we base all that we believe and all that we do at Everybody's Church. Our goal is to try and allow God's love to live in us that all we encounter might experience that love as well.

    

The Road to Redemption: Scripture, Divorce and Remarriage 2

    Last week we looked at the Biblical statements about divorce and remarriage. This week we will look behind the scriptures at the intent of Judaism and Jesus as regards these issues. Our discussion will be based on my view that behind both Moses' and Jesus' words on marriage and divorce are two fundamental concepts. The first is the protection of the vulnerable (meaning women) and the second is the ideal of God's new kingdom (which is a return to Eden).

We will look first at protecting the vulnerable. Protecting the vulnerable was a central part of the Law of Moses. The vulnerable included strangers, slaves, children and especially women. Without the protection of a father or a husband women were completely at risk. Prostitution and begging were often their only recourse when they were cast aside. Rather than allow men to simply cast aside their wives the process of divorce was intended to protect the women involved. The process was that a husband had to give his wife a letter of divorce which stated that he had no claims on her and allowed her to marry again. This process first prevented someone from casting out a wife in the heat of anger. Second it protected the wife's reputation because it said the wife was in morally good standing. Finally it allowed the wife to marry again and thus find protection. While divorce was not seen as the best of all worlds, the Law of Moses understood that there were times when husbands and wives could not live together and thus allowed for divorce and remarriage; divorce and remarriage which protected the rights of the vulnerable.

We will now look at the New Testament context in more detail. Last week we examined the fact that in Jesus' time there was a debate between those who believed in a strict interpretation of Moses commands (followers of Rabbi Shammai) and those who argued for an "any cause" divorce (followers of Rabbi Hillel). An additional piece of context was that Jesus was being asked the question about divorce in the midst of a very politically charged atmosphere. Jesus was traveling through the territory of Herod Antipas who had executed John the Baptist for condemning Herod's marriage to his niece Herodias, who had also been the wife of Herod's half-brother. Thus when the question is posed to Jesus not only is he being asked to take sides in the rabbinic debate, he is also being asked to choose sides in the argument over Herod Antipas's incestuous marriage (and thus possibly putting his life at risk).

As we noted last week Jesus does neither. Instead he focuses on the ideal of God's Kingdom. In the ideal Kingdom men and women become one flesh and nothing ever divides them. This was God's intent from the beginning. Jesus also notes that the reason God gave divorce and remarriage to Israel was because people could not live up to the ideal (they were hard of heart). To divorce and remarry was not God's original intent. What we need to remember however is that there are other places where Jesus offers a contrast between reality and the ideal. Jesus tells his followers if they lust after a woman, they are committing adultery; if they hate someone they have committed murder; and whoever calls someone a fool will go to hell (Matthew 5:21-30). In other words, in the ideal kingdom there would be no divorce, lust, hate or derogatory comments about others. This is the world Jesus desires, but it also the world Jesus knows does not exist.

We witness Jesus dealing with the reality of the world when he encounters a woman who has been married five times. He does not condemn her but offers her eternal life (John 4:7-30). The gift of Jesus is that in the end grace trumps law. While Jesus desires the ideal, he understands that there are times when the ideal is not possible and so proclaims no law against divorce and remarriage. My guess is that few of us who have been or are married have entered marriage without the hope that it is a forever commitment. Unfortunately there are some marriages which cannot survive. As people of grace we at First Presbyterian understand this and so reaffirm that all are welcome, loved and eligible for membership and leadership regardless of whether they are single, married, divorced or remarried.

The Road to Redemption: Scripture, Divorce and Remarriage 1

    Over the centuries one of the most sensitive and contentious issues with which the church has dealt is that of divorce and remarriage. The two reasons for this are pretty straight forward. First, marriages often go badly. There is anger, hatred, physical and mental abuse, abandonment as well as unfaithfulness. Secondly however, within the scriptures, divorce if it is allowed at all, appears to be not generally condoned. The struggle for the church then, has been how to balance these two competing realities: bad marriages on the one hand and the scriptures on the other.

    Let's begin with the scriptures. Divorce in the Old Testament is referenced in two passages; Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and Exodus 21:10-11. The Deuteronomy passage contains several important elements. First, a woman could be divorced for "some indecency." The meaning of "some indecency" is not spelled out; however it usually referred to either shameful exposure of the human body or illicit sexual activity. Second, divorce was as simple as a husband giving his wife a piece of paper which stated they were no longer married. Third, if a woman was divorced she could remarry (just as could her husband). In fact she was allowed to remarry as many times as she was divorced, as long as she did not remarry her first husband. The Exodus passage allowed a wife to divorce a husband if he refused to care for her. Interestingly enough neither rabbis nor the church often discussed this passage…guess why.

    In Second Temple Judaism (the time of Jesus) the Deuteronomy passage became a focal point of rabbinic interpretation. While the text appears to be pretty clear that reasons for a husband divorcing his wife are limited, the Hillel rabbinic school saw it otherwise. Their focus was not on the word for "indecency" but on the word that preceded it, "some." They reasoned that Moses added that word in order to allow husbands to define what indecency meant. The result was that in the time of Jesus Judaism had the first "any cause" divorce. Any man could divorce his wife for any reason. There was, however a second group of rabbis, followers of Shammai, who claimed that the Hillel school got it wrong. They wanted to keep the words together as a single sentence, thus limiting divorce to infidelity. This was the debate which set the scene for Jesus' comments on divorce.

    There are two main references to Jesus speaking on divorce and remarriage. The oldest is in Mark 10:2-12. Here we witness Jesus being approached by the Pharisees who were trying to see on which side of the argument (Hillel or Shammai) Jesus fell, hoping to condemn him. Jesus' response is to return to the most basic understanding of man-woman relationship in Genesis (1:27, 2:24). "God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." Notice that Jesus refuses to engage in argument over Deuteronomy 24. Instead he lifts up the ideal of creation. This is the part of the creation saga which offers us a glimpse of the way things ought to be in a perfect world. Jesus implies that divorce was allowed because human beings could not live into the perfection of God's creation (vs.5). This same discussion is expanded in Matthew where Jesus comes down on the side of the Shammites when he allows divorce and remarriage for infidelity (indecency in Deuteronomy).

