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The Place of Scripture Spencer C. Lawrence, Church of the Cross, Hoffman Estates, IL, May 20, 2007 When I first began in ministry thirty plus years ago, I regularly preached sermons based on the Bible. I remember what a man – not from this congregation - said to me after one particular sermon. As far as he was concerned I didn’t need to use the Bible in sermons at all. It wasn’t that helpful to him. I confess I was surprised by his comments. I don’t think I have had anyone say that since then. It came as no surprise when I learned later that the man who complained about my use of the Bible had a reputation for being a serial adulterer. No wonder he didn’t like Scripture. The Bible has some things to say about that subject. This little incident raises important questions: What is our authority for preaching? Why do we say what we say? More important, what is the basis for our thinking about God and the world? Is it modern American fiction? Or psychology? Or sociology? Or biology? Or physics? Or chemistry? Or just what anyone wants to believe? Sociologist Robert Bellah in his book Habits of the Heart tells about a woman named Sheila who founded a new religion. She called it “Sheilaism.” It was based on what she herself decided was true for her. Sadly, we live in a time when thinking about God has become somewhat confused. Very often people both inside and outside the church don’t understand what the church has long believed and taught. Not only do they not understand it, they’re not clear why we believe it. Over my nearly nineteen years as your pastor I have endeavored to be a Biblical preacher. I have often followed the lectionary. Just as often I have launched out on my own. But always I have tried to tell you what I think Scripture means and how it applies to our lives – to yours and to mine. All this is to say that I have tried not to waver in my commitment to Scripture as the source of truth about God and what God expects of us. This is actually a very Presbyterian notion. For example, we ask elders and deacons and ministers of Word and Sacrament to answer “I do” to this question: “Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal and God’s Word to you?” We believe Scripture is God’s Word to us. It is true that our Book of Order states “God alone is Lord of the conscience” (G-1.0301), but that is a reference to the church’s freedom from control by the state. It does not mean that we can believe whatever we like and still be considered Presbyterian Christians. It’s also true that we believe that the church is reformed and always being reformed, but we understand that additional reforming is always consistent with the Word of God. It is always drawn from Scripture and does not contradict its plain meaning. We Presbyterians understand the Bible to be the final authority for faith and life. Paul exhorts Timothy to continue to be guided by Scripture. Here Paul is obviously speaking of what we call the Old Testament. He encourages him to continue to live in what he had learned and believed. He knew and could trust those who had taught him: his grandmother Eunice, his mother Lois and Paul himself. They were reliable; he could count on them not to have made anything up. Paul goes on to spell out some important purposes and uses of Scripture. Before I touch on the central purposes of Scripture let me say what the Bible doesn’t intend to do. The Bible doesn’t claim to be a scientific textbook. The Bible does not to tell us details about how exactly God created the universe, just that God spoke and it came into existence. (By the way, the “Big Bang” theory of the origin of the universe is fully consistent with the Biblical narrative. It fits in quite nicely with the opening chapters of Genesis. Actually, much in modern physics is consistent with a Biblical world view.) Nor is the Bible’s purpose to give us a full historical account of what happened in Biblical times. This is not to say that Scripture is inconsistent with history, that the writers just made stuff up. It is to say that they didn’t write history as we understand it. There are no footnotes, and at times the details seem inconsistent. For example, what about Jesus’ cleansing of the temple? Did it occur late in Jesus’ ministry as Matthew, Mark and Luke say? Or did it occur early as John reports? And how many angels were there at the empty tomb? Some gospels say two; others say one. So how do we explain these apparent discrepancies? What are the writers trying to say? The gospel writers were concerned to tell the story of Jesus as Savior of the world. They didn’t make up stories about Jesus, but they emphasized the information they had to make their point. We do that, too. A few weeks ago I received an email picture of my grandson Daniel. He was sitting up banging a wooden spoon on a pot. It is so cute. Lying behind him is my son Ben. He looked “cute”, too. But do you now how I introduced this picture when I forwarded it on to Ben’s aunt? I said something like: “This is a really cute picture of Daniel.” What was important in the picture was not my son Ben – I’ve seen him sit up a lot. What was important was my grandson sitting up. In a similar way the Bible writers emphasized what they thought was important for us to understand about Jesus. The exact details weren’t nearly as crucial and presenting Jesus as able to save us. This leads us to the main purpose of Holy Scripture. It is to lead us to salvation through Jesus Christ. The Bible has achieved its goal when it helps us understand that we have fallen short of God’s standards and that because of our falling short we have been stained by sin. That Jesus Christ came to take away our sin so that we could be clean in God’s sight. That when we give all we know of ourselves back to the God trusting in Jesus’ death God the Father will accept us and welcome us as children. Scripture teaches us that it is God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ that enables us to become sons and daughters of God. Look, if you don’t understand anything else about the Bible, if you don’t read it for any other purpose, then this is what you need to aim for. Scripture’s goal is to lead us to salvation through Jesus Christ. A second thing the Bible is useful for is to helps us know how to live our faith in Jesus. Paul says that because the Bible is inspired by God – “God-breathed” is a literal rendering of the word – it is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness. When we say