Time to speak up

Doing the thing I know how to do

It has been a long almost-three months since the election, and I have spent a fair amount of time contemplating how to respond to the current chaos. My choices are somewhat limited, given my age, location, and skill set. I’m not a lawyer, although I’ll be contributing generously to the ACLU as I imagine their workload will be astronomical for the foreseeable future. And I’ve never been much of an activist, really. A couple of protests here and there, but to be honest, not as many as I would have liked.

But there is something I can do, something I have done for many years in a private kind of way, whandich I believe is needed more publicly now. I have been a student and scholar of religious texts, the Bible most of all, for all of my adult life. Inspired by Bishop Mariann Budde, Jim Palmer, Jared Stacy, and others, I will be writing about what I know deep in my bones, the Good News of the Gospel and why it matters for those of us living through difficult times.

Today’s post will lay out foundational assumptions about how I read Scripture, and why I believe this is an important task. After today I will examine the Gospel of Luke, the text that many churches will be following for much of the coming year. I won’t always match up with the lectionary readings, but using that gospel seems a reasonable starting point.

Foundational Principles

First, when reading and thinking about any piece of writing, religious or otherwise, it is critical to keep in mind both text and context. In other words, narratives are created by persons who live in a particular time, place, and set of social circumstances. Yes, even biblical narratives. Attempting to apply “lessons” from the Bible without addressing the environment in which the text was composed risks missing the actual point of the story, or compromising its meaning. Addressing context helps the text make sense, both for then and for now.

Second, none of the books of the Bible were written in isolation, and the gospels least of all! While individual sections of what we now think of as a single book, The Holy Bible, circulated through the ancient world separately, collections (primarily of the Torah, the first five books) existed hundreds of years before the time of Christ. These earlier texts were known by the folks behind the gospels, and the content of the earlier writings constitutes part of the context of the later narratives. As one of my professors used to say, different parts of the Bible read each other, back and forth, as a form of internal commentary. That commentary should impact what we take away from each reading.

Third, and last for now, is what I call the “so what?” question. Why should we care about these ancient texts concerning the life and death of a long-dead Messiah? How do we apply these stories and the principles behind them to modern life without falling into the trap of making them mean whatever we want them to mean? Well, the first obvious reason is that they are already being used - I would say misused - as an excuse for the rise of racism, misogyny, gender-phobia, and the ugliest forms of nationalism in our country. I don’t know if America will prove to be better than this, but I am certain that Christianity is.

The further reason is that I and many people I know and love (and many more I will never meet) have found in the gospels a truth so profound and life-changing that it is worth sharing, by whatever means one can. Over the years, I have been a priest and preacher, scholar and teacher. This is what I do - it’s what I can do right now, and will continue to do as long as I am able.

Please let me know whether and how the Bible has shaped your understanding of how you individually, or all of us together, are meant to live. I welcome you to this new endeavor, and hope that you will find this work worth sharing.