    What the church has tended to do with these passages then is to turn them into a legalistic understanding of marriage and divorce. Both divorce and remarriage were unacceptable (except under certain circumstances which had to be documented and approved by the church). The question with which we will deal next week is; did Jesus intend an absolute ban on divorce and remarriage? To give a bit of assurance this week, I don't believe this is what Jesus was actually after, and we will discuss the reasons for this conclusion in the next article.

    

The Road to Redemption: The Scriptures and GLTB persons

(Please note this piece deals with sexual terms and actions)

    I want to begin this piece with a few quick reflections on scripture; some of which I have already covered but which I believe need to be reemphasized. The first is that all reading of scripture is done through the lens of culture, experience and tradition. There is no "pure" reading of the Bible. Second scripture is to be read as a whole, so that one portion informs other portions. Third, we as the church have "learned" some things which have changed how we interpret certain aspects of scripture (such as we are allowed to kill someone for wearing clothing of mixed fabric or a child for hitting their parents…those are in the Bible…check it out). Finally what I present here will be a cursory, but I hope enlightening reflection on homosexuality and the scriptures.

    Let's begin with the Old Testament. Several of the most often quoted scriptures condemning same-sex relationships are Genesis 19:1-29 (the Sodom story), Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, along with Deuteronomy 23:17-18. Let's take them one at a time. The Genesis/Sodom story is not about same-sex relationships but about a lack of hospitality to strangers. The story is about using power to harm rather than to protect. The passages out of Leviticus are based on the command to be fruitful and multiply. In the Hebrew world semen was supposed to carry all of life. Therefore men having sex with men (or animals which is listed next), masturbating or a man not finishing his husbandly duty are considered crimes because life is given out without any possibility of being continued. In addition there are no Old Testament prohibitions about female same sex relationships, possibly because they did not participate in the life transmitting process. Finally the Deuteronomy passage has to do with cult prostitution (both male and female) which was a violation of the first commandment. Since the modern church allows for and encourages birth control we have set aside the ethics behind the Old Testament prohibitions of same-sex relations. In addition, the Leviticus passages are part of the Holiness Code which the church believes no longer applies to us.

     We turn now to the New Testament. The passages that are referenced include 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10 and Romans 1:26-27. Before we look at the texts I want to make sure that we understand that in the First Century there was no concept of loving, committed same-sex relationships. The only concept of a long-term committed relationship was that of heterosexual union. Virtually all same-sex relationships in the Roman Empire were either "for hire" or a domination of a younger person by an older (an abuse of power). Thus in the Corinthians and Timothy passages the Greek words point us to those two types of relationships; relationships which were in no way loving or committed but were focused on one person "using" another. This type of behavior is condemned along with other abusive behaviors (adultery, greed, theft, drunkenness, etc.).

    The passage then that is used above all others to condemn same-sex relationships is Romans 1:26-27. "For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, ²⁷and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another." At this moment we need to return to our understanding that over time we learn some things that the Biblical writers did not know. We have learned that slavery is wrong; that men do not create babies all by themselves; and that one's sexual orientation is not a choice. Sexual orientation is instead a natural part of our individual makeup. That being the case when we read the whole of scripture we know that each of us is "fearfully and wonderfully made" as we are, by God. Thus God created and loves persons of all sexual orientations and desires that they discover the joy of being fully loving and fully loved. This is the position that has been taken by our denomination and by this community, as Everybody's Church.

    

The Road to Redemption – The Role of Women in the Scriptures.

The issue of the role of women within the Christian community has been one of great debate from the earliest days of the church. It is one that has divided denominations and caused extraordinary controversy. This article will look at the place of women in the New Testament as well as our Presbyterian take on the issue.

    The Gospels paint a rather countercultural view of how women should be treated and their place in the Kingdom of God. In First Century Judaism women were on the bottom rung of the social order. They were considered to be property that belonged first to fathers and then to husbands. Pharisees (a Jewish religious order) were taught to never look at or speak to women (except to their own wives) in order not to be corrupted. Jesus on the other hand treated women with great respect and as the equal of men. He allowed them to be his disciples, to learn from him (something a traditional rabbit would never do) and engaged in meaningful conversations with them. We see this in the stories of the woman who touched Jesus' garment (Mark 5:25-34), the woman who was crippled (Luke 13:10-17), Jesus with Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42). These are but a few of the stories where Jesus treats women as being of equal worth with men.

    This sense of equality is continued in the letters of Paul. Paul writes that all persons, including women, are given spiritual gifts by God (1 Corinthians 12:4-7), that all persons become new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), that in Jesus there is neither male nor female (Galatians 3:28), and that women can pray and prophesy in church (1 Corinthians 11:5). Most importantly in Paul's letters he makes it clear that women have leadership roles in the church. He refers to Pricilla and Aquila who were husband and wife church leaders, sharing authority (1 Corinthians 16:3), Euodia and Syntyche as evangelists (Philippians 4:2), Apphia as a co-leader of a house church (Philemon 2) and most importantly Junia who is listed among the Apostles (Romans 16:7).

    One of the most interesting things about the New Testament however is that its view of the role of women is not consistent. There are a number of places where the scriptures imply that women are secondary to men and ought not to have any leadership roles in the church. Here are some of those references. "Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife." (1 Corinthians 11:3) "For a man….is the image of God; but woman is the glory of man." (1 Corinthians 11:7-9) "…women should remain silent in churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church." (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man; she must be silent." (1 Timothy 2:11-15) "Train the younger women….to be subject to their husbands." (Titus 1:6)

    The question for the church has always been which of these understandings of the role of women ought it to follow? Both our church and our denomination have chosen the way of equality. We have done so because it was the way of Jesus. Jesus not only treated women as equals, he taught that no person has the right to dominate (or subjugate) another person. We have done so because we believe that most of the "women as secondary" passages were included as ways the early church was accommodating the culture in which it lived (all of those passages are in line with the beliefs of Roman leadership and the philosophers who supported them). We have done so because we believe the original creation story makes clear that men and women were created equal in the eyes of God and therefore that equality is God's intent for a redeemed creation. We have done so as well because we have witnessed the ways this choice has blessed marriages, families, the church and the world. While the scriptures seem to be of two minds, we at Everybody's Church are not…we are all equal before God and in the life of the church.

