First Parish Sermon Archive

“THE BEST OF THE BIBLE (to me)”

 

The Sermon at the First Parish in Wayland, Massachusetts

On February 5, 2012

By the Rev. Ken Sawyer

 

            Why would anyone read the Bible?

            I realize that may seem an odd question to the newest among us, and perhaps to a few others as well. This is, after all, a church, and in most churches there is an obvious answer, which is that in some timeless way, the Bible is an account of the nature, will, and historic activity of God – indeed, for most people, an account unique in that way – and for many, an account without error, flaw, or need of addition or explication.

            We are not a church like that, though. Truth to tell, I do not often turn to the Bible for readings on Sunday morning. I can forget how odd that is, how 90-some percent of the churches of this land use the Bible and nothing else for their Sunday morning readings. I gather many Americans think that the Bible and religion are pretty much the same thing.

            But Unitarian Universalists typically do not.  We almost none of us think the Bible is in some absolute and literal way the very and only word of God. And yet it retains some important place for many of us, and in our worship life, too, at least on occasion. One might well ask, why?

            Well, for one thing, just to be able to understand our neighbors and their religious beliefs, to give us some ways of imagining what is on their minds. I confess, though, that is a motive that may come more naturally to a born Unitarian like me than to the greater number of you who grew up with more extensive biblical indoctrinization. Many of you among that number, I know, feel you had by the age of twelve Bible enough for a lifetime.

            One might offer as reason the cause one could take on of keeping true believers honest when they claim to speak for sacred writ. It has been commonplace to note that theologically and socially conservative interpretations of scripture thrive in the land in part because educated religious liberals have stopped caring about the Bible enough to refute them.

            This is probably true, but I doubt it is sufficient to draw very many of us back into the struggle – where, as a result, only a few of the sensible and informed remain to point out what the Bible really says and probably meant – and point that out to an audience that increasingly does not care.

            But there are other reasons to read the Bible, at home or at church, than, on the one hand to know The Truth (with a capital T), or, on the other, to understand or to refute those who think they do. Or at least I think it is a question worth consideration.

            And so back in the ‘80s, having gone nine years in this pulpit with only one sermon devoted expressly to a book of the Bible – actually, to two, the prophets Amos and Hosea, and their notions of national strength – I began working my way through the Bible, taking up one of the books every three months. The goal was to provide information to help the texts make sense, and find inspiring words that might still stir the heart and mind and conscience even thousands of years after they were written, even those of a liberal UU.

            I did not do too badly, in terms of sticking to my plan. From 1982 to 1986 I did eleven, getting as far as Job. By the end of the century I had done eight more, the last being a sermon bought at auction on Job again. This week I reread all those services again, and they’re pretty good, if I do say so myself.

            I last preached on the Bible a year ago, returning to the first book, Genesis, and setting the Bible itself in the context of First Parish history, where it played a large part for many years. What I will do first instead is provide (as I used to) an overview, a description of the book which is not a book, really, but a library of books. There are books of about events in the past, beginning with creation itself, the creation of the humanity, and other flights of whimsy, not without their allegorical significance.

            Eventually we pick up the history of a people, Israel, the Hebrews, beginning with Abraham, leading his family out of the fertile crescent into Canaan. From there it’s on to Egypt, where over time the Hebrews fell into almost slave status before escaping under the leadership of Moses. They wandered for years, returning to conquer Canaan and settle down to centuries of rule, eventual defeat, exile and return.

            Amid the histories are books of law, elaborate systems of social and cultic requirements. Then there are works in the tradition of Middle Eastern wisdom literature (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs), a devotional collection (Psalms), two books about revolt and the end of days, then the social reformers called prophets, the books of the Apocrapha, rejected by Jews and Protestants but part of the Catholic Bible, and finally, for Christians, what is called the New Testament of gospels and letters.

            In picking out favorite readings I think you might enjoy, I was aided by a sermon on Jesus’ favorite texts, by the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, published in Boston in 1864. Clarke believed that “Jesus, the prophetic soul, reading the books of the great prophetic souls who went before him, interprets them to us best of all.” So Clarke went through all the sayings attributed to Jesus and counted up how often he quoted this book or that.

            He found 39 times Jesus quoted the books of the Hebrew Bible, but many books not at all, including the histories, the books of wisdom literature, and twelve of the sixteen prophets. He used the Psalms the most, and Isaiah second most.

