Interpreting Scripture!

In the last eight weeks we have been talking about making sense of scripture in our adult forum class.

We have been talking about ways to read and interpret scripture.

This morning I would like to use our Gospel as a way to talk about how we interpret scripture.

This morning we are told two about two incidents that happen, and how they should be understood.

The first is about an incident when Pilate kills some Galileans and mingles it their blood with sacrifices.

The second is about the tower of Siloam that falls and kills eighteen people.

What I found is that most people were brought up to believe that the Bible is telling us history.

And the Bible does include historical times and places.

But the Bible is not about history, it is about theology.

It is about telling how God interacts with us.

These two incidents that are talked about in our text today have no verifiable historical evidence.

Meaning nowhere in any other historical documents do we have any proof that they happened.

They seem like pretty significant things that they would have gotten at least some notice from other historical writers of the time.

Let me offer this to you this morning.

It doesn’t matter.

Luke’s point in telling those stories are not about history they are about theology.

Luke here is attempting to wrestle with an age old theological issue.

What causes human suffering?

In some parts of scripture and in some of our minds our suffering is related to our sin.

Some people believe that when we suffer it is because we have sinned.

Our suffering is divine retribution for what we have done wrong in our lives.

Luke wants to dispute this.

Do you think that these people suffered in this way because they were worse off than anyone else?

No.

But Luke does not leave it there.

Luke goes on to say that our lives should be about constant repentance.

A life of faith demands of us recognition of our failures to live up to God’s demands, but there is not a straight line between our sin and the bad things that might happen to us in this life.

So what is more important the historical accuracy of Luke’s presentation, or the theological insight that we can get from his telling of the story?

Does it matter if those two incidents happen?

Or does it matter what God has to say to us about how our suffering is handled by God?

Let me ask it a different way.

What matters to you more?

That this story is historically accurate?

Or how Jesus answers the age old question about human suffering?

Let us apply Luke’s story to a modern day example.

I lived in New York shortly after the events of 9/11.

I talked a lot about this issue with people who lost loved ones, or people who were spared that day.

For example, the driver of the Hearst for our local funeral home who lost his son that fateful day who told me, “I will never be over the pain of that day.”

The woman who was supposed to be working in the towers right on the floor where the first plane hit who for the first day in her life called in sick that day.

She was on a conference call with her colleagues when the plane hit the tower.

The question that Jesus is asking this morning is, “Do you think that people that died where less sinful than the people that lived on 9/11”?

The answer I think is obvious, “no”.

There was a member of the congregation that I served in who died in the towers that day.

He was a fireman who was running into a building everyone else was running out of it.

He was the father of two young children, a friend, a son, a brother.

Was he more or less sinful than others who didn’t die because they ran away from the buildings?

Of course not.

Jesus is able to help us make sense of something in our lives that really makes no sense.

In a way that is what I hear Jesus partly saying, “Life has random events that don’t make sense.”

Ruthless despot rulers go and kill innocent people.

Towers fall and kill innocent people.

Luke is a genius.

Think of how sophisticated his theology is here.

He holds two things in tension.

On the one hand there is no direct correlation between bad things that happen to us and our sin, on the other hand our lives need to be about constant repentance.

That is not the end of what he has to say.

It is not merely that life is random and makes no sense.

It is that the only way to survive in such a world is to be in constant contact with God.

It is to live a life full of repentance and forgiveness.

Jesus is suggesting that there are worse things in life than dying.

To live a life without being moored to God is worse than dying.

That is what the Bible ultimate gives to us.

It is a deep and lasting relationship with God.

And this relationship is about repenting, and receiving the grace and mercy of God.

Jesus tells a parable about a tree that is not bearing fruit, but is given another year by the Gardner.

It is a year in which the Gardner will tenderly care for the tree.

This parable is about the paradoxical nature of our relationship with God.

That there is a demand in our lives for constant repentance and bearing fruit, but there is a tender Gardner waiting to help us to grow and flourish and bear good fruit.

And that is always the way I want us to look at scripture.

It is not a book of history, or science.

It is a book about how God interacts with us.

How God loves and cares for us.

In our lives there might be times when we forget this.

There might be times when we think that we have to behave or else God will get us.

There might be times when we are going through something horrible and we think it is God’s way of punishing us.

There might be times when we are not bearing fruit and need God to help us on our way.

And in those times there is the word of God which nurtures us, comforts us, challenges us, and leads us to a relationship with God that is deep and wide.

It is a relationship that can be sustained in difficult times, in times of great sorrow, and in times of great joy.

Let me end by saying one other lesson that we learned in our adult forum these past couple of weeks.

You can’t know scripture without having a relationship to it.

If we just go by what we see on television, or by what the pastor tells us, or by what we think scripture is about we will miss the beauty and wonder of it.

We will miss knowing about our God who forgives our sins, who cares for us in difficult times, who nurtures us and helps us grow so we can bear fruit.

To know scripture is to read it, study it, hear it, and then apply it to our lives.

The word of God is always living and breathing and helping us to know God better.

It is living because our lives are constantly in dialogue with it.

Today may you have a deep, lasting, and living relationship with the word of God.

So you can live a life of repentance and receiving the mercy of God.

So you might now that God cares for you.

Amen

Fox And The Hen

In a dark alley I would rather be the fox then the hen.

It seems as though a hen in those circumstances would have no chance.

A fox is the natural hunter of the hen.

It is the fox that is fast, has sharp teeth, and can kill a hen no problem.