    

The Road to Redemption: The Formation of the Book 4

Over the past several weeks we have been looking at scripture; focusing on its origins, contents and composition. While all of that is interesting and important, where the rubber meets the road is in how we interpret and use the scriptures. As most of us are aware scripture has been used to justify virtually every manner of evil from slavery, to the Crusades, to the Holocaust. In our current time it is used to "prove" that the universe is 10,000 years old, to force women into subservient roles in marriage and to attempt to discriminate against members of the GLBT community. The flip side is that scripture has been used to support the abolishment of slavery, the support of the weak and powerless, the end of segregation and apartheid, to just list a few of its positive uses. The question then becomes how do we use it in a fashion which does both it and God justice?

I will begin by offering my views on what we ought not to do. First we ought not to come to the scriptures simply looking for proof of our preconceived notions. For if we do so we will find a verse which we can use to justify our own prejudices, even when those prejudices are not actually present in the scriptures. Second we ought not to read all of scripture as if it is eye-witness reporting. As we discussed in a previous article, the scriptures have been shaped by culture, personal experience and a desire to offer particular theological insights. In addition scripture is composed of saga, story, history, poetry, Gospel and letters; each written to and for a particular purpose and audience. Finally we ought not to believe that ours or any person's interpretation is the final word on what scripture calls us to believe and to do. The Bible is a living book which is to be explored under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thus interpretations can and often do change (The Reformation is one of the best examples of this).

Now for the positive; for those things we ought to do. First we ought to take the time to research the setting and history of any piece of scripture we are reading. This step is important because often the meaning that we, as 21^st Century readers might bring to the text is significantly different from the meaning in its original place and time. I do not want to imply that scripture cannot carry multiple meanings, only that we do an injustice to the text and the author when we fail to attempt to discern what they were attempting to say. Second we ought to gain an overview of the entire Biblical narrative. The reason for so doing is that one of the great Reformation understandings is that scripture interprets scripture. This means that we are not to cherry pick single texts which agree with our beliefs and ignore those which do not. As I have said before, scripture is not a systematic theology in which every part agrees with every other part. We will be looking at this further when we talk about our Five Part Story. Third we ought to read each portion of the Bible as what it is; saga, poetry, parable, etc. In this way we allow the scripture to shape our hearts as well as our minds. Finally I would offer that we ought to take scripture seriously. What I mean by this is that the scriptures have been collected and preserved over more than 3,000 years as a way of shaping the life and work of God's people; thus they deserve our serious attention. They are here because they have become the sacred text for our community of faith.

You may be wondering (or not) why I called this piece Formation of the Book 4 when it is about interpretation and not about the actual creation of the scriptures. My response is that the Book is supposed to form us. As the well-worn phrase says, "You may be the only Bible people read." Whereas the Bible once formed the core of both public and private education, this is no longer so. How you and I act; how we treat others; how we deal with people in business, school and the public arena will therefore shape their impressions of Christ and the church. It will in some ways form them. The more we are shaped and formed by the Book, the more the impressions we leave upon the world will truly reflect those of the God who loves us all.

The Road to Redemption: The Scriptures – The Formation of the Book 3

    Over the last two weeks we have examined the scriptures as to their origins and the different English translations. In this article we will take a look at some of the most basic issues of translation in order to better understand why translations can be so different.

    We begin with choosing which texts to translate. The reality of all translation is that we do not have any of the original manuscripts of either the Old or New Testaments. The Old Testament was copied over hundreds of years and an authoritative edition (The Masoretic Text) was arrived at between the 9^th and 15^th centuries as hundreds of texts were compared and decisions were made about which was the best reading. In addition the Masoretes (Jewish Scholars) added vowel pointing to the Hebrew texts (Hebrew has no vowels only consonants). This entailed making interpretive decisions because different Jewish words can have the same consonants and are only differentiated by their usage…so by adding vowel pointing the Masoretes decided the meaning of many words and texts.

    Likewise the New Testament is contained in hundreds of early partial manuscripts and papyrus fragments. The earliest Pauline and Gospel manuscripts we have are from around 200 CE, while the first complete New Testament is from about 300CE. Fortunately most of the early manuscripts and papyrus are very similar. While this does not clear up all issues of which text is best, it means regardless of the texts chosen, the basic outline of the Greek scripture will be very similar.

    The second significant translation issue arises when deciding about whether to translate texts word for word or phrase for phrase. The differences in the ability to understand the text can be considerable depending on which choice is made. There are two major problems with word for word translating. First there are often a wide variety of English words which correspond to the Hebrew/Greek words (so an interpretive choice has to be made). Second is the fact that meaning is usually transmitted by combinations of words as much as by the individual words themselves. By translating word for word much of the original meaning can then be either lost or misrepresented. Phrase for phrase translations can be inaccurate as well because the translator has to decide the meaning that is being conveyed in the original language and then attempt to present that meaning in a new language and culture (again calling for interpretive choices).

    The next issue concerns the choice between a very literal translation and a translation which attempts to maintain linguistic attributes such as poetry or metaphor. Let's look at metaphor. An example might be the metaphor of "the way." A literal translation of the Hebrew might make the word "way" into "road", as if the scripture it talking about a literal road. The problem is that the word "way" while appearing to refer to a road might in fact be referring to following God. A more literal translation then can lose the meaning of the original text, while at the same time being true to the words and phrases in the original language.

