A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church
January 23, 2011
Quoting the Bible can be a tricky business. We’ve already seen that this morning.
First of all, it mentions God – a lot. And, some of us have issues with the Biblical God.
Second, for some of us, the Bible evokes memories from our childhood that get in the way.
For some, these memories are sentimental, but immature; for some, the memories produce anger; for others, what we learned from or about the Bible as children feels so remote from our actual lives, quoting from it seems pointless.
For others with more positive and evolved childhood associations with the Bible, we’d like to understand more about it so that we could quote it or, even better, find real meaning in it for ourselves, but we have not taken the time to study it or, if we do attempt to read it, we do not receive the guidance necessary for apprehending this complex, diverse collection of writings spanning centuries.
Third, whether we have childhood memories or not, quoting the Bible is tricky because it is full of things that “ain’t necessarily so.” Like we just heard the dope peddler Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess sing, we “take the gospel whenever it’s possible, with a grain of salt.”
So, for all of these reasons, religious liberals are likely to own a Bible more as a trophy, setting it on a bookshelf alongside our copies of the Qur’an, the Iching, the BhagavadGita, and the Tanakh and leaving it there, never to be read. Just like this parody written by a Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Christopher Raible and published in his spoof hymnal “Songs for the Celebration of Strife,” to be sung now by Sherry Mitchell.
Forward through the pages.
Never read a line.
Honor all the scriptures,
Think them all just fine.
Books of differing sizes
Spread across our shelves;
We will never read them;
We think for ourselves.
What a loss. Like my colleague John Buehrens said in our Reading this morning, by leaving the Bible, the text of our forebears, on the shelf, we relinquish its interpretation to those who do know and study it and would, for the most part, use it against the truths we hold to be self‐evident. When they use the Bible to deny the inherent worth and dignity of gay, lesbian, bi‐sexual and transgender people, or immigrants; when they use it to proclaim dominion over the interconnected web of all that exists instead of stewardship for it; when they use it to impose their religious beliefs regarding abortion and marriage on everyone else… they will win the faith‐based arguments, if we know nothing about the Bible.
I don’t know about you, but for me, my gut feeling is: avoid those arguments. Rather than getting into the specifics of this verse or that, I prefer to make a general statement about the underlying principles of the Christian faith.
I would say, “It seems to me that Jesus preached and lived a philosophy of inclusion and love. He valued those who were looked down upon in his day, the prostitute and the tax collector, and in his story about the mugging on the Jericho Road, he depicted the lone traveler from Samaria as the do‐gooder because his listeners despised Samarians. Today, he would have it be a gay man, a transgender person or an undocumented immigrant who stopped to help the victim on the side of the road. Jesus said, “Love your neighbors as yourself.” He never said anything about homosexuality that we know of, but I have to believe that if he were here today “out” GLBT people would be among his disciples and he would be preaching a gospel of love inclusive of them. And, he’d be blessing their marriage commitments. “ That’s what I would say.
But, there are a few Bible passages that are simply misunderstood, and so are worth explaining to opponents of gay rights. The meaning of the story of the city called Sodom in the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, is not that God punished the city for homosexuality, but for being inhospitable, because a mob of local men threatened to rape visiting male travelers who had been offered a safe place to stay. As Methodist Biblical scholar Walter Wink writes in an article published in the UUA’s Welcoming Congregation Handbook, “Their brutal gang‐rape has nothing to do with the [question] of whether genuine love expressed between consenting persons of the same sex is legitimate or not.”
Another misunderstood text, from the Christian scriptures, seems to denounce homosexuality. But actually the text in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome describes lust‐full, passing acts not genuine same‐sex love. So, it’s not prohibiting homosexual marriage. It’s prohibiting promiscuity. Besides, Paul cautioned followers of Jesus to avoid all sexual relationships, even heterosexual marriage, if they could – but I and many scholars think that’s because he believed the second coming of Jesus was imminent, so why bother with long term commitments? Also, if Christians today don’t go along with Paul’s instructions condoning slavery or requiring women to be silent in church, why would they feel they had to follow what they (falsely) interpret to be a condemnation of homosexuality?
