|
The Rev. Frank
Logue
Inwardly Digesting the Bible “Help me!” It took me a moment to figure out where the sound was coming from. But I could see the car coming into the YMCA parking lot slow and at an odd angle, more like the sideways crab walk of someone fatally wounded than the purposeful arc of a car looking for a parking space. “Help!” The passenger called out again and I thought from the way she was leaning out of the car, that she was trying to get away from the driver. Then she said the words that made everything snap into focus, “The driver’s dead and I can’t stop the car.” The car was listing starboard and would soon be running into cars lined up in the parking spaces. I ran up, opened the driver’s door, reached across the driver to straighten the wheel and push on the brake. The immediate crisis was averted. Then the passenger told me that the pregnant driver had been having heart problems and now she was dead. I laid back the driver’s seat and checked for a pulse. Finding none, I ran close enough to the Y’s front door to get someone to call 911. Then I pulled the driver out on the hard packed grass along the parking lot, and methodically went through the steps I had been taught as a Boy Scout as I initiated CPR. My wife, who I was there to pick up, and my father with whom she had gotten a ride, soon came out of their exercise class and my dad, who had both more training and experience, just slid into the chest compressions while I took over the breathing part alone. By the time the ambulance arrived some minutes later, we had a pulse and CPR was stopped. My dad headed home, while Victoria and I continued on with our evening. This was more than a decade ago and I don’t think about the incident except when CPR is mentioned. But this week it came to me in a very different context as I was preparing for this sermon. I had been pondering the collect for this morning. It’s one of a half dozen solid my favorite prayers of mine in the Book of Common Prayer. A collect (pronounced Kah-Lekt) is a prayer which collects the themes of the readings into a particular form which begins with an invocation based on something we know of God from scripture and then makes an appeal to God based on that knowledge of God and ends by ascribing glory to God. Those three parts are all in this morning’s collect which said, So to break this collect apart, we see the invocation tells us that we know from Scripture that God caused Scripture to be written for our learning. Then based on that we ask God to help us as we not only read, but ingest the Word of God for the purpose of helping us hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life God gave us in His Son Jesus. This is a very Anglican prayer. Anglican is the broader term for what we call here Episcopal. As Episcopalians we are part of the Anglican Communion of churches and this prayer fits well within our tradition and the emphasis it reveals are part of what attracted me to The Episcopal Church. Now as I show you what I mean by this, please keep in mind that what I will say is present to some degree in most every church, it’s just the emphasis on this understanding that I find appealing. What we are to do with Scriptures is “to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.” This is a very serious understanding of the Bible. This is no passing interest of the Bible alongside other books, but a real, intentional plan for marinating yourself in God’s Word. The way this works itself out in the Anglican Communion is that the assumption of the prayer book, quite contrary to actual experience, is that every Episcopalian will read the Bible every day following a pattern of readings that will allow you to read through all of the Scripture every two years. There is a pattern of readings found in the back of the prayer book, marked as the Year One and Year Two reading for Morning and Evening Prayer. These are the same readings as those found in the Forward Day by Day booklets which King of Peace makes available for free each quarter when the new booklets come available. In addition to this pattern, we also read through the Bible every three years on Sunday with our Old Testament reading, reading from the Psalms, Epistle and Gospel readings. We read a LOT of the Bible each week and we read through it every three years. Just next Sunday, King of Peace will finish reading through the Bible a second time as a church as we complete six full years of readings. This is the Anglican emphasis on marinating yourself in the Scripture that I find so appealing. Because if you don’t do it this way, you will likely work yourself into the other pattern. There are two other dominant patterns of reading the Bible. One is to keep it out somewhere at the house and read the cover from time to time noticing the beautifully etched gold foil letters reading “Holy Bible.” That is the reading that many of the millions of Bibles in homes get. The other pattern is to wait until something goes wrong in your life and then go to the Bible searching for answers. The Bible is pretty poor at this as it was not designed as a troubleshooting guide to be turned to when things go wrong. Sure there are Scriptures that will be very comforting or even challenging when you find yourself in a mess, but that’s not the best way to encounter them. The best way to encounter the scriptures is by continually reading your way through them in short doses, preferably daily, but at least a few times a week. Then you get the Bible in your bones. And don’t start at Genesis with a plan to read the Bible straight through to the end. That usually doesn’t work much farther than Leviticus, the third book of the Bible. No, the Bible is a library of 66 books and you don’t have to read from the first to the 66th and the way millions of Christians who have gone before you have found works best is through a pattern with short readings from the Old Testament combined with even shorter readings from the New Testament read every day. It’s a much easier and therefore better pattern. Besides, if you didn’t take this approach, you would probably never find an occasion to read the 13th chapter of Mark, from which this morning’s Gospel reading is taken. Jesus says those not too comforting words as Jesus tells of the end of the age saying, Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter. For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be. Youch! That’s not going to help when you get laid off from your job, or your son starts using drugs, our your wife starts having an affair, or your lab results come back positive for cancer. Better keep reading. Then Jesus says, And if anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘Look! There he is!’—do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect. No help there either for my troubles. Then finally Jesus says, “But be alert; I have already told you everything.” I have already told you everything he says. This is when it should dawn on us to read it all. It’s all in here. Not everything Jesus said and did, that would be too big a book. But all things necessary for salvation, that’s what’s in here [holding up a Bible]. Because Jesus’ dire words in the little apocalypse that is Mark 13 really only amount to a warning from our Lord that the End of Time will come without warning. There won’t be time for a crash course. And of course, the end of time comes for some people every day. So without even getting to The Last Days, thousands, millions of people reach their last day every day. And the point of the apocalyptic reading for this morning is to be ready, to be alert, knowing that Jesus has already told you everything you need to know. That’s why this collect fits with this reading. When it comes to the Last Days, it’s no time to blow the dust off the gold foil on your Bible. When bad times come in your life you’ll want to have already heard the scripture, read, marked, learned, and inwardly digest the scripture. And this is true whether you are facing the end of your life or a trying time at school or work or home. And now we circle around to the start of this sermon. That cool fall evening in Athens, Georgia I had no idea that I would almost be run into by a woman in need of CPR. And had I never taken a course, that would not have been the time to start studying. The last thing she needed was someone standing there reading a book on CPR and trying to figure out how to get started. What she needed was someone who had already swallowed the Red Cross guide to CPR, and had practiced it enough to be confident to begin. There was no one else in the lot and no one else coming for a critical few minutes. If I had started reading up on CPR just then, she and her baby would have died as my father or someone else who knew the drill would have been too late. It is the same with your spiritual life. Do not wait until your spiritual heart rate and breathing flat line to pick up the instruction manual. Instead, pick it up now. Don’t get overly ambitious. Start slow, follow a pattern that you can keep up. Don’t worry about whether or not you are “getting it” or whether or not “it’s working.” Just trust the process. Billions of Christians have been marinated over time in this same sauce and they came out quite tasty. So just trust that over time God will be revealed to you in ever new and every amazing ways. That will only come if you stick with reading even when it makes no sense or seems to be pointless. But the discipline matters. For you don’t want just a passing glance at the cover of a Bible. That won’t help when you need the wisdom from Scripture. Instead try a more serious and sustained encounter with God’s Word and you will find it little by little transforming your life for the better. Let us pray, Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
|
|