that the Bible is inspired we underscore its uniqueness. The Bible is unlike any other writing. Some writings may seem inspired in the sense that they are filled with passion and strong feeling. They may seem inspired in that they reveal important truths about human nature – maybe even ourselves. When we say that the Bible is inspired we are talking about its origin. We are saying that the Spirit of God moved the authors to write in their own words what God wanted them to say. In short, the Bible is a book that we cannot casually dismiss. We may not understand everything we read. We may not like everything we read. But we can’t toss it out because of those things. Because God has inspired it, we seek to discover how it wants to shape our lives. In the Bible we learn that we are to worship God and to care for others: honoring our parents, not committing murder either physically or in our hearts, not stealing, not lying but telling the truth in love, not committing adultery but being faithful to our spouses, not desiring what is not ours to have – whether it’s another person or a thing. We discover how we are to love our enemies and pray for those who hurt us. In Scripture we find instruction on how to live in families, how to behave in the workplace, how to function in the church, the body of Christ and much, much more. God inspired the writers of the Bible to write things that help us know how to live. These instructions, of course, are surrounded by grace – love we don’t deserve and can’t earn. The point is that if and when we fail to live according to God’s plan, we can ask God to forgive us because of Jesus and help us begin again – just as if we’d never sinned. God’s grace doesn’t remove or water down the standards stated in Scripture. God’s grace helps us get up and get going if we trip over one of them. Scripture doesn’t explicitly address every issue, of course, but it gives guidelines for making decisions about them. Consulting Scripture is essential as we continue to work through major issues in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). One particular issue has surfaced once again. It is the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals as elders, deacons and ministers of Word and Sacrament. Just last week the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly issued a ruling which supports the current position of the church – i.e. the PC(USA) does not ordain self-affirming, practicing homosexual people to these positions. I know that there are many people within the denomination that disagree with this, but right now this is the position of the church. It has been an issue on which I have made brief speeches in presbytery meetings and once on the floor of the General Assembly. It is more pressing issue with me today because I now serve on a Presbytery of Chicago task force trying to figure out a way to implement the report of the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church in this presbytery. It is possible that implementing this report will have an effect on the larger issue of gay/lesbian ordination. What comes out of the task force will be debated on the floor of presbytery and may eventually affect the life of every congregation within the presbytery. Simply put, my personal belief is that the current position of the PC(USA) is consistent with Scripture, the Book of Confessions and the Book of Order. I do not favor changing a policy that has been affirmed by the church since its very beginning. Now I know this may sound harsh and uncaring to some. I am fully aware that not everyone agrees with me. Over my years in this congregation I have not made it a huge issue. On occasion I have stated my position – as I am doing today, but I have tried to avoid making it a focus of my ministry among you. This is a complex issue involving not only traditional Christian moral standards, but also compassion and the power of God to make us whole. While I’ve not gone out of my way to serve the homosexual community, I, on occasion, have done so without judgmentalism. Over the years, I think I have ministered effectively to people suffering from AIDS. I presided at the funeral of one offering mercy and hope for all who trust in Christ. I firmly believe we all need God’s mercy. My purpose today is not to convince you of my position – there is simply not time to try to do that nor is this the appropriate venue, though if you would like to discuss the matter with me I will be available in the lounge after the worship service. In six weeks I will no longer be your pastor. My work among you will be finished. But the issue of the ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals will remain. I urge you to listen carefully to Scripture, live under its authority - though it may be hard and even controversial, and, of course, show God’s mercy to all. A Brief Selected (Not Impartial) and Occasionally Annotated Bibliography Relevant Biblical Texts: Genesis 1: 26 – 31 – Recounts the creation of the first man and the first woman Genesis 2: 18 – 25 - Another version of the creation of the first man and the first woman and how they were made for each other Genesis 19: 1 – 11 (See also Jude verse 7) Leviticus 18: 22 Leviticus 20: 13 John 7: 53 – 8: 11 Romans 1: 18 – 27 1 Corinthians 6: 9, 10 – “Male prostitutes” and “sodomites” translate two Greek words which refer to the “masculine” and “feminine” roles in male homosexual practice 2 Corinthians 5: 16 - 21 1 Timothy 1: 10 - Language similar to that in 1 Corinthians 6 Some Secondary Resources: Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Robert Gagnon is an Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary – a Presbyterian institution. This is an exhaustive study of Biblical and extra-Biblical material on the subject.) Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse, Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate Jeffery Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Espouses a traditionalist view of homosexual practice. Satinover is a Jewish psychiatrist.) Thomas E. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow? Clarity and Compassion in the Homosexuality Debate Websites: www.oneby1.org (A website hosted by One by One – a generous Presbyterian ministry to gays and lesbians. It is led by a former lesbian) www.presbycoalition.org (An “traditionalist” advocacy group within the Presbyterian Church.) www.robgagnon.net (The website of Professor Robert Gagnon – see above.) | |||||
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