And yet Jesus in today’s Gospel describes Herod as a fox, and himself as a hen.

Jesus concedes the power of this world to Herod, and admits that it will be the fox that eats the hen in the end and is still undeterred and unafraid.

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.

Jesus knows at this point that his time is nearing its end.

At this point there are many things that Jesus could do and one of them is turn around.

Go back to Galilee, preach there, become a famous Rabbi.

Jesus could be a rock star.

Instead he is choosing the life of a hen.

Perhaps for us all there is something here in Jesus’ story that will give us courage.

We all have fears that hold us back.

We all have fears that stop us in our tracks from living out our mission.

Perhaps it is simply that we feel like we might fail.

We feel like we are not good enough, strong enough, noble enough.

Perhaps we fear what might happen to us if we dare to risk loving someone who is unlovable.

And so instead of heading in a direction we stop, we turn around and head for safer ground.

Jesus might have been afraid.

In fact, I would like to think that he was.

That he really didn’t want to die.

Jesus believed perhaps foolishly that he could make one more appeal that God’s ways were better than the world’s ways.

That caring for the lost and outcast was better than military or economic security.

That religion was not as important as following God.

Perhaps once in Jerusalem he could teach the religious leaders what they had forgotten.

He could remind them of what the prophets had said.

But Jesus knew people well.

He knew what they thought and how they acted.

Jesus knew that people did not respond well to outsiders.

Jesus knew people did not respond well to people different than them.

One of my favorite movies is “Ground Hog Day” staring Bill Murray.

It is the story about a selfish weather man, who has to live the same day over and over, over, over again.

Eventually, this man learns what it means to give and to really live.

There is this one scene where he is trying to convince his producer that he is living the same day over and over.

They are in a diner.

He goes through every person in the diner and tells their life story.

She doesn’t believe it and accuses him of tricking her.

He says, “Maybe God’s not omnipotent. He's just been around so long he knows everything.”

I like to think about God this way.

God has been around so long, God has seen people throughout the ages, God just knows us and therefore God knows what we are going to do, and how we are going to act.

It is not that God doesn’t hold out hope that one day we will listen, that one day we will take the prophets seriously.

It is just that God knows that on a basic level we don’t want to know what Jesus has to say, or what the Prophets had to say.

The twenty-first century prophet Steven Colbert has said, “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”

 I always think that lent is a good time to admit that what we like about Christianity as practiced today is that it is often comfortable for us.
Lent is a good time to confess that our religion is more about our comfort than risking to help other.
Lent is a good time to confess that we don’t like the challenging part of Jesus.
We don’t like it anymore than Herod did.
Because Herod was fine with religion as long as it kept people in line.
But once it became something that made people want to change things, then it was dangerous.
This is why Jesus is dangerous to Herod.
And that is the fox in the hen house.
It is the fox that sets out to make us all feel that everything is fine.
And the fox who wants to stop us from taking a chance, from moving outside of our comfort zone.

Jesus knew people like Herod and the Sanhedrin did not like to give up their power.

He refused to be afraid.

Maybe more important he choose to rely on God.

Jesus knew that God’s plans, God’s future where more secure than anything else he could have been offered.

Are we sure?

Do we know that our lives are secure with God?

Do we honestly really believe that?

Do we believe it enough to put our lives in the hands of the hen in the alley way?

Do we believe it enough to actually live it?

My good friend Mindy works in a very poor school district as a school nurse.

She told this story the other day on her Facebook page about a ten year girl.

The girl came to the nurse’s office to ask if she could brush her teeth there in the mornings before school.

Mindy had some donated items from dentist in the area so she said, “of course.”

The girl came in the first day and Mindy gave her a toothbrush, small paper cup, and floss.

The girl asked for a paper bag to keep her things in.

When she left she returned the bag to Mindy.

In the bag were the cup and the floss.

She was going to use it again.

I will let Mindy’s words explain the significance of the story,

”When I hear what sounds like, "Judging" to me of people in poverty.

I cringe. I just think, "How can we judge their choices."

Maybe they are forced to do things against their moral beliefs?

I've seen the effects of poverty every day for 10 years and I still wouldn't claim to understand their world enough to judge what they have to do to survive.

Especially when everybody around them, family etc is also...just trying to survive.

Let me tell you....I've looked at floss a bit differently since that day.

Just makes you think........that world is incomprehensible.

As much as I think I might get it.....I don't.

I just can't get myself...to think I have any right to impose my thoughts on what they should and shouldn't be doing, when I know nothing about that world.

That's all.....check out your floss.

Ever even consider reusing that?”

Those are the words of a prophet.

They are the words that we often need to hear.

The words that challenge us to not be so comfortable with this world we take for granted.

Words that make us question whether or not it really is better to be the fox instead of the hen.

I know this for sure.

I would rather be with the hen underneath those protective wings, that with the fox who is only trying to get something out of me.

I would rather be with the God who knows me well and wants me to take risks, than the fox who wants me to be comfortable.

I would rather be with Mindy and her ten year old student, than with the powerful, rich and famous.

Being with Mindy and her student is more dangerous, less secure, but ultimately more eye opening, more satisfying.

The next time you are afraid to take a chance and help someone in need think about how Jesus was unafraid to die for us.

Think about how Jesus was undeterred in his mission.

So the next time you are in a dark alley go with the hen don’t be afraid to put your life in the hands of the hen who desires to gather you under her wings.

Amen