Whether we are considering a toothache, a tumour, a relational bind, a technical problem, crime or the economy, most individuals and most social systems, irrespective of their culture, gender, or ethnic background, will “naturally” choose or revert to chronic conditions of bearable pain rather than face the temporarily more intense anguish of acute conditions that are the gateway to being free. But what is also universally true is that over time, chronic conditions, precisely because they are more bearable, also tend to be more withering.” p. 60, 61
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Harry Robinson- Rest in Peace
My uncle Harry was likely the reason I am a preacher. I remember when I was about 12 listening to him preach as sermon where he described himself as a “bastard” for the way he had treated my aunt Fran. That moment of deep heart-felt honesty affected me. I can’t say I have gotten there in my preaching yet, but I hope to one day.
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3:55:17!
Sara’s Time in the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon. Over 17 minutes better than her last marathon- 10 years ago- before kids!!!
Way to Go Sara!!
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Sublime
I am a huge fan of Imogen Heap. This is just her and a piano. Absolutely wonderful, had to share it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/imogen_heap_wait.html?awesm=on.ted.com_3C&utm_campaign=ted&utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=site-basic
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An interesting article
http://www.wycliffecollege.ca/documents/Blessing%20_2_.pdf
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Crossroads
Well, once again we find ourselves contemplating at the crossroads. The Episcopal Church has and is ignoring the rest of the Anglican communion and plunging headlong into ordaining practicing homosexuals and no doubt, ratifying rites of same-sex marriage.
Can we in our “prophetic” diocese be far behind?
As I mentioned we must choose between whether we believe the Bible is human words about God or God’s Word about humanity.
But as I watch “the slow moving train wreck” (N.T. Wright) that is North American Anglicanism, I wonder if we are also coming close to another choice?
On the one hand, we have the example of our Lord who did not give up on his disciples, though they failed Him time and time again.
On the other hand, I have been wondering lately about the propensity of this palliative patient that is the Anglican church in North America to insist on pulling out its life support tubes, to resist all medicine and and all other opinion and to insist on its sexual obsession to its own demise.
I wonder about how compassionate it would be to give a blood transfusion to a patient that insists on choosing its own means of death. Would we do such a patient a favour by giving them a kidney transplant, for example?
Should we pull out and just let the church die the death of its own choosing? or should we follow our Lord’s example and “while we were yet sinners,” while we were pushing God away, follow Him in His substitutionary death for others?
I know what I would like to do, but I also know that I am a fallen sinner who cannot simply trust my own instincts. I continue to listen, think, pray, read, talk, worship and most of all, seek the faith to see “through the mirror dimly” the way forward for me as a husband and father as a priest and pastor called to leadership in this church, and most of all as a follower of Jesus.
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How did we get here?
We have traded holiness for “tolerance”.
We have traded truth for “inclusivity”.
We have traded the Good News of the Gospel for the ambiguous news of our culture.
We have traded Grace for merit;
Righteousness for self-authenticity; mercy and kindness for institution and power.
All around us the church is crumbling and people wonder why?
The hierarchy cries “This is the Temple of the Lord, This is The Temple of the Lord,” (Jeremiah 7:4) “The Institution, The Institution.”
But “God has left the building” because he was no longer wanted.
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The Authority of Scripture
Because I have a cold, I can’t do much but sit around and suffer. ( I know, poorrr me)
But I have been thinking about this situation in the church and its struggle with the authority of scripture.
It occurs to me that the present struggle is over two differing points of view.
One says that the Bible is humanity’s words about God.
The other says that the Bible is God’s Word about humanity and Himself.
Now both statements have some truth to them, but they are polar opposite points of view. It is where one places oneself along that continuum that determines how much authority one gives the Bible itself.
If the Bible is just a human point of view then it is all subjective and wide open to our interpretation and experience and any other variable that we would like to put in there. Indeed the Bible itself simply becomes one more variable in our search for higher truth. Humanity is at the centre here.
But if the Bible is God’s view of humanity, then that is a whole other story. If the timeless Word of God has been spoken into time by God’s Spirit through human authors for all time, then God is at the centre, not us. So that “we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this mortal life may repose upon (God’s) eternal changelessness.”
I wish I had said that at the deanery chapter meeting.
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The Authority of Scripture
Last night we had our deanery chapter meeting. It was a spirited affair, unlike usual. It highlighted the reality that we are simply two religions, not just two different viewpoints within the same church. Here is what I presented.
The Bible gets exactly the authority we allow it.
If your Bible sits on a top shelf, gathering dust, pressing leaves and containing your family tree, it may have a lot of weight but it carries no authority in the way you live your life. If you never read your Bible, if you never attempt to understand what is in it, the Bible carries no authority.