    Finally we arrive at cultural relevance. This is the issue of how to deal with ancient practices and concepts. Should they be translated in a very literal manner or should a translator attempt to make these practices and concepts understandable in a new cultural context? An example might be translating "new wine into old wineskins." A translator must decide if it is best to simply find the closest words to use, or to find a cultural example which conveys the meaning in a better way (a translator in Papua New Guinea translated it as new vegetables in old bamboo, because the effect would be the same…the new vegetables that are being cooked inside the old bamboo would burst out and be ruined).

    The bottom line is that every Biblical translation we read is formed by hundreds of interpretive choices. Our challenge then is not to dismiss scripture because of this…but to read the Bible with open eyes and open minds trusting the Spirit and the community to help us understand what is before us.

    

The Road to Redemption: Scripture – The Formation of the Book 2

    The history of the English Bible cannot be adequately told in the short space allocated for my reflections. What follows is a very cursory look at the timeline of English translations. If you would like to know more I encourage you to read Wide As the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired by Benson Bobrick. He tells the story much better than I ever could.

    While most commentators give John Wycliffe (1320-1384) credit for the first English translation there were others (Bede, Aldhelm, Elfric and those who created the Lindidfarne Gospels) who had preceded him in translating significant portions of the scriptures into English. While many of these early translations were basically extended commentaries more than accurate translations they paved the way for Wycliffe and those who followed. Wycliffe actually offered two different translations. The first attempted to follow the Latin text in word for word order, thus making it difficult to read. The second translation attempted to use more common English grammar. One last note about Wycliffe; many scholars now believe that Wycliffe did only a small portion of the actual translation of the scriptures that bear his name. Most of the day to day work was done by his associates.

    The next great leap forward in translations of the English Bible came with the production of the Tyndale Bible (early 1500s). Tyndale's translation was different because he used the original Greek and Hebrew scriptures as the basis for his work in addition to the Jerome's Latin translation. Tyndale was also the first to use the printing press to manufacture multiple copies of his work. This translation was followed by the Great Bible translated by Coverdale (1539) and authorized by Henry VII; the Geneva Bible (1560) which was used by most English Protestants and was the first to be divided into verses; and the Bishop's Bible (1568) which was authorized by Elizabeth I. The most lasting of all the translations of this period was the King James Version (1611). James I of England wanted a translation that would reflect the episcopal nature of the church and its practice of having ordained clergy. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, it was to be translated in a manner that would allow it to be easily read and understood. The King James Version was adopted by an Act of Parliament and slowly replaced all older versions.

    The first major move to update the King James Version came in 1881-1894 with the publication of the Revised Version. This version was the work of English and American scholars who were attempting to "adapt King James' version to the present state of the English language without changing the idiom or vocabulary" as well as "to adapt it to the present standard of Biblical scholarship." This version gained rapid acceptance though it never really challenged the KJV. The next major change came with the American Standard Version (1901). The great leap forward in updating the language of scripture to more modern was the Revised Standard Version (1952, 1971). The RSV was intended to be a readable and literally accurate version of the scriptures. As such it began to supplant the KJV in many protestant denominations. At the same time, especially in the Psalms, it maintained the poetic language of the KJV.

    The Revised Standard Version opened the door for all of the translations which would follow. These included committee translations such as The New English Bible (1970), The Living Bible (1971), The New International Version (1978, 1984, 2011), The Good News Bible (1976, 1972), The New Revised Standard Version (1989), English Standard Version (2001, 2007, 2011). There have also been versions created by individuals such as those of J.B. Phillips (1972) and the Message (2002) by Robert Alter. Finally there are other newer translations in the works.

    As you can see the speed at which new translation are being made continues to accelerate. I would argue that this shows the power of the scriptures and the deep desire of persons to know and apply them to their lives.

    

The Road to Redemption: Scripture: The Formation of the Book 1

    With this article we enter the ongoing debate about not only the formation of, but also the nature of scripture. This has been made clear to me over the past few weeks as I have watched an ongoing debate about scripture in a forum on Linked-In. The forum concerns whether or not Christians have to believe in the absolute literal nature of the creation texts (a 6 day/24 hour view) and thus of all of scripture. Those who push for the 6/24 interpretation do so on the basis that the scriptures are literally God-breathed and thus perfect as regards history, science and wording. In other words the original manuscripts contain the very dictation of God. Those who disagree and believe that the universe is several billion years old argue that scripture, while being inspired by the Holy Spirit contains not the dictated words of God but saga, history, theology, poetry and prophetic announcements from human beings writing with particular pre-scientific world views. This second approach is the one that I will take as we move forward and examine the history and use of scripture.

    The exact means by which the Hebrew canon was compiled is shrouded in mystery and in the mists of time. Most modern Biblical scholars take the view that the scriptures were composed and compiled over hundreds of years beginning with oral transmission and then only at a rather late date compiled into written form. In terms of the Torah this oral transmission phase was probably carried out by at least four different groups referred to as J, E, D and P (this is the Documentary hypothesis). The letters J, E, D and P refer to either the use of different names for God (J for YHWH and E for Elohim) or different foci (D for the focus on the exile as God's judgment and P for a focus on the work of the priests). The dating of these sources ranges from 900-550 BCE with final editing perhaps around 450 BCE after the return from exile. The Psalms were probably composed during the same 900-500 BCE period with the prophets coming between 700-500 BCE. The final piece of the OT, the writings and books such as Daniel could be as late as 140 BCE. The current form of the Hebrew Bible was finalized somewhere between 200 BCE and 200 CE.

    The New Testament was written between 45 CE and 100 CE. The earliest portions of the NT are the letters of Paul. The Apostle left the church with a wide variety of letters written to specific churches, groups of churches and individual Christians. There are also a number of letters attributed to Paul which scholars believe were written by other people under Paul's name. Scholars believe this because the language, theology and emphases in the letters are different from those of the early Pauline letters (one example is that most of the "anti-woman" bias we sense in Paul's letters comes from these later letters). The Gospels were written between 60 CE and 90CE, with Mark being the first and John being the last. We are not sure of their authorship (the names were attached at a later date) yet the church accepted them as reliable witnesses to the life and work of Jesus. In terms of the final part of the NT, the writings and Revelation, scholars are all over the map in terms of dating. The NT canon (our current 27 books) was considered closed by the Western church somewhere around 397 CE.