            Religiously conservative Christians often use passages from Hebrew scripture as relevant to Jesus’ life, in that he is said to have fulfilled some prophesy. But Clarke rejects that interpretation of the word “fulfill” – he thinks it just means, to carry out perfectly, not because he was bound to because of what Isaiah wrote. But Isaiah does offer an image of the sort that reverberates, an ideal:  

 

Then a shoot will grow from the stock of Jesse,

and a branch shall spring from his roots.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

            a spirit of wisdom and understanding,

            a spirit of counsel and power,

            a spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what he sees

nor decide by what he hears;

            he shall judge the poor with justice

            and defend the humble in the land with equity;

            his mouth shall be a rod to strike down the ruthless,

            and with a word he shall slay the wicked.

Round his waist he shall wear the belt of justice,

            And good faith shall be the girdle of his body.

            Then the wolf shall live with the sheep,

            And the leopard lie down with the kid….

 

            I might as well say now, my favorite parts of the Bible are the books of wisdom literature and some of the lovely sayings of Jesus, along with – and this I suspect is an acquired taste – the dramas in Israel and Judea, like those involving David; and the prophets for their fire, their hunger for justice, even their extravagant metaphors to describe those who upset them.

            And the vision, like the one from Isaiah you just heard. Here is another:

 

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,

my chosen one in whom I delight, 

I have bestowed my spirit upon him,

and he will make justice shine on the nations.

He will not call out or lift his voice high,

or make himself heard in the open street.

He will not break a bruised reed,

or snuff out a smouldering wick;

he will make justice shine on every race,

never faltering, never breaking down,

he will plant justice on earth,

while coasts and islands wait for his teaching.

                                                            Isaiah 42:1-4

 

Isaiah did not have Jesus in mind in particular when he wrote that, but Jesus may well have had Isaiah in mind.

            And we know that Martin Luther King, Jr., had Isaiah on his mind. Can’t you hear him now?

 

                        There is a voice that cries:

            Prepare a road through the wilderness,

clear a highway across the desert for our God.   

            Every valley shall be lifted up,

every mountain and hill brought down;

rugged places shall be made smooth

            and mountain-ranges become a plain.

                                                Isaiah 40:1-5 (Second Isaiah)

 

In case it isn’t obvious, this was an agricultural society, not one that relied on tourism, say.

            Clarke cites another prophet, Hosea, as author of a passage Jesus used twice, and in reference to different matters – “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.” (Hos.6:6) It is what you do that matters, not the rituals you perform. It is your kindness that matters, your mercy, your caring, your taking the side of the poor and the troubled, your work for fairness and justice.

            And this, from the prophet Amos:

 

I hate, I spurn your pilgrim-feasts;

            I will not delight in your sacred ceremonies

When you present your sacrifices and offerings

            I will not accept them,

Nor look upon the buffaloes of your shared-offerings.

Spare me the sound of your songs;

I cannot endure the music of your lutes.

Let justice roll on like a river

And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 

                                                Amos 5: 21-24

 

            In talking about the Bible one has to acknowledge that there are also things about it that are disturbing, brutal and cruel. But there are such lovely passages. A perfect example of both is Psalm 137, written during the Babylonian captivity, after Babylon had conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and taken the leadership hostage.

 

By the waters of  Babylon, there we sat down and wept

            when we remembered Zion.

 There on the willow-trees

            we hung up our harps,

for there those who carried us off

            required of us song,

and our captors called on us to be merry:

            ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’

How could we sing the Lord’s song

            in a foreign land?

 

But then later, in the same Psalm,

 

Remember, O Lord, against the people of Edom

            the day of Jerusalem’s fall,

when they said, ‘Down with it, down with it,

            down to its very foundations!’

 

Still pretty poetic, and understandably upset, but it concludes,

 

O Babylon, Babylon the destroyer,

            happy the man who repays you

            for all that you did to us!

Happy is he who shall seize your children

            and dash them against the rock.

 

It is not always easy reading.

            But then there is the 23^rd Psalm that we recited earlier and you heard sung. I have noted before, it has been the most-requested feature of memorial services I have done, and not because everyone who wants it believes in God as their shepherd. But the words are beautiful and comforting. Joseph Campbell once said, “[Mythologies and] religions are great poetry…. “

            I think the imaginative, poetic side of religion is part of why we might return to the Bible. When I preached on the books that purport to be history – Samuel, Kings and the like – I wondered why the stories there are so enduringly popular. For some of us – albeit an odd little group – they are puzzles to be solved. Much of the Bible, in fact. How many people wrote the book of Jeremiah, and when, and why: who is he talking about here, or there?