In the church as well, the Bible gets exactly the authority we give it.
Early last century, a German theologian, Rudolph Bultmann and others began to say that the Bible is just a series of myths, designed to give morals for life.
The Bible then is simply a piece of literature, like a Shakespearean play, or a Woodsworth poem, or a U2 song. It is inspiring. What you get out of it lies in the interpretation.
The focus is on reader to find the hidden and not so hidden meanings or morals in the Bible and interpret them for their lives.
The primary authority is the interpreter.
Some of the authority then comes from the Bible but authority lies primarily in the cleverness or the experience of the interpreter.
Historical criticism-
The Bible is simply a product of its times or reflection of the time in which it was written. While hc can be very helpful, (knowing that Atremis of the Ephesians was a goddess served by priestesses, is a helpful bit of information when reading the letter to the Ephesians- more and more there has crept in a retrospective reading of the text so that more and more Jesus and the early church looked more and more like the 21st century interpreter and less and less like the complete Jesus we meet in the pages in the New Testament.
All of this has made everyone very skeptical about a simple straightforward reading of scripture.
So one of two things happens- Anarchy- everyone interprets as they see fit, so there is no authority- or Hierarchy, everyone leaves the interpretation up to the professionals while they get to sit back and follow.
It is all interpretation. Everyone interprets things in their own way, and everyone’s point of view is valid, and everyone does what is right in their own eyes Judges. Or the Powerful and educated interpret and the masses follow.
Hear what the spirit is saying to the church- what we are saying, hear what the spirit of the interpreter is saying to the church.
However within a generation of this point of view becoming popular in Germany, the churches began to interpret scripture according to their own zeitgeist, the spirit of their age and what happened- the national church, followed and supported Hitler and the rise of National Socialism. One powerful myth was simply transposed or interpreted onto another. You can do that when the authority revolves around the feeling or conversation or experience of the
interpreter.
In the midst of this a minority of pastors had the courage to say NO.
“All sin has its being and origin in the fact that man wants to be his own judge. And in wanting to be that, and thinking and acting accordingly, he and his whole world is in conflict with God. It is an unreconciled world, and therefore a suffering world, a world given up to destruction.”
According to Barth, there is an infinite qualititative difference between God and humanity. Humanity, on its own, simply does not have the language or vocabulary to even begin the conversation.
The authority of Scripture then comes not from the power of the interpreter, who is consciously or unconsciously competing with God, but from God and His Word, itself.
Does that mean that we take the Bible literally?
Let’s knock that straw man down before it gets set up- GK Chesterton again says that we read the Bible literally “In the sense intended by the author.”
According to the genre- The Bible is composed of many kinds of literature. Poetry, Parable, History, Law, letter, Jesus and the early church used all kinds of literary devices. Some is Literal truth, metaphor, hyperbole, Was there actually a man who had two sons, one of whom asked his father for his portion of the inheritance. Maybe, but No probably not- and it is not literally necessary for the story to make the point of the parable of the prodigal son.
So we believe that the Bible has authority because it is God’s timeless Word to us and to the context in which it was written. It is God’s mind, communicated at the right time, in the right place for all humanity.
God is living and active and within the actual person writing, and within the church who chose and formed the canon. The Bible as we know it today.
What is often forgotten as we think about the writing of scripture is that God is living and active and within context, culture and language in which the writer was writing.
Claritas scriptura
What does the Bible say about itself? The word of God is living and active, says the writer of Hebrews, Paul in 2 Timothy says that Scripture is God breathed.
The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword that we might seek to use on it to take it apart. It is to teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Our first job then is to understand to seek to comprehend what the Bible is saying to us. Our next task is to use the Bible to interpret what we do not understand- to let the Bible speak for itself, our next task is to apply the truth we find and seek to live under it.
Put another way, when we read scripture- scripture reads us. It is a living book. The Bible is clear has enough that is clear in it to contain all that is necessary for our salvation, our rescue from ourselves and our destruction. It is we who seek to make it say what we want it to say, but when we do that- we see our selves and our priorities
God has chosen to speak His Word through the Bible, with all of its limitations and all of its power. But that should not surprise us- God to take on all the frailties and contingencies of our humanity in Jesus Christ. There is simply no higher authority. You can allow the Bible whatever authority you want, you have that freedom- you can ignore it, you can obscure it, or you can submit to it. Those have always been the possibilities open to people but only submission and surrender opens a person up to the power and riches that God has always offered his people. If you obey my commandments, we heard yesterday, my joy will be in you, your joy will be complete. That is God’s promise to all those who choose to submit to Him as He has revealed Himself in His Word.
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