    One interesting note is that the Bible as we know it (66 books) is a product of the Reformation. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have larger sets of scriptures. The Roman church has an additional seven books, the Greek Orthodox has an additional eleven and other Orthodox churches have a few more than that. Thus even what is considered to be scripture varies from tradition to tradition.

    My hope is that this very brief overview has given you a sense of not only the complex nature of Biblical composition, transmission and compilation but also of the enduring nature of the story it tells; that Judaism and Christianity kept telling and retelling these foundational faith stories across hundreds of years because they believed they were vital to giving godly shape and form to the life and work of God's people.

        

The Road to Redemption – Scripture – Why It is the Basis of Our Faith

    We shift gears this morning away from Means of Grace in order to examine how we know what we know about God, the universe and everything. This is important because it is the central question for every community of faith (regardless of the faith tradition). Every faith has to make some sense of the world around it as well as judgments about how persons are supposed to comport themselves in that world. I want us then to look at the two basic ways in which persons gain a foundation for their faiths; observation and revelation.

     The first way in which we know about God, the universe and everything is through observation. Human beings always observed the world around them. They watched animals, seasons, stars and planets. These various entities were often assigned magical powers, cult status or human characteristics. By so doing, thousands of civilizations made sense of the world in which they lived. If we continue the theme of observation into the modern era we come to the rise of the scientific age. Through observation and experimentation science has defined and is continually redefining the parameters of what we know and how we know it.

    The second way in which we know about God, the universe and everything is through revelation. Revelation describes the encountering of God in a way we could not do through observation. This is the heart of the three great Abrahamic faiths; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each of these faiths believes that God has revealed God's self to humanity in a variety of ways; Judaism to individuals such as Moses and the Prophets; Christianity in Jesus and through the Apostle's; and Islam through Muhammad. In addition each of these faiths has also compiled these revelations in a holy book (The Bible, both halves, and the Quran).

    Both of these ways of knowing about God, the universe and everything are then filtered through tradition. Regardless of what you hear from those who claim to be interpreting their holy book in some tradition-less manner, they are not (this is not really a problem with science which appreciates the practice of building upon the work of those who have come before). All faith claims are filtered through generations of tradition which shape how we interact with and organize what we observe and what has been revealed to us.

    Christianity then is a faith of both observation and revelation moderated through tradition. What makes Presbyterians and many other Christians different however is that we believe that the ultimate revelation of God and what God wants of us is not to be found in a book or in a tradition but in a person, Jesus of Nazareth. Our tradition holds that in Jesus, God became enfleshed in our midst. Therefore if we want to make sense of God and what God desires of humanity we look not to words directly dictated by God to a prophet (such as in Islam and Mormonism) but to the life and teachings of Jesus. While God has revealed God's self in a burning bush, through the Torah and through the proclamation of prophets, the only perfect revelation of God is Jesus the Christ.

    Scripture becomes important then because it is our source for knowing about Jesus, who he was, what he did, and what he asked us to do. It is also the source of our knowing how God has revealed God's self before and after Jesus. It is also the source of God's story which tells us who we are (creatures), what happened to us (sin), how God has worked with us (calling Israel), how God is going to fix us (through Christ) and what our future holds (a new heaven and earth). Finally scripture is the lens through which we are able to continually evaluate and adjust our tradition. Though scripture cannot tell us about the mechanics of the universe and everything in it, it can and does tell us about God and ourselves. Thus scripture is the foundation upon which the church has built its faith and life.

The Road to Redemption: The Means of Grace – Worship

    Each week as we look at the means of Grace I want to begin with my short summary about the Means of Grace: the Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. Grace is not a commodity that can be packaged and dispensed by human beings. Grace is the mysterious and wondrous love of God which is made real in our lives; forgiving and freeing us to become the persons God has designed us to be. One of God's gifts is that we have been given opportunities to participate in activities which position us to experience and be enriched by that grace. For most Christians, worship is perhaps the primary place means by which we encounter the grace of God and the grace of God encounters us.

The Worship section of the PCUSA Book of Order contains the following description of worship in section W-1.2000:

"God brings all things into being by the Word. God offers the Word of grace, and people respond to that divine initiative through the language of worship. They call God by name, invoke God's presence, beseech God in prayer, and stand before God in silence and contemplation. They bow before God, lift hands and voices in praise, sing, make music, and dance. Heart, soul, strength, and mind, with one accord, they join in the language, drama, and pageantry of worship. "

This wonderful paragraph helps us glimpse the conversational nature of worship; meaning the process by which God speaks to us and we respond to God. Thus worship becomes that moment in which we can encounter the grace of God. What follows is a description of our weekly worship practice. I hope this outline will assist each of us in experiencing God's grace more fully as we worship.

    We begin with the Call to Worship which is usually drawn from scripture. The Call to Worship is intended to be God, through the written word, calling us to come together as the body of Christ, in order that we might be encountered by God.

    The Opening Hymn is our response to God's call to us. We respond with words of praise and adoration. In essence we are turning toward God in order to receive the grace God has to give.

    The Time with the younger church is the moment in which the children (and adults) hear the Word of God and encounter God's grace at an age appropriate level. We firmly believe that God's grace is poured out on persons of all ages.

    Following the Time with the Younger Church we move to the Prayer of Confession. As was explained a couple of weeks ago, the Prayer of Confession is not intended to make us feel badly about ourselves. It is intended instead to be an opportunity for us to acknowledge where we have not lived into the grace of God that we have been offered. Confession allows us to confess our sin thereby opening our hearts to receive forgiveness which is at the heart of God's grace.

    Our response to being forgiven is to sing the Gloria Patri in which we praise God for restoring our relationship with God through God's gracious love for us.

    At his point we move into the heart of the worship experience where we encounter God and God's grace through the reading and exposition of God's written word. Though we as Presbyterians do not speak of scripture as being "inerrant" we still believe it has the power to show us not only how to live in the world, but to also transform our lives. We believe that the grace of God works through scripture to change us. It is, as the Apostle Paul wrote, the power of God for salvation.

