HUU Sermon Archives

“A Bible Read-through: Unorthodox and Un-HUU-Orthodox”

Presented by Chris Edwards
December 12, 2004

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Our chalice reading is from the Book of Proverbs:

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Prov. 31:8-9)

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I have a confession: I read the entire Bible. It took a year and a half. I finished this fall.

You may ask why this book, not another? Mostly the same reason you might climb a mountain you’d seen at the edge of the landscape all your life, before other mountains. But I do have a contrary streak – so I might not have started reading the Bible if I’d gone to a different church, even another Unitarian Universalist congregation. When we talk about our “elevator speeches” (how we might describe our beliefs in the time of an elevator ride), I’ve sometimes wondered if the most typical one here might be, “We support every possible spiritual and philosophical path, except for the Abrahamic faiths -- Christianity and other religions connected to the Bible -- which we scorn and support each other’s recovery from.”

Sometimes. Not always. And I think it’s about our different experiences. Unlike maybe many of you, I was never beaten with the Bible, or indoctrinated with literal interpretation, or Hellfire. I hope we can understand the different places we’re coming from.

I did not read the Bible to “get saved,” or find an old-time refuge from the 21st Century. I love stories, and characters, and the Bible is full of them – saints, sinners, lovers, tricksters, warriors, emperors, beggars; the Greek-like tragedies of the Houses of Saul and David; the more-dysfunctional-than-any-soap-opera Lot family; the moody, yet wise, preacher in Ecclesiastes; the wild sci-fi scenario of Revelation; the down-to-earth but subtle complexity of the Parables. What has struck me most in going through this book is how someone might find parts that spoke to almost any experience. Imagine reading the Bible long ago when it would have been the only book, and probably the only form of mass communication, in your home – and you may have lived far from the nearest church.

You could have found timeless observations that were eloquent:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

And others that were blunt:

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)

The words of Jesus may have given you comfort:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

...Or fear:

The days are surely coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. (Luke 23:29-30)

If you were cruel or vengeful, you’d find vindication in that book:

Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Exodus 21:23-25)

But if you were kind and life-affirming, you’d find verses to treasure:

To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure. (Titus 1:15)

Love thy neighbor as thyself. (Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:39;

I knew Jesus said that, but was surprised it is also in Leviticus.)

When you were young and in love, you might have come across the Song of Solomon:

Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come; and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. (2:10-12)

Looking into the face of a newborn baby, you may have felt the tenderness and hope of the Christmas story:

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger... (Luke 2:7)

If you owned slaves, you might have quoted the Apostle Paul advising slaves to obey their masters. But if you were enslaved, you might have thrilled at the children of Israel’s liberation from Egypt.

You may have found words that spoke for you in terrible grief:

A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more. (Matt. 2:18)

If you believed life was fair, you’d find agreement in the Proverbs:

The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the abode of the righteous. (3:33)

But if that did not quite fit your experience, there was Job’s perspective:

He destroys both the blameless and the wicked. (9:22)

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Turning to the Bible after each morning’s newspapers, I noticed a theme that both the genres are filled with: human failure. Antiquity could be soothing, after being immersed in the spin about today and powerlessness about tomorrow, but I saw human failure stretching back to when God tells Cain, “Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” (Genesis 4:10)

I became amazed that anyone can read the Bible as “God’s inerrant word.” It breaks down in the first chapters of Genesis. When details in the two Creation stories conflict, which should we believe? Then, where did Cain’s wife come from? Did he marry his sister, like one Apocryphal book says?

I like the ambiguity – the way the contradictory versions got stuck together with an innocent artlessness, like layers of sediment, or paint on old walls – tales from countless tellers, borrowing from sundry traditions, throwing genealogies and blueprints into the mix. But don’t look for easy answers there.

The further I read, the more it grabbed me how much I didn’t know: Hebrew, Greek, the non-Protestant Bibles, the stories’ Islamic variations. I chose the King James translation, for beauty, and the New Revised Standard Version, for clarity. Years ago, as an English major, I’d learned to read books like The Odyssey, and tales about dragons, the way I’ve read the Bible; not to expect literal truth but to look for these stories’ truths metaphorically, and find them blossoming on “a higher level of truth.”

I enjoyed stumbling on roots of familiar things. When my father, an agnostic, used to feed the cats, he’d often say “Consider the lilies of the field – they toil not, neither do they spin” (Matt 6:28). I thought that came from Shakespeare until I discovered the source was Jesus.

