Community Church Sermons
May 21, 2006
Margaret I. Manning
Over the past couple
of weeks, Marty has been challenging us to get ‘back to the bible.’ He’s stressed the importance of cultivating
and growing an authentic faith, not based on theological systems, or on
doctrinal creeds and formulations, but on the living word of God. Now, I agree with Marty – we need to get
‘back to the bible’…but, which bible do we go back to? There are so many English translations to
choose from – which one is the best translation? Many would argue that we should go back to the King James Version
– because it is the oldest English translation of the bible – or, what about
the New International Version, or the New Revised Standard Version which uses
inclusive language for women and men?
How about paraphrases like the Living Bible or the Jerusalem Bible,
which put the English translations into a more readable (and some would say
understandable) bible? Perhaps we should
all go back to using the Catholic Bible which includes the Apocrypha –
important historical and apocalyptic writings produced sometime after the exile
and before the advent of Jesus – writings not included in the Masoretic text of
the Hebrew Bible, but that are included in the Greek translation of the Old
Testament called the Septuagint? Or,
maybe we should all go back to reading New Testament only in Greek; and perhaps
we should be reading the Hebrew Scriptures in Hebrew and Aramaic – but, we’d
have to learn all those languages and get used to the different arrangement of
Old Testament books than our English bibles.
Gee whiz, I just wanted to read the bible – I had no idea it could be
this complicated and with this many choices!
If this isn’t complicated
enough, how do I really get back to the bible when there are no original
manuscripts for me to go to – no original letter of Paul to the Ephesians, or
the original scroll of the prophet Isaiah?
All we have are various copies of early manuscript fragments – pieced
together painstakingly by various Jewish and Christian scholars in order to
make our Greek and Hebrew translations.
And what about these ‘other gospels’ we hear about – the Gospel of
Judas, or the Gnostic Gospels? Are they
are a part of the bible I should go back to?
What in the world is a person to do?
You can see that the challenge to ‘get back to the bible’ is not as easy
as we might think.
But, is there is
another way to look at this issue of ‘getting back to the bible?’ Perhaps, for example we should view the
multitude of translations, paraphrases and original language texts as the
desire of people from various cultural and historical contexts to pass on an
accurate and a culturally relevant translation of the grand story of God. After all, isn’t the desire to inscribe the
oral stories and traditions by these ancient people a desire to ‘enflesh’ or
‘incarnate’ the past in order to make it real for the present? The writers of scripture wanted to preserve
and pass down the stories from both Israel’s history, and from the history of
the early Christians. It’s just like
when you and I want to pass along the stories and traditions of our families –
we want to make our traditions and stories concrete, tangible and real so that
future generations of our family will be able to know and hopefully to
incorporate those traditions and stories into their own story. The written word, from Genesis to
Revelation, and even from those books that were not ultimately included in the
canon of scripture are all attempts to transmit and capture the living story of
God at work in history and at work in the world. And I don’t know about you, but I’m thankful to have a written
story of God at work in our world so that my story today can be illuminated and
informed by God’s story throughout history!
But, even more than
the written story of God at work in our world, God has communicated to us
through a living story. What do I mean
by a living story? In the same way the
writers of the Old and New Testaments inscribed their oral stories and
histories in order to make them ‘alive’ for future generations, God also wanted
to give us a ‘living’ record of God’s word to us for all generations. Our written texts for today tell us that God
communicates to us in a way that would ‘enflesh’ not only the essence of the
written word, but also the very nature and truth of God. Our texts for today also help us understand
that when we say we need to ‘get back to the bible’ the primary concern is not
about ‘which translation’ but about the
One to whom the bible points. For
our texts today tell us that Jesus is God’s living bible, God’s ultimate
act of incarnation and the enfleshment of the very nature and truth of God. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews
tells us that “in the former days, the days of old, God spoke through the
prophets; but in these last days, God has spoken to us by a Son.” And in the gospel of John we are told that
God’s ultimate word to us, God’s ultimate form of speech is the enfleshment of
God’s word to us in the person of Jesus – “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we
have beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from God.”
Did you hear
that? These writers of the written word
tell us that the ultimate, final, definitive word of God is in fact not a
writing at all – but, THE WORD BECAME FLESH, Jesus Christ – the person who came
to reveal God to us and to illuminate the truth of God for us. Jesus is the living bible, and it is to
Jesus that we must return over and over again as we ‘get back to the bible.’ We
must look to Jesus as THE WORD to us on how to live today in order that we
might faithfully continue to pass on God’s story to future generations.
