(a long post — sorry!)
This summer I am wrestling with the idea that scriptural authority, though it be front and center in our faith and theology, does not preclude us from new understandings of the Triune God. In fact, the opposite is true. We believe that “Indeed the scripture is living and active” as Hebrews has it. The long season of Pentecost begs us to engage the text with the living and active Holy Spirit pushing and pulling us into new dimensions of understanding and experiencing the grace and mercy, the love of Almighty God. This was the center of Jesus’ own ministry, an on-going dialogue with the religious establishment about new commandments, new realities, and new life. It was costly to him. Suffering and death costly. “Blasphemer” is what humanity shouted at him. Jesus was right. They had little idea of what they were doing.
For many in the church, this idea of “continuing revelation” is blasphemy all the same. Scripture itself seems to say so — via Moses, who when giving Israel holy commandments from God says “You must neither add anything to what I command nor take anything away from it..” Yet our struggles reveal we still have much to learn about murder, and coveting, and keeping holy the sabbath day. We have not arrived friends! Or right there at the very end of Revelation, we read an ominous word, it seems: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city.” Yowsah!
In my thinking, our fatal flaw is our assumption that we actually have in our possession a clear, full and final understanding of God and God’s ways, evidenced by the line we often throw out at one another: “I’m going to stick with what the Bible says.” We see, but dimly. We have much yet to learn, as Paul encourages the church: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ…”
Which brings up another most important point about biblical authority and continuing revelation. That is Jesus, who is the Word, capitol W, who is the holy sounding board, the One sent from God by which we interpret and understand all scripture. Jesus IS the scripture embodied. Watch and listen to him. Follow him. Allow him to interpret scripture, and follow his way. Our tendency in the Church, because we give scripture authority, is to make an idol out of it, even replace Jesus with it. This always leads us to become afraid and sectarian, to lose our impulse to love, and to call those who are pushing us to wonder and learn new things blasphemers all over again.
I was reflecting on all of this while sitting out on the seemingly endless strand of ocean beach of Nantucket sound on Cape Cod just a few days ago. Sitting with my father-in-law, I asked him if it seemed that from the far right to the far left horizon that we could actually see a bit of the curvature of the earth against the brilliant blue sky. He said, “It seems so.” Proceeding into the deliciously warm water arriving from the tropics, I thought about Galileo. Yes, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who was investigated by the church in 1616 for sitting out on some such beach strand under the night sky with his invented telescope to discover that the universe was not geocentric (everything revolves around the earth, a long held view rooted in scriptural interpretation) but rather heliocentric (earth revolves around the sun). He was put on trial by the church and convicted of heresy on June 22, 1633. To avoid being tortured, he recanted his claims though he knew them to be true, and was given instead a life sentence of house arrest. It was not until November of 1992, 359 years later, that Pope John Paul II officially declared that Galileo was right!
Reading the Bible in a more literal sense than was intended found the church threatened and so unable to accept new important learnings. New ideas, new insights were threats rather than possibilities, and their perpetrators were dangerous and so deemed heretics.
From all this, here are some thoughts to ponder:
First, we need to return again and again to a humble posture of openness that is rooted in our acceptance that we see dimly and have so much new biblical/theological territory to explore. We need not be afraid but are in fact encouraged (with the help of the Holy Spirit and discerning spiritual community) to do so.
Second, the progression of humanity through time adds to our learning and understanding. To give scripture authority should not put us in opposition to or make us fearful of all that our human development is revealing to us about the wonders of God’s beauty and love.
Third, we must root our biblical and theological understanding and interpretation of scripture in Jesus and the Kingdom of God as we find it in the gospels, who embodies all truth and goodness and love.
Fourth, We must recognize our constant tendency in and as the church to reject new thoughts and ideas, and their messengers. In so doing, we may well be stifling some new dimension of God’s love and truth that the Holy Spirit wants to teach us.
Fifth, We must repent of our constant sin of limiting God, of seeking to border the wonder of God for our religious purposes which are often rooted in our desire for power and control over others. Our God is in fact much too small.
Sixth, and flowing from all these other thoughts, we must relinquish our fear-based religious framework and journey with God — Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer — who is all about always making all things new.
We always, involved in life, have a litmus test. The Risen Christ invites us into life, and a love that transcends every human limit, boundary, and judgment. Such is the radical call to the radical Christ.
I could go on here deep in my wrestling, and I’d love to wrestle along with you in the Spirit’s reach. Let me know what thoughts you have. I know I most of all see dimly!
Ending with a prayer for the back of ur hymnal, #921, from Herbert Brokering:
Lord, call us into the church. Call us in often, and teach us the old words and old songs with their new meanings. Lord, give us new words for the old words we wear out. Give us new songs for those that have lost their spirit. Give us new reasons for coming in and for going out, into our streets and to our homes. As the house of the Lord once moved like a tent through the wilderness, so keep our churches from becoming rigid. Make our congregation alive and free. Give us ideas we never had before, so that alleluia and gloria and amen are like the experiences we know in daily living. Alleluia! O Lord, be praised! In worship and in work, be praised! Amen.
Love from Here!
Peter Hawkinson
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