            Then there is the human interest, all the sex and violence, David and Uriah and Bathsheeba; or David’s son Amnon raping his half-sister Tammar and being killed in revenge by half-brother Absolom; or Absolom’s own revolt against his father, King David.

            But finally, the stories work as media for creativity and fantasy. All the unusual names! All the colorful language! Being exotic is not always a religious liability. The Mormons are thriving. New Englanders used to fall in love with that same exotic allure sporatically, and name their children not just Lucy and William but Elishama, Nogah, and Hemmoleketh. Sawyers were Lukes, Samuals, Marys and Sarahs except one generation Aholiab married Bathsheeba. It is a long, cold winter in Hubbardston, Mass., and novelty was apparently sometimes a relief -– as it sometimes serves in religion as well.

            But back to the business at hand: the best of the Bible. As those of you who know me and know the Bible will not be surprised to hear, I think the best parts are the books of Ecclesiastes and Job, the wise, tender, sometimes playful stories and sayings of Jesus, and the best line of all.

            I could preach about Job again, but I hope you already know the story and the lesson. In brief, God is goaded into testing Job’s faith by sending unbelievable bad fortune. Job has three friends who try to comfort him but who believe Job must have done something to deserve his fate. Job knows he has not and yearns to plead his case with God. But God tells him, basically, who are you to question me, and God delivers a fantastic accounting of what he has created and maintains. Job was right about the punishment, but that does not make God wrong. Life is not right or fair.  There is a happy ending, but the point has been made.

            I quote my own conclusion. “Job at the end lets go of his perfectionism and his determinism and accepts his place in a world whose workings are beyond our comprehension and judgment. What we can hope for instead is not assurance of fairness for ourselves but the chance to participate in and appreciate a universe as glorious and tender as it is as well cruel and frightful; that, and the acceptance of our human power to do good for the sake of goodness itself, for the sake of what pleasure and solace it might bring to other beings like ourselves, alone in a universe beyond our ultimate control or understanding.

            “We cannot expect perfection of ourselves, nor fairness of the universe. We can only offer what humble tenderness we have to share, and accept with gratitude what blessings may chance to fall upon us.”  

            Ecclesiastes has the same outlook, laced with some caustic cynicism, perfect for teenagers going through their Ambrose Bierce stage and for anyone feeling discouraged. You will be less so than he, and yet he is not. He gets along, and enjoys what he can. This life is not fair or as rewarding as one would hope, and here is nothing hereafter.   Somehow, that is a pick me up, like the saddest of Psalms can be, in tune with one’s spirit; and Ecclesiastes is one book I do read on occasion even without a sermon in mind.  And, of course, it contains the words from almost every memorial or committal service that begin, “To every thing there is a season….”

            And Jesus? I have used him most of all, although it must seem to anyone used to other traditions that I barely use him at all. But if you want to open your Bible and find something good, you can not miss with the Sermon on the Mount.

            Oh, and the best line of all. It’s from the prophet Micah. It comes at the end of the sermon I gave when I began the Bible series, back in 1982. I quoted Theodore Parker, who said, “As a master, the Bible were a tyrant; as a help, I have not time to tell its worth.” Then I said “I want to take time to make better friends with the Bible, learning like Parker to let it be a help, gaining easier access to its wisdom by better understanding its parts – when they were written and by whom and why – and hearing again the beauty and inspiration of words that people have turned to for centuries….

            “Times have changed since it was composed. Their science is laughable, their ethics sometimes barbaric, their biases sometimes lamentable. But in many ways the life they faced , we do still, in many ways the human condition is unchanged, jealousy and love, anger and faith are timeless. We shall try to tell of those gems of insight and inspiration that make it worth our dragging the rest along through the centuries. We’ll turn to it for the fun of the puzzle, for the fascination of te history it tells, but most of all to hear again the occasional voice of wisdom, the one that may stir us still.

            “What does the most high require, it is asked; to what high goals might our lives be devoted. “The Lord has showed you what is good,” wrote Micah, and you can translate all you want. “And what does he require of you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Great stuff,” I concluded. “Let’s look around.”