Last weekend, we were reminded that the Bible can also be used powerfully for liberation and justice. We were reminded of that fact as we heard, watched and read speeches and sermons of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The timbre of his voice and the cadences of his speech – so familiar even still – are one with the Biblical imagery he uses.
In this part of his “I Have a Dream” speech for the March on Washington in 1963, King drew on great American texts and also on the Bible, shoring up both secular and religious arguments for freedom for African Americans. Listen for his sources.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
Those same words at the end, taken from the book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Scriptures, are set to music, too, for example as sung in Handel’s Messiah “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain.”The Bible inspires great music, as well as great oratory.
The Bible inspires; it teaches, too. From it we find out that humans have not changed all that much over thousands of years. For example, the Ten Commandments teach us is that we’ve had the same temptations for a very long time: we easily become idolatrous of things not worthy of our worship, we work too much (therefore we should keep the Sabbath), we don’t respect our parents, and we kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, and waste our energy wishing for what we do not have (which the Bible calls “covet.”)
If we read, watch or listen to the news and pay attention to our history, both personal and public, and we will see that people still need to be called to their better selves in regard to these same transgressions, over and over again.
The Bible inspires, teaches, and it can offer great comfort, too. For example, the 23rd Psalm. Remember the words sung by Don Mitchell earlier:
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff — they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.
The 23rd Psalm has been evoking feelings of well-being for millennia. It can evoke such strong feelings of safety for us, too. We all have times of great weariness, insecurity or danger when – even for the least outdoorsy among us — just the thought of lying down in a pasture, near a quiet pond, lake or lazy river, provides reassurance. Imagine you are gazing up at the sky, seeing shapes in the clouds, feeling the solid earth beneath your heels, legs, hips, back, shoulders and the back of your head. It does restore the soul. Renewed, we find ourselves able to make the next right choice, and fear nothing, not even the presence of enemies. We are filled with gratitude, and then sureness that life will go on, that everything will be alright, that we belong in this universe, that it will hold and house us until we die.
For those who know God, God would be there with us by those still waters. But the experience of feeling held by the universe, supported by the earth, can be had by anyone who opens themselves to the comfort of these words.
The Bible inspires, teaches and comforts. This is the beauty of the Bible. This is what the Bible offers to those who ask questions of it that lead to deeper meanings: what was the purpose of this story? Why was it important to those who told it, to those who wrote it down? What deeper insight was it intended to convey? What meaning might I find in it for myself, for my life, at this very time?
If you take your Bible off the shelf, don’t expect miracles. Don’t open it up at random, plunk your finger down, and expect to read something that transforms your life. You are likely going to have to work harder at it than that.
Remember that all translations are products of their time, and that the original story‐tellers had their own purposes for telling the stories as they did, just as the transcribers had purposes in their historical context that influenced how they wrote the story down. Don’t take anything too literally, not even your own objections.
Sit with it. Get inside it. Ask of it open‐ended questions. Use a guide or read with a partner. Listen to or read what others have said about it. Ponder and brood over it. Let it get inside you.
In an age of self‐publishing, blogs, posts, twits and twitters, the resonance of the Bible sets it apart. Centuries of regular use in temples and churches have given it a public persona and pervasive influence unique in American culture.
But, that’s not where I want to end this sermon. Rather, I want to conclude with the empowering ideas expressed in the hymn we are about to sing.
The words were written by 19th century Unitarian minister Samuel Longfellow, younger brother of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. By the way, I read that its title, “light of ages and of nations,” is his synonym for God. Listen as you sing for its faith in the continuing human capacity for wisdom. Listen, especially, to the third verse, in which we will sing, “revelation is not sealed; answering now to our endeavor, truth and right are still revealed. That which came to ancient sages, Greek, Barbarian, Roman, Jew, written in the soul’s deep pages, shines today, forever new.”
Indeed, we are just as capable of the inspiration that we imagine invigorated the Biblical story‐tellers and writers; just as able to tell stories that help us make sense of our experience; just as able to inspire, teach and comfort each other; just as able to receive revelations of truth and right. So may it be.