I took a course on “Women in the Bible.” Our text, Helen Pearson’s Mother Roots: the Female Ancestors of Jesus, focused on the five women who somehow get included, among scores of men, in the genealogy in Matthew. Surprisingly, all five had been associated with some scandal, or nearly so -- and, except for Mary, the mother of Jesus, all were foreigners. Each was strong and resourceful, doing the best she could in that patriarchal world:

• Tamar, who became pregnant by her father-in-law;
• Rahab, the prostitute who helped the Israelites capture Jericho;
• Bathsheba, known for her star-crossed relationship with David;
• Ruth, whose story is “protest” literature, according to Bishop John Shelby Spong. During a phase when the Israelites were trying to stamp out intermarriage with foreigners, this fable showed an admirable foreign woman become no less than the great-grandmother of King David.
• Then, Mary – who, says in the Magnificat,
  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:52-53)

I discovered it was too simple to see the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, as all-harsh and legalistic, and the New Testament as all loving kindness. Yet I saw an evolution toward mercy.

I have never understood how a religion that follows a Jewish Savior could persecute Jews, as Christians did for centuries. Yet I got a hunch from those thundering Hebrew prophets: They were the “loyal opposition” to their nation and rulers – not flattering super-patriots, but critics and protesters. Jesus carried on that tradition:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matt 23:23)

My hunch is that gentiles later twisted the meaning of that loyal opposition.

Who invented human failure – Satan? Or was he a hero, as some think?

Then, what are we to make of the main character in this book? I’ve never trusted the God who makes plans such as this:

...Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished. (Isaiah 13:15-16)

That God seems created in a human image, and what a temper! He “repents” after the Flood when he makes the rainbow to remind himself not to do that again. Later, Moses has to talk him down from destroying all the Israelites.

Those who write off God, and the Bible, stop there – seeing them in a mirror-image fundamentalist way. But John Buehrens, our former UUA president, points out that over the biblical centuries, “God gets better.” God becomes more spiritual -- less anthropomorphic – and sometimes feminine. Speaking through Isaiah, God says, “I will cry out like a woman in labor.” (42:14). Jesus says he longs to gather the children of Israel “as a hen gathers her brood.” (Matt. 23:37)

Jesus also says, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

The 1st Letter of John says, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us.” (4:12)

For me, human experience demonstrates that God cannot be both all-good and all-powerful. I like the Book of Job, which shows people in a very remote time struggling with those same ultimate issues we do. Yet the beautiful verses where God speaks to Job from out of the whirlwind inspire reverence for what lies beyond human power. Environmentalist Bill McKibben read them at the UU General Assembly in 2003. He thinks a lack of that reverence is why we have problems such as global warming:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the Earth?
...When the morning stars sang together
And all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? (38:4-7)

I’ve wondered how it’s possible to believe in eternal Hell, and at the same time, believe this passage from the book of Timothy: “Everything created by God is good“ (I Tim 4:4). And how can damnation be reconciled with Jesus praying for forgiveness toward his executioners?

What are we to take from the story of Jesus: That he died for our sins, so we’re home free? – Or, that here was the way he lived, and these teachings: could we follow them? Once Jesus asked,

Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. (Luke 18:19)

Was he God? Was he human? A group here is studying Elaine Pagels’ book, Beyond Belief, which talks about The Gospel of Thomas, one of the Apocrypha (books that might have been in the Bible but aren’t). Its short verses emphasize the humanity of Jesus and the divinity within us.

Jesus warned religious leaders, “The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt 21:31). We associate church with respectability, but I don’t think Jesus put much stock in respectability. He seemed to warn that you just might be a pillar of your church, and the Rotary Club, yet be less spiritually evolved than someone you see led across Court Square in a blaze orange jumpsuit.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matt 7:1)

I’ve kept my ears open for others who’ve read the Bible through. Many prison inmates, I’ve heard. And a young atheist, mad at God for not existing. A Kenyan Pentecostal woman whose husband was killed by a bomb in Nairobi, asking if she’d offended God. At least two friends here. And Bruce Feiler, who explored the Middle East to write Walking the Bible. Later, in a poverty-stricken town in Iraq, he found the alleged site of the Garden of Eden -- paved with concrete.

Human failure. Politics.

I was in high school the first time I saw a demonstration. An antiwar group held a large banner with a Bible quote: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4). The Civil Rights movement soon sang these words from Amos (5:24), “Let justice roll down like water...”

How did we get from there to the so-called “Bible Belt” issues of 2004? How did the loudest voices quoting the Bible become what we call the Religious Right – and dominate discourse so much that I confess I’m reluctant to read the Bible in public, not wanting people on either “side” in this culture war to make wrong assumptions about my side?

Has the Bible changed? Has its “ownership” changed? Does it matter?

As I read, I couldn’t help but compare the Bible with the agenda that politicians and most news media now assume follows it. I found surprises. I’ll offer them, one Religious Right tenet at a time:

Tenet A: - Anti-abortion: Ever wondered how many times that topic is specifically mentioned in the Bible? Exactly as often as stem cell research!