    Once again following our encounter with God in and through scripture, we respond with a hymn of praise. This act allows us to give voice to our gratitude for having heard from God.

    The remainder of the service is organized around our continuing response to God…in other words it is our moving toward God even as God has moved toward us. Through giving our tithes and offerings we give a portion of what God has given us in order that the work of God's community can continue. The offering is followed by prayer in which we both speak to God and then listen for God's response. The service closes with another hymn of praise (orienting ourselves toward God) and the offering of God's blessing in the benediction. We are then sent out to into the world in order to practice what we have learned.

    

The Road to Redemption: Means of Grace – Doing Justice

Each week as we look at the means of Grace I want to begin with my short summary: the Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. Grace is not a commodity that can be packaged and dispensed by human beings. Grace is the mysterious and wondrous love of God which is made real in our lives, forgiving and freeing us to become the persons God has designed us to be. One of God's gifts is that we have been given opportunities to participate in activities which position us to experience and be enriched by that grace. For a variety of reasons doing justice has never been an easy quest for God's people; none-the-less I hope as we look at the Biblical concept of justice we will see that it can indeed be a way of encountering the grace of God.

I want to begin with the image of Lady Justice. In one hand Lady Justice holds a scale and in the other a sword. Sometimes she is blindfolded and other times she sees clearly. The scales can represent truth and fairness, or a case's support and opposition. While a blindfold was not an original accessory of Lady Justice, it was added as a way of accentuating the ability of justice to be blind to the parties involved; in other words justice does not care about the race, social standing or connections of those seeking a ruling. The sword represented the ability of justice to deal forcefully with those who had been unjust. I offer this quick look at Lady Justice because in many ways she provides us an appropriate backdrop for looking at justice in the scriptures.

First, justice requires a set of values, norms or laws upon which judgment is to be made (the concept of the scales). Within the Judeo-Christian context justice is based on the Law of God. In the Torah God offered the world a clear image of what those values, norms and laws are. These include norms such as loving your neighbor, caring for widows and orphans, speaking the truth and respecting the life and property of others. In other words justice is supposed to help to bring about a community which reflects God's original creative purposes (human beings living in a right relationship with God, others and creation).

Second, justice is supposed to be meted out with impartiality (the concept of the blindfold). The scriptures remind us that God is "no respecter of persons." What this means is that God is concerned with the inner orientation and outer actions of persons and not with their wealth, power or social standing. The prophets were continually berating the Israelites for favoring the rich and powerful over the ordinary citizen in settling disputes. The Book of James in the New Testament carries on this tradition.

Third, justice is supposed to make things right and not merely render a verdict (the concept of the sword). The Torah makes it clear that there are consequences for not simply breaking the law, but for spoiling the set of right relationships which God desires of humanity. The Psalms remind us that God will judge the people with equity and right the wrongs that have occurred. In the end God will use God's power to put all things right.

These three factors then lead us to Justice as a Means of Grace. By doing justice we are working with God to establish the type of world God desires. In so doing we demonstrate God's gracious love for all persons. Just as service was a conduit for God's grace on an interpersonal scale, justice becomes a conduit for God's grace on a community-wide basis. Justice allows God's grace to impact entire societies and the individuals within them. When we work for justice we are experiencing God's grace in our own lives (by helping to create right relationships) and are making that grace available to others. This can be seen in the church's working to end slavery, abolish child labor, feed the hungry, provide equal rights for women and minorities along with other causes which reflect God's gracious love for the world.

The Road to Redemption…Means of Grace: Fellowship

    Each week as we look at the means of Grace I want to begin with my short summary: the Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. Grace is not a commodity that can be packaged and dispensed by human beings. Grace is the mysterious and wondrous love of God which is made real in our lives, forgiving and freeing us to become the persons God has designed us to be. One of God's gifts is that we have been given opportunities to participate in activities which position us to experience and be enriched by that grace. One of the most unexpected yet essential Means of Grace is fellowship.

    Over the years I have noticed that Americans have a split cultural personality. On the one hand we are rugged individualists. We speak of having pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, being self-made people, and fending for ourselves along with lots of other metaphors. We admire the person who has persevered against great odds to make something of themselves. Individuals like Daniel Boone and the Lone Ranger are the heroes we like to lift up as being prototypically American. This gives credence to the notion of individual responsibility as being the cornerstone of our society.

    On the other hand however is the belief that community counts. Consider that Americans have always relied on each other for protection (banding together to win our freedom), for help in times of need (the idea of farmers coming together to raise a barn or help out when another farmer has been injured), or for supporting education (one room school houses). While cooperation was voluntary it was seen as a hallmark of America's self-understanding (E pluribus unum – out of many, one).

    It should not come as a surprise then that this split cultural personality can also be seen within the religious landscape of our nation. In the United States one of the most prevalent concepts of religion (and especially Christianity) is that it is private and personal. Years ago this was described by the author Robert Bella as Sheilaism. Sheilaism is his term for the religion of a young woman named Sheila who simply listened to her inner voice and knew what was right and wrong. She took pieces of individual religions and created her own. Even within Christianity faith and salvation have become very much about me and Jesus. Whether one is conservative or liberal there is a strain of individualism which allows people to see their relationship with God as something that has no need of others.

    What is missing from this rugged religious individualism is the Biblical reminder that human beings were created to be in community. We were created to be in relationship because no human being is complete in and of himself or herself (Adam was incomplete without Eve; Abram was to be the father of a large family, etc.). We are complete only as a collective. Paul reminds his readers that if the church is to be the living body of Christ then it must contain persons with a variety of gifts. In addition he makes it clear that no one person has all the gifts necessary to fully live out the Christ-like life. Fellowship then is to be a way of life for those who are serious about being Jesus' followers.