Even though the
writers of scripture make a distinction between what had been inscribed – the
law and the teachings of the prophets – and the living word, Jesus Christ, we
should in no way think that somehow the advent of Jesus as the living word
nullifies or invalidates the written word.
Indeed, the two have something of a reciprocal relationship. All of written scripture points to the living
word, Jesus, and to God’s wonderful salvation history through Israel to
us. Jesus then is the fulfillment of
the written word – all of the written word finds its meaning and its completion
in the life and teachings of Jesus – because Jesus is the living embodiment of
Israel’s law and prophets! This seems
to be what Jesus says about himself in the Sermon on the Mount when he warns
the people, ‘do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I did
not come to abolish but to fulfill.’[1] So, at the heart of Jesus’ proclamation
through his life, death, and resurrection is the climax of the story of
scripture. In his life, Jesus
enfleshes, climactically and decisively, what scripture – through the law and
the prophets to Israel - had in a sense been trying to do: bring God’s fresh Kingdom-order
to God’s people and then to the world.
Jesus is in that sense, the Word made flesh and he is the living picture
of what it looks like to live in God’s kingdom-order.
Therefore, as THE
living bible for us, we must get back to the life and teachings of Jesus so
that we can understand how we must live as citizens of God’s kingdom in this
world. And as we listen to The
Word we learn to orient our lives around the truth of scripture. Let me explain this by telling you two
important truths that Jesus illustrates for us. First, Jesus reveals the character of God and the nature of our
relationship to God. The author of
Hebrews tells us: “Jesus reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of
God’s nature.” If we have questions
about God - who God is and how God is at work in the world, we need to go back
to Jesus, the living bible who reveals God to us in the way he lived and taught
and worked among us, as one of us. So
the written, gospel record of the life and teachings of Jesus tell us, for
example, that God relentlessly pursues us for relationship even while we ‘are
still a long way off.’ We learn this from Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep,
the lost coin and the lost son in Luke 15.
We learn from Jesus what God requires of us in our relationship with God
– “love God and love your neighbor as yourself;” “do this”, Jesus tells us,
“and you will live, you will find life.”
In Mark’s gospel, Jesus says that this is the greatest commandment – the
fulfillment of the law. I could list
many other teachings and events from Jesus’ life, but I think you understand my
point. If we want to know about God and
we want to know about our relationship with God, we need to return to the life
and teachings of Jesus.
Second, as the
living bible, Jesus reveals the way in which God wants us to live as fellow
human beings – to love our neighbor as ourselves. We learn not to judge one other, ‘lest we be judged’ by God in
the same manner. We learn that in order
to ask God for forgiveness, we must likewise forgive others – ‘forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ We learn from the parable of the Good
Samaritan that the question is not – ‘who is my neighbor,’ but rather the
command to ‘go and do likewise – to prove to be a neighbor’ just like the Good
Samaritan. We learn that God embraces
the other as we see Jesus healing and reaching out to the poor, the outcast,
and the unclean. In the same way, then,
we reveal the nature of God’s love by embracing those God embraced and by recognizing
God in the ‘least of these.’ Finally,
we learn through the death and resurrection of Jesus that loving others requires
the very sacrifice of our lives
– but that in that sacrifice,
new life, abundant life, and real life are not only possible, but the reality
of life in God’s kingdom. In telling
the disciples about his death and resurrection, Jesus tells us as well –
“unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself,
alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit; I have come that you might have
life and have it abundantly.”[2] Likewise, “if anyone wishes to come after
Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me – for whoever
wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake
and the gospel’s will save it.”[3]
You see, far more
important than issues of translation, original autographs or paraphrases, is
whether or not you and I proclaim the living bible by the way we live our
lives. As you and I return to Jesus
Christ, the WORD MADE FLESH and pattern our lives after his life, you and I become
living bibles –revealing the truth about God to the world God
loves. Our lives can be and should be
the living translation of God and God’s ways as we follow Jesus Christ. And in this way, as we pattern our lives
after the living Word, the written word of God has authority and power. British New Testament scholar N.T. Wright
says it this way: “The authority of scripture is most truly put into operation
as the church goes to work in the world on behalf of the gospel, the good news
that in Jesus Christ the kingdom of God has come and the living God has
defeated the powers of evil and begun the work of new creation in this
world.”
So, I know many of
you want to know which translation I would recommend to you. I recommend the Transformation translation –
that translation of the bible that leads you to more closely follow and more
dearly love THE WORD of GOD, Jesus Christ.
Let us pray.