September 29, 2002 - Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Philippians 2:1-13
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Matthew 21:23-32
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“The B-I-B-L-E, Yes, That’s the Book for Me!”

Today Chris and I are each going to do two things.  First, we’re going to give you our thoughts on the Scripture lessons.  Second, we’re going to talk to you about what Scripture, the Bible, means to us.  It seemed very appropriate to take this approach on the Sunday we especially focus on the Bible.  Needless to say, all of us who grew up in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School know the song from which we take the title, so we don’t need to go over that, do we?  Now, let’s find out why “that’s the book for me.”

Matthew’s Gospel presents yet another parable, that of the vineyard owner and his two sons.  The Jewish leaders are the intended audience for this parable.  They were the people who were so caught up in trying to discern the source of Jesus’ authority that they missed his message.  Today we’re invited into the same story and we’re to apply its essential truth to our situation – as it was applied to theirs at that time.  What we see here is Jesus leaving the door to growth and change wide open.

The key to understanding this parable is in verse 29, “but later he changed his mind and went.”  Here we’re told that God (the father in the story) gives us time to change and to become the people God wants us to be.  In fact, we’re reminded that it’s more important to be honest (“No, I won’t go”) and then change our minds than to say “yes” and then do nothing.

God wants us to follow because we’ve been touched by the authority of God’s love, rather than trying to conform for the sake of mere obedience.  “Do it because I told you so.  That’s why!”  God opens to the door to repentance, change, and growth for all of us – even offering startling examples of people’s lives where radical change has occurred.  Jesus talks about prostitutes and tax collectors who heard God’s invitation to renewed life and changed their behaviors.  I would venture that many of us know equally unlikely people who have been touched by God’s hand and have been opened to a whole new life.  It can happen.

Paul is telling the church at Philippi how it can happen because God has given us the model for change and growth in the person of Jesus Christ.  Jesus empties himself in a remarkable act of humility and in the process becomes absolutely transparent.  The light and love of God are able to shine through him in way never before through possible.  Clarke MacDonald has called Jesus “the window through which we can see as much as we are capable of seeing of God.”  When we begin to live that same kind of self-emptying love and humility, serving God and others as Jesus did, we will become transparent as well.  People will look at us and see through us to the Divine spark glowing inside us.  That kind of transparency changes not only us, but our community and our world.  Right now we need more transparent people – we need to see God present in the ordinary, in us.  It will happen when we “let the same mind” be in us “that was in Christ Jesus.”

The authority of God’s Word changes lives because it was first incarnate in Jesus the Christ.  God’s authority is one of example.  God has done first what he expects of us, commands of us.  God has loved in a ridiculously extravagant, radical manner – now we’re to do the same.  The Bible is the book for me because it tells me the “old, old story” of God’s love and I never tire of hearing it.  Chris . . .

Part II

I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.  Now what I’ve just said is going to mean different things to different people, especially as relates to one’s theological orientation.  So, let me explain what I mean by that.  When I use the word ‘inspired’ to describe the Bible I intend to speak of it as a ‘breathing’ or a ‘living’ Word.  I like what Thelma Hall has written, “. . . the Spirit whom Jesus promised to send in his name to dwell within us is the same Spirit who vivifies the word of scripture.  It is my active faith in this Spirit, present in the word and in me, which, when brought to the reading and hearing of scripture, “in-spires” or “breathes into” it the living reality of the Speaker.”  In the case of the Bible, this Speaker is God.  So, I hold that God really does speak to us through the words of sacred scripture.

That being said, let me also say that I believe that the Bible is a unique piece of literature in that it is a Divine-human work.  One way that describes this book, which is what biblos means in Greek, is to say that the Bible is the “Word of God in the words of humans.”  This isn’t an exercise in Divine dictation, but is rather the response of people who have had an encounter with God and have tried to describe it.  So, for me, the Bible isn’t a history book, or a science book, or a text-book, but a faith book.  It shows me how people have responded in faith and tried to live it out, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, over generations.

How do I approach this book?  Well, I think it is open to interpretation and I’m in good company when I take this position.  Didn’t Pastor Robinson say, “The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth out of his Holy Word”?  If the pastor to the Pilgrims understood that there is room to read, how can I not take a similar stance?  If it’s a living book, then there has to be room for us to understand it.  The Bible spoke to the people in the time it was written and it has continued to speak to people in every generation.  This tells me that a work that is, by its very nature, time-conditioned contains within it timeless truths.  Thus, with the great preacher Fred Craddock, I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally.  It is a book that I approach seriously, prayerfully, and respectfully because it holds within it wisdom and guidance for life itself.  It is a living word and it tells us of God’s berit olam, his everlasting covenant.

I have been privileged in my life to know people who have been serious students of the Bible.  Some of these have been incredible scholars, with whom I have been privileged to study.  These folks have spent years mastering the ancient languages relating to the Bible so that they could understand its every nuance.  They have sought to understand the Bible from every possible angle.  Some of them have studied it because it was their life’s work, and others because it was their calling from God.  I’ve also known folks who have only read the Bible in familiar translation, but who have studied it no less seriously and have allowed it to make a difference in their lives.  I know that I never tire of the Bible and even the most familiar passage always yields something new for me when I read.  What that tells me is that there is more here than any of us imagine.

I suppose the best way I can summarize my thought on this is simply to invite you to share the richness of this text.  Take a little time each day, and if you can’t spare that, at least some each week to enter into dialogue with this book.  It’s not always easy to read, but you and I both know that the things that are most rewarding are those which have challenged us the most.  Open yourself to hear what God has to say to your heart in this “love letter” and “living word.”  There is more truth and light here, but you have to enter into it in order to have it break forth within you.

Chris. . .