Loading...Anyone get to go to Churchill Downs this week? Did you go on a sunny day or a rainy day? I did not go to Churchill Downs this year. I did not miss the track experience. I still feel soaked from last year.
In 2017 I splashed through the Pegasus Parade. Then I braved a wet and windy Oaks. Then I braved a wet and cold Derby. Three days of blustery elements made such an impression on me that I still shiver when I remember. That’s the wonder of memory isn’t it. Memory can evoke feelings within us which create the sensation we are in a place long past.
The gift of memory can build bridges and the loss of memory can bring bridges down. When we read Holy Scripture every week together in worship we are remembering events we never experienced and people we have not met. We come to Holy Scripture ignorant of what happened to strangers years ago in far off place yet we feel thirsty to know them better. My hunch is that you listen to scripture because you feel the connection between knowing and loving like its described in our baptismal covenant. Remember the place where we promise to raise one another up in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Knowledge and love are like the piers of a bridge that connects us to God.
The fancy word for the way memory builds a bridge is anamnesis. Anamnesis means Holy Scripture can evoke a sensation as if we have experienced something or as if we have met someone. Holy Scripture comes from the Holy Spirit who is the bridge-building expert.
Many people tell me they have a bridge phobia. They don’t feel confident about reading the Bible. They don’t know where to start. They feel obligated to understand and even agree on every word. In my experience many words in the Bible are easy to misunderstand and are often very disagreeable. Usually it’s the Old Testament I get the most complaints about. I will gladly argue this point, but the OT arguably contains the most misunderstood and disagreeable words in the Bible.
The sticky point is that the Old Testament contains the words which were most important to Jesus. Jesus quotes these words, he uses these words as a shield, clings to these words in his darkest hour and describes himself as the fulfillment of these words. So when we hear the beautiful poetic words of the first letter of John or John’s gospel, remember that they are in part inspired by all the other words that came before regardless of how misunderstood or disagreeable.
Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” How beautiful is that? And these beautiful words cannot exist apart from all the disturbing passages about child sacrifice and how to treat pus-oozing boils, and genocide. All that is in the Bible Jesus knows and loves.
If it sounds like I am belaboring the point I am. Because this sermon is taking a left turn into a commercial. I am advertising a limited Adult Education opportunity offered by our Deacon, Mary Abrams. Mary lives in Kentucky half the year and we want to take advantage of as much Mary as we can. To that end she is offering to facilitate a Bible challenge called the Bible in 90 Days. It’s just that. The Bible in 90 Days begins July 1 and follows a handy dandy guide. Those who who join her will read or listen to the Bible in its entirety. By the time we get to Revelation we will still have memory of Genesis and a sense of the abiding thread of God’s purpose from beginning to end.
The beauty of this offering is that it is for everyone and anyone. My friend Wilma read the Bible in 90 Days for the first time when she was 95. And for the second time when she was 96. My friend Jackie read it when she was 16 even though she had loads of homework. My ardently non-church friend Sharon read it not because she wanted to feel a sense of God’s purpose in the abiding thread of the salvation story, but because she loves literature and wanted to be able to say she read the Bible. Tom and Lynn read it together as a couple. Rebecca read it because it had been on her bucket list her whole life. Everyone who adjusted their lifestyle to allow for reading an hour a day felt they received far more than they gave up in that hour.
If you want to feel the sensation of what it feels like in the book of Acts when the Holy Spirit falls all over the place then spend an hour a day in a book dripping with Holy Spirit. I invite you to put yourself into a place where God is in the habit of pouring out the Holy Spirit. Invite a friend or keep it a secret from your spouse. Either way, avail yourself of the power of just reading reading the Bible with all its misunderstandings and disagreeableness.
Can you imagine if someone you love seemed impossible to love or behaved disagreeably. In that case I have a choice to distance myself or to probe more deeply with questions like ‘what don’t I understand’ and ‘exactly what am I disagreeing with? How can this friction help me get to know this person and myself better? Do I want to?’
I’ve walked through some dark woods. Every once in a while one of my companions along the way will say to me, “You are so strong.” I don’t know about that. What strength I may have comes not from understanding or agreeing with scripture but feeling secure that I belong in God’s salvation story. And that security is a result of simply reading the salvation story.
Join Mary in a 90 day journey. It is a journey I have taken 7 times myself and in which I have discovered both a daunting challenge and an incomparable joy. Also we will have a big celebration on the 90th day.!
I am saying these things to you “so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” Amen.