Tenet B: - Public shows of religiosity: Ten Commandments in courthouses, politicians advertising their faith. Many centuries before separation of church and state would be invented, Jesus said some things that seem to point there:

Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. (Matt 22:21)

Do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. (Matt 6:5)

Tenet C: - Creationism versus evolution:

I first heard most Bible stories from my 5th grade teacher, Miss Wright. Later, public school devotions were correctly ruled unconstitutional, but Miss Wright used the time well. She was a soft-spoken, gifted storyteller, and for a few minutes each morning, she told those tales -- Genesis to Revelation, September to May. Miss Wright also gave us a narrative at the start of each science period – that one starting with cooling lava, amoebas, dinosaurs. She never compared the two plot lines -- but I suspect she understood metaphor, and these words from the 90th Psalm,

A thousand years in thy site are but as yesterday. (90:4)

Tenet D: - Anti-gay: Today’s hottest Religious Right issue. The zealots cite certain passages in Leviticus, though not the ones that forbid wearing blended fabrics, gathering fuel on the Sabbath (punishable by death), or playing football (seeing that Leviticus forbids touching the skin of a dead pig). They don’t often mention “Love thy neighbor,” either.

The Gospels never quoted Jesus on same-sex relationships, but Paul mentioned them, and these zealots pick out a few of his words. Bishop Spong has an interesting hypothesis that Paul might have been a closeted gay man who never accepted that aspect of himself.

That speculation is an example of how any non-fundamentalist understanding of ancient Scripture must consider the variables of time, culture and the author’s intent:

Was it because the ancient Israelites were worried about dying out that they forbid all distractions from the goal, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:22)?

Was the disturbing story where God had Abraham prepare to sacrifice Isaac actually a message against a widespread practice of the time: child sacrifice?

Was Revelation meant not to foretell the End Times, but a First Century overthrow of the Empire?

Literalists call such thinking “relativism,” and warn not to pick and choose scripture. Yet we all choose.

Theologian Harvey Cox thought he found religious language in The Wall Street Journal, which he said seems to make The Market a Supreme Being. Maybe that explains a comment in The Right Nation. In a section on uniting conservative factions, its authors foresee (I quote) “the party of both God and mammon.”

In context, of course, Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

Which brings us to my title for this service:

Unorthodox: Is the Bible infallible? No!

Un-HUU-orthodox: Does it have something to teach us? – individually and as a society? Yes!

Buehrens knew a young American who studied Buddhism in Japan. After five years, his teacher asked him to return to his own culture and practice Christianity; if he did it well, he might be a Buddhist in a future life.

I’ve gleaned a few examples from the Bible that its loudest “thumpers” don’t talk about. These point to the vision which that student may have come home to share – a vision that inspired the Unitarian and Universalist traditions, and even supports the work of our little congregation’s Social Justice Committee.

The book of Deuteronomy provided an ideal -- never fully realized – for courts of justice over the millennia:

Ye shall not respect persons in judgment: but ye shall hear the small as well as the great. (1:17)

Historian Karen Armstrong, who rightly criticizes the ancient Israelites’ religious intolerance, calls their social welfare system a model for the ancient world. Deuteronomy said,

When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt... (24:21-22)

You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land. (24:14)

Leviticus set up a system to level inequalities: every 50 years was a Jubilee, when debts were forgiven and indentured servants freed. In 2000, some activists tried to get global financial institutions to call the millennium a Jubilee year and forgive the debts of Third World nations. Apparently that didn’t get far.

Jesus advised,

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...(Matt 6:19)

The earliest Christians refused to go to war. The book of Acts says “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all.” (2:44)

And Psalm 34 gave us this promise of God:

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. (34:18)

Our benediction will be a reading from a Parable that connects the human with the divine, and I think, suggests how we might get beyond human failure:

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me...Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. (Matt 25:34-40)

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NOTE -- Biblical passages are quoted from the King James and the New Revised Standard Version.

References --

• Books:
  • Karen Armstrong, A History of God
  • John A. Buehrens, Understanding the Bible
  • Bruce Feiler, Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land through the Five Books of Moses
  • Ted Grimsrud, God’s Healing Strategy
  • John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America
  • Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
  • Helen Bruch Pearson, Mother Roots: The Female Ancestors of Jesus
  • Bishop John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism
• Other:
  • Pamphlet: The Rev. Dr. Mel White/Soulforce: “What the Bible Says, and Doesn’t Say, about Homosexuality”
  • History Channel program: “Banned from the Bible” (2003)
  • Apocryphal Book: The Gospel of Thomas (available on websites including
    http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html)

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