Vital Spiritual Practices:

Scripture: Letting Scripture have its way with us.

By Ilene Bergen

September 20, 2009.

Nehemiah 8:1-12, II Timothy 3:14-17

 

About fifty years before Ezra read the scripture, before the Water Gate in Jerusalem, a huge disaster devastated the people of the tiny nation of Israel. The technically superior armies of Babylon had breached the walls of Jerusalem and invaded the city. They’d shattered the exquisite temple built by King Solomon and sent the cities’ brightest and best into exile.

 

The brutal violence and humiliating defeat spawned gut-churning questions. Where’s God? Has God abandoned us? How could God allow all this horror to happen? Is there a God?   

 

Decades later, the refugees were allowed to return to their homeland. Those who trekked back, slowly rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and then they fashioned a new temple out of the ashes of the old.  

 

As the rebuilding program came to an end the returning refugees settled in their own towns

and re-established a routine of life.  But those deep, deep questions persisted. Who are we? Who is God?

 

Ezra read from the book of Moses which includes the 5 first books of our Bible. They heard words from the book of Exodus: “I am the Lord your God,” (Ex 20) “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Sara, the God of Isaac and Rebecca, and you are my people. I will not leave or forsake you. The words of scripture Ezra read offered hope and joy to a crowd longing to be rebuilt as a community, longing to come home to God after many years away.

 

Ezra read on, and the elders interpreted. Slowly some tears began to glisten in an eye or two. More eyes filled with tears and soon the whole community was weeping. I imagine they wept as they heard the powerful words of compassion and care, “I am your God…you are my people.” They wept as they rediscovered words of God’s desire to bless the world and to bless the people of Israel in a particular way.

 

But the tears also came from sadness. They were hearing more than just words of comfort.

They also heard:  “remember the Sabbath”, “do not commit adultery”, “do not lust after anything that your neighbour has.”  (Ex. 20)  And tears poured down as they recognized how far they had strayed from being God’s holy people who loved not only their creator but also their neighbour.

 

In hearing the word of God, the people were being transformed. Their inner space, was being cleaned and restored,[1] to enable them not only to find new answers to those nagging questions but also to regain the desire to live as God’s holy people. Scripture was doing an inside job on them, changing them, and they wept tears of joy and sorrow all mixed up together.  

 

Think of the favourite verses we’ve heard this morning. Each of the favourites is full of words of hope and trust in God. Words we do not read in newspapers or hear in the evening news – “For surely I, (God) know the plans I have for you” (Jer 29:11) “Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find,” (Luke 11:9) “I am the vine you are the branches…” (John 15:5) These words do inside jobs on us. They are life giving words that change us, bless us and recreate us to be more like our saviour, Jesus Christ.

 

Scripture changes us inside but also evokes an outer response. After Ezra read the words of the law, the people moved beyond their tears to minister to the poor. The empowering presence and activity of the Holy Spirit speaks through the words of scripture and calls for an outward response: repentance, a commitment to follow Jesus, a desire to be baptised, a willingness to forgive or be forgiven.

 

Early Anabaptists, our great, great, great grandparents in the faith, emphasized the church as a group of believers and that meant that all members were urged to become biblically literate. Even though the majority of Anabaptists could neither read nor write, they learned large portions of Scripture by heart. Time and again Anabaptists in prison astounded their captors by reciting from memory the biblical foundations of their beliefs.

 

Historians continue to uncover court records with an amazing number of biblical references: the court testimonies of people who were unable to read!

 

All members of early Anabaptist congregations were expected to explain and defend their own faith biblically. They knew that the Lord Jesus was their master, and they would not exchange him for any other, even under threat of prison, torture and death. Their delight in the Word, did an inside job on them. It gave them courage and hope against incredible pain and loss.

 

When Jerome Seagers and his wife, Lijsken Dircks, were imprisoned for their faith and placed in separate cells, the only way they could communicate was by letter. Lijsken wrote to Jerome that the prison keepers had asked her, “Why do you trouble yourself with the Scriptures; attend to your sewing.” (Martyrs Mirror, 515)

 

Jerome wrote back counselling his wife, “…though they may tell you to attend to your sewing, this does not prevent us; for Christ has called us all, and commanded us to search the Scriptures, since they testify of Christ.

 

Scripture did both an inside and outside job on Jerome and Lijsken, giving them courage and strength inside  to do the outside, visible work of standing up for their faith. I imagine Lijsken meditating on scripture while the piles of mending mounted in her jail cell.

 

But if Lijsken were here today I wonder if she’d admit it wasn’t always easy to stay focused on scripture. Maybe there were times, even long periods of time where mending her captor’s clothing seemed more appealing. I don’t know…but I do know reading scripture isn’t always easy.

 

Sometimes we’re just too busy. We want to read the Bible but we can’t seem to squeeze it into our crowded days.  

 

Perhaps we lack tools or skills. No one has taught us how to come to Scripture with an open heart ready to receive God’s Word, like a love letter written to us personally. We haven’t discovered that the Spirit still breathes life into words written thousands of years ago.

 

Maybe we have questions about scripture we just can’t find answers to and we just can’t read it anymore.

 

Or maybe we’ve heard just enough to be inoculated against scripture’s power. At a children’s program, one year, a young child heard for the first time, the parable of the Good Samaritan. When the story teller asked the child, “Do you think a father would give his son his inheritance before the father died?” the child said “Of course not. That would never happen.”

 

“Well in this story,” the story teller said, “it did happen. Then the son lost all his money and after a while he decided to return home.”

 

The look on the young child’s face said it all. This will not be good. But then the father runs out to welcome the son and even throws a party for him. The young child just shook his head. Nothing in this world has prepared him for a story like this. He knows that’s not how the world works. What kind of dad would do that? His honest reactions reminded me. We often miss the depth and profoundness of the father’s love. We read scripture but we miss the point and so we stop reading, thinking we know all the stories anyway.  

  

For any of these reasons, we may have lost- or never developed-a love for God’s Word. We need to develop and maintain the holy habit, the spiritual practice of reading scripture. And as Pastor Steve encouraged last week, we need to start where we are, not where we wish we were.

 

The place to begin is to ask! Keep asking God for a hunger for the Word. Ask daily - if you remember to-until slowly a love for God’s Word takes root.

 

Make time . Ask God to help you find or create a time- a few uninterrupted minutes you can spend with God each day.

 

Start small . Start where you are and set realistic goals, 5 minutes a day or even less. Or read and delight in a Bible story with your child.

 

Be patient . Waiting beside a railroad track doesn’t cause a train to come, but if we wait long enough, one will come. In the same way, we cannot force the Holy Spirit to speak to us through Scripture, but we can make a habit of listening so that when the Sprit speaks we hear. (Suggestions adapted from: Praying with the Anabaptists: the Secret of Bearing Fruit, Marlene Kropf and Eddy Hall)

 

Unless we read or otherwise “consume” the Bible, we miss out on this major gift from God who offers us in scriptures not only wisdom, comfort and revelation that do inside jobs on us but also offers the guide for living a Christian life.

 

In the middle of the rubble of this world, God’s word remains, forming us inside and out.

Words of scripture, if we allow them to have their way with us, will bless us and recreate us to become more like our Saviour. They’ll keep us in touch with what God has already done and what God is doing now in this world God loves so much. May we delight and grow in God’s Word.