    This idea leads us to understanding Fellowship as a Means of Grace. When we come together as a community we encounter the God given gifts of others as God's gifts to us. We become more complete as human beings when we share what God has given to each of us. We become more loving when we are loved in fellowship. We become more caring when we are cared about in fellowship. We become wiser when wisdom is shared with us in fellowship. In this way the fullness of God's grace becomes realized when we are in fellowship one with another. God's grace becomes real for us in the love, acceptance, forgiveness, instruction and discipline we share with each other. When we exclude ourselves from fellowship then we only experience a portion of the grace we can receive. So the challenge for each of us then is to discover how our gifts can be God's grace to others in fellowship.

    

The Road to Redemption: Means of Grace – Prayer

    Each week as we look at the means of Grace I want to begin with my short summary: the Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. Grace is not a commodity that can be packaged and dispensed by human beings. Grace is the mysterious and wondrous love of God which is made real in our lives; forgiving and freeing us to become the persons God has designed us to be. One of God's gifts is that we have been given opportunities to participate in activities which position us to experience and be enriched by that grace. One of the most powerful Means of Grace is prayer, even if people do not refer to it as such.

What is prayer? While there are multiple definitions I believe the simplest description is that it is conversation with God. I realize that the church has often made prayer seem very complicated and sometimes even unapproachable. Yet just as each of us can carry on conversations with others around us we can carry on conversations with God. In some ways this makes prayer the most personal of all of the Means of Grace. Each of us is allowed to encounter God either individually (personal prayer) or corporately (communal prayer…such as in church). By so doing we make a direct connection to the one, true, living God and this facilitates us being able to experience and bask in God's grace.

    With so much having been written about prayer I do not want to write an extended treatise about it, but instead would like to offer a prayer pattern through which we can see prayer as a Means of Grace. The acronym I will use is ACTS.

    Adoration – this is perhaps the most difficult part of prayer…adoring or praising God. While we may be used to heaping praises on others it is sometimes awkward to try and praise God…the vocabulary may not be there. Yet adoration is an essential element of prayer because it acknowledges that God is the only one who is worthy of absolute praise and worship. Adoration places us in the appropriate vertical relationship…creator to creature…that then allows the grace of God to begin to flow toward us even as it opens us to receive it.

    Confession – over the years many churches and individuals have ceased the practice of using a prayer of confession. They have done so because they believe it might harm a person's self-esteem or because they don't like the whole idea of "sins". However, without confession we are blocked from receiving the complete grace of God. What I mean by this is that God desires us to become more and more Christ-like with each passing day. Unless we are willing to confess where we have fallen short of living like Christ then God cannot really work on us. We will be stuck in self-destructive patterns which block the love and grace of God from being fully effective in our lives. Confession then opens us up to the work of God's grace in our lives.

    Thanksgiving – this is the moment when we allow ourselves to admit that we are recipients of God's good gifts. When we fail to give God thanks because we think that we have either earned or deserved all that we have, we once again close ourselves off to God's grace…which remember is a free gift. By thanking God for all that we are and all that we have been given we become more and more aware of God's love for us. We begin to see those moments in our lives when God mysteriously stepped in offering us unearned grace and love.

    Supplication – supplication is not a word we use very often. A better word might be intercession (but then we could not use ACTS). This is our act of becoming a channel for the grace of God to flow through us to others. Again, grace is not a commodity, but when we turn our hearts toward the needs of others it is amazing how God's grace seems to be applied into the lives of those for whom we pray.

    In the end, the "how" of how prayer works is a mystery. None the less, millions of Jesus' followers have discovered it to be their most important Means of Grace.

    

The Road to Redemption: Means of Grace – Scripture

    Each week as we look at the means of Grace I want to begin with my short summary: the Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. Grace is not a commodity that can be packaged and dispensed by human beings. Grace is the mysterious and wondrous love of God which is made real in our lives; forgiving and freeing us to become the persons God has designed us to be. One of God's gifts is that we have been given opportunities to participate in activities which position us to experience and be enriched by that grace. One of the most central Means of Grace for the Reformed Church (meaning Presbyterians among others) is that of the reading and hearing the scriptures.

    The concept that reading and hearing scripture is a Means of Grace may seem a bit odd to some of us. After all the scriptures are a collection of stories, history, poetry, letters and laments written over more than a thousand years, which offer, at times, what appear to be contradictory opinions about God, law and life. In addition, in the most basic sense, the scriptures are merely words…lots and lots of words. The question becomes then how can such a book be a means of God encountering us and us encountering God?

The answer for some is that the Bible is literally "the Word of God." It is perfect in its original manuscripts because it was dictated by the very breath of God. Therefore when one reads scripture one is reading the literal words of God; thus one is encountering God. In some sense this coincides with Islam's view of the Quran. According to Islam the words of the Quran are prefect because they are the verbatim words of God as dictated to Muhammad. Thus they ought not to be even translated out of the original Arabic.

For those of us who do not subscribe to the theory that scripture is perfectly dictated by God, and that there are places where scripture contradicts itself, we still believe that it can serve as a Means of Grace. It can serve as such because it is the primary witness to God's loving work in the world. I say scripture is the primary witness because there is a secondary witness, creation itself. According to the Apostle Paul, human beings ought to be able to look at creation and know that not only is there a God, but that this God has particular wishes and desires for humanity. In a way this is what some people refer to as Natural Theology (knowledge of God that can be derived from observing the world around us).

Scripture on the other hand is a record of God's encounters with humanity and humanity's encounters with God. These encounters bring to us God's commandments, Jesus' teachings, the words of God to prophets, priests and kings, God's words to Apostles and other New Testament writers, the history of God's people and their theological reflections. What these writers record for us is not what they learned about God from observing the world, but what was revealed to them through these sacred encounters. What happens then when we read or hear scripture is that we are allowed to stand with these ancient persons and encounter God alongside of them. That is the power of sacred story. Sacred story allows us to be vicariously present with those in the past who have encountered God and been changed by those encounters. In addition we believe that the Holy Spirit applies these stories to our lives in order that they become our stories as well.

