The sun shone brightly this morning, sooner than I had hoped, I must confess, but gloriously all the same. A beautiful day awaited. A day to be seized, to be filled with tasks and challenges and opportunities. What’s that prayer someone wrote about mornings? Dear God, so far today I haven’t hurt anyone, I haven’t gotten angry or hateful, so far today I haven’t missed any opportunities or caused anyone to lose faith because of my words and my actions. So far, O Lord, I’ve been obedient to Your will and Your way. But I’m about to get out of bed, so I really need Your help! Amen.
Ah mornings, they are so full of potential. Paths radiate out in so many directions. Which one will you take? Where will you end up when the sun sets in the evening? Will you be closer to where you hoped to be than when you started? As La Donna was saying good bye today, heading off to yet another meeting, another conference responsibility, I said we need to make sure that we don’t let our vacation time this summer fritter away, that w really take time for ourselves. She said, that’s why we need to make a list. A list. Her answer to anything and everything. Make a list. Others would say make a plan. Chart a course. Live intentionally. Live alive. But how do we do that? What tools do we have to make our way in the world in a way that helps us stay on track, stay aware and alive?
We are starting our summer preaching series this weekend. It’s a series that you asked for. Well, you who are worshipers at Southport UMC, who responded to a survey I put out a few months ago. It’s in two parts. Part one is called “Meet the Bible” and Part two is called “Ask the Pastor.” The guiding questions were designed to elicit the kinds of questions or confusions or just general wonderings about the Bible and about Church. Church includes faith questions as well as practices, what do we believe and how do we act, those sorts of things. But that’s part two and will come up sometime in mid-July.
We’re starting with the Bible. Or, as I’ve been alluding to so far, the list, the chart, the guide to the path we could take to live intentionally. “Thy Word is a light unto my path and a lamp unto my feet.” I asked about parts that confused folks, I asked about favorite parts. I asked about parts that maybe we don’t need any more. I asked about anything else that folks wanted to know about the Bible. And I got all kinds of answers, responses, questions and concerns. It was great. There were specifics, some of which we’ll deal with in this space. But there were also some general questions or perhaps uncertainties. One of which was that problem of looking at the Old Testament and then the New Testament and wondering if they were talking about a different God. That’s on the list. We’ll look at that next week.
The other general question was basically this: how in the world do you understand this thing? No one actually used those words, let me hasten to insert here. That is what I was hearing from a variety of directions. One direction in particular that more than one person pointed to was how does someone look at a biblical passage and come up with one meaning and someone else look at that same passage and find something completely different?
Ah yes, the problem of interpretation. William Shakespeare wrote “the devil can quote scripture for his purpose.” Even he knew that a variety of interpretations can bring us to something far from what God intended in the Word. Some times what we read and what we are told aren’t really on the mark, on the path. So, how do we know? How do we stay faithful to the text, to read what is there and not what we would like to be there? Tricky questions indeed, and ones I probably won’t answer to everyone’s satisfaction either here or in the sermon that results from this work. Sorry.
In fact, in my usual tendency to avoid the real questions, I want to present a completely different approach to the issue of interpretation. And it grows out of the text that I chose to preach from this week. Take a look:
Psalm 139:1-24 O LORD, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. 7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 I try to count them-- they are more than the sand; I come to the end-- I am still with you. 19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me-- 20 those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
What I normally do in this space now is wrestle with the meaning of this text. I attempt, with the help of the tradition of the Church, to interpret the text. But let me ask a different question this time. What does this psalm tell us about interpretation? I know, kinda obscure. But look at it again. This time ask yourself “what is being interpreted here?”
My thesis in this wrestling with the process of interpretation is that the Bible is more interested in interpreting us than it is in being interpreted itself. The Letter to the Hebrews (or the book, or the sermon, or the essay called Hebrews depending on your interpretation) says “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Heb. 4:12)” Living and active, it says there. What we read is not a dead text, not just words on a page full of dusty ideas and ancient references. No, this word is alive. Indeed it is the means by which creation was made. God spoke everything that we see into existence. And it is what was made flesh and walked among us, full of grace and truth. The Word interprets us as we seek to interpret the Word. Which means is a good way to test whether we are on the right track in finding the meaning in the text is what is revealed about us? What is the challenge presented to us? What is threatening our comfortable place in the world? If what we interpret in the text is only confirming what we already know, then chances are we aren’t digging deeply enough. Chances are we aren’t listening hard enough.
Psalm 139 asks God to search us, to dig deep in us and find who we are and who we need to be as followers of the Word. It admits weaknesses, times of wanting to flee, times of being so angry we think it is a good thing, all that hate. It admits to living in darkness. But also knows that there is no darkness that can hide us from the Word, hide us from the God who speaks us into being. We are exposed by the Word. We are transformed by the Word. We made alive in the Word.
This morning, every morning is another chance to fly. Take the wings of the morning, only don’t fly away from God’s Word, fly into it. Fly with it. Fly because of it. The Word we strive to understand is the Word that already understands us. Understands us better than we do ourselves. Knows what we will say before we say it. Knows us. This Word knows us. What better way to greet a day than knowing that we are known?
Shalom,
Derek
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