In the end though what finally makes the scriptures a Means of Grace is that all of its stories revolve around God's grace and love. I understand that especially in the Old Testament there are stories which include God's wrath; but ultimately even behind those stories is grace. Behind and through all of scripture is grace that loves, forgives, saves, reconciles and restores. That is the narrative that binds all 66 books together. So as we read scripture we continually encounter God's grace, not just for persons past, but for each of us in every moment of our lives.

The Road to Redemption: The Means of Grace – Sacraments

    Last week we looked at the definition of Means of Grace: Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. In addition we noted that grace was not a commodity that could be packaged and dispensed by human beings. Grace is the mysterious and wondrous love of God which is made real in our lives; forgiving and freeing us to become the persons God has designed us to be. One of God's gifts is that we have been given opportunities to participate in activities which position us to experience and be enriched by that grace. The primary Means of Grace within the church have always been the sacraments; baptism and communion.

Baptism is the sacrament which initiates our relationship with the community of faith. It is our mark of entry. For those of us who practice infant baptism there could be no greater demonstration of the grace of God. A child who cannot speak for him or herself is brought before God. This child is then covered with the waters of baptism and declared to be one of God's children and a member of the universal church. All of this is done without the child being able to earn it or deserve it. Just like birth itself the child is the recipient of the actions of others, including God. This is a free gift given by God as the child is adopted into a new and loving family which freely promises to watch over and care for them. We see grace poured out in these actions.

    The temptation that comes with believers' baptism (though it is a wonderful thing and we Presbyterians also practice it) is that those who are baptized as adults might see baptism as something that they have earned because they have chosen Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. On the other hand when adults see baptism as the undeserved, grace of God in Jesus Christ being poured out upon them, bringing forgiveness and new life, then it becomes a powerful means of grace. Those who are baptized understand themselves as profoundly changed by God's free gift of love and salvation.

    The second sacrament is the Lord's Supper. This sacrament is the family meal in and through which we remember the sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross. As most of you are aware Jesus initiated this meal on the night before he was betrayed, arrested and crucified. In this meal Jesus took the Passover feast and re-centered it away from the Exodus under Moses to the Crucifixion which Jesus was about to undergo. None-the-less this meal was still seen as signifying our liberation from slavery to the powers and principalities of this world and into a new life with God. The presence of grace first becomes apparent when we realize that none of us deserved what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. The Apostle Paul tells us "that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." In other words, God's desire to forgive and reconcile us was so great that God was willing to sacrifice God's own Son for our sake. Thus the supper itself points us to God's amazing grace.

    Grace continues to appear in that we are invited to partake in this meal of remembrance even though we ourselves continue to sin; to wander far from God as our Five Part Story tells us. In the Presbyterian past there was something called "fencing the table." In this practice the communion table was literally fenced off and before anyone could come and partake they had to demonstrate that they were worthy; that they had been upstanding Christians. Then they were given a "token" by which they were admitted to the table. This practice tended to remove grace from the equation. People earned their way to the table. Our practice is that all who have been baptized are invited to partake. We believe that we are all sinners in need of God's grace, which is what the table is all about; feeding and forgiving in order that all might be renewed for their journeys of faith. At the table we feed on God's gracious love for us which was first made known to us at baptism.

    

The Road to Redemption: Means of Grace

    "So how do I get to your house?" Whether it is a friend coming over for the first time, or a repair person needing directions, chances are someone has asked what route they ought to take to get to your house. In some ways the answer ought to be relatively simple. You take street X, to Street Y where you take a left, then you pass the service station…and you get my point. What makes giving directions difficult however is that people begin their journeys in different locations, thus necessitating different sets of directions. In addition there are often multiple ways one could take in order to arrive at the same location. Even on-line resources such as MapQuest will offer several routes from one point to another. Each route will get you from point A to Point B…the only difference being the scenery along the way and the time it takes to arrive.

    I offer this opening illustration in order to help us gain a sense of what our faith tradition means by "Means of Grace." Means of Grace are those "routes" by which we encounter the grace of God and by which the grace of God encounters us. Please notice carefully that I did not say that the Means of Grace are different ways to be reconciled to God (or saved if you like). Reconciliation and salvation are gifts of God that come through the work of Jesus Christ. As the Gospel of John tells us, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Means of Grace then are the routes one can take in order to access the love and grace of God that comes to the world and comes to us through the work of Jesus. Just as there are numerous different roads and turns one can take to arrive at our homes, there are many different ways in which one can approach God in Christ and take hold of the life that is offered.

    Some of you may ask why this is important. If God loves and saves us, why do we need to have Means of Grace through which we encounter the grace of God and through which the grace of God encounters us? Isn't it enough that we have faith? The short answer is no. The Christian life is not completed by having faith. The Christian life is composed of faith plus movement, or sanctification. Sanctification is essentially the process of becoming more "saintly", meaning become more and more fully human as demonstrated by Jesus. The Means of Grace are practices through which not only is our faith strengthened but we become more and more Christ-like. As most of us who have lived for a while understand, our faith and our sanctification are works in progress.

For those of you who grew up in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox traditions, the Means of Grace were generally limited to the sacraments; those rituals in and through which God's grace was dispensed to the people. In this way of understanding the Means of Grace, grace was seen as a spiritual commodity which could be given or withheld by the agents of the church. We can see this in the history of the church where it either offered or withheld the sacraments as a weapon to coerce individuals to toe the line. In other words the church said that if you do not follow our rules we will withhold the very grace of God from you. This view was challenged by the Reformers who believed that the Means of Grace, and thus grace itself, were open to all.

    For those of you who grew up in more evangelical protestant traditions the Means of Grace were probably not limited to the sacraments (because your tradition might not have even had the concept of sacraments) but to preaching and prayer. These two practices were seen as the means by which we connect to God and God connects to us. As the reformers claimed, these means are accessible to all because all can read scripture and all can pray.

    What we will explore over the next few weeks is the view that the Means of Grace, while including the sacraments, scripture and prayer are in fact more expansive than these alone; that in fact the Means of Grace are all around us thus offering us a myriad of opportunities to deepen our faith in and following of Jesus Christ.