Saturday 23 October 2010

Sermon for Sunday 24th October 2010 – Bible Sunday – Luke 4: 16-24 and Romans 15:1-6, Kim

(Remove all Bibles from the pews. Remove the choir from the choir stalls.)

Why are we removing the bibles? We don’t need them? If anyone has brought their own bible with them, you need to hand that over too! We are having a NO Bible Sunday.

What do you think to the idea of a NO Bible Sunday? Put your hands up if you think ‘It’s a terrible idea!’ ‘How could our church have a Sunday without the Bible?’

That’s the point.
- Without the Bible it would be difficult to worship God not just because the Bible shows us what God is like but also because most of our songs are based on Scripture. So no need for a choir then!
- There is no other book that can speak more powerfully into our lives than the Bible. So it would be very difficult to hear from God.
- Without the Bible it would be difficult to learn much about God or about our purpose in being in this world, and even more difficult to know whether what anyone else says about God is true.

For many people, No Bible Sunday or any other day is a choice they make, they have access to one but it stays in the cupboard or on the shelf. They don’t need it in their lives! They have it all worked out. It’s just another book - we’ll get round to reading it one day! There are other people though who through ignorance, indifference, or their own religious beliefs, many outside the church choose never to read the Bible. But for hundreds of millions of people there is no choice. Through barriers of language, illiteracy, educational needs or religious persecution they have no access to the Bible.

Do you have a Bible? How often do you read yours? Daily? Weekly? Have your children, grandchildren seen you reading yours?

We are fortunate that we have the privilege to hear and read the Good News not only in our own language but also in the comfort of knowing that we can do this freely – in the open – with no risk of arrest or imprisonment. If we have a problem, we can ask and receive help. But are we really interested in hearing and reading what God wants to say to us?

In the Gospel passage today we hear what God’s message is about. It was a statement made by Jesus in the synagogue and was as controversial then as it is now. He was telling everyone that He has come to restore what has been lost. To put things back where they belong! On one level, Jesus is insisting that those who want to follow Him should give back what they have taken dishonestly, and redistribute wealth so that those living in poverty can be ‘released’ from the economic ‘chains’ which bind them. On another level, He is making the point that He wants to bring release to those who are feeling isolated because of emotional hurts and physical problems. He wants to bring FREEDOM. Most importantly, He wants to restore a relationship that has been lost, the relationship between ourselves and God the Father.

If I were to blindfold someone and ask them to go and make me a cup of tea, they would not be able to do it. They can’t see – they need help – someone to guide them – issue instructions on where to walk, when to go upstairs, where the kettle is etc. It’s the same with the Bible. Without it we cannot know how God wants to set us and our communities free to be the people He wants us to be. We cannot know of the love and mercy of God for ourselves and others. We cannot find out how we are to live our lives. We cannot know how to be to those around us.

Those who have translated the Bible have done us an incredible service and have helped to look for ways for people to understand it. By translating it into our own language they removed one the hindrances to finding freedom. Freedom from fear, pain and addiction, to finding forgiveness, to finding that we are loved, to finding courage to face the future, peace of mind, liberating us from the tyranny of sin and death so that we are free to enjoy eternal life with God. But if we don’t read the Bible and if we who know of God’s love and mercy do not extend that information to others, then we are poorer for it and, worse still, guilty of withholding the most precious gifts of God from the very people who need them.

I have had days when reading the Bible I would skip reading the passage for the day because I knew the story. The familiar ones, which get repeated every year; the author might be different but the story is almost the same. Then, one day it dawned on me that I was missing God’s opportunity to speak to me and for me to hear what He was trying to say to me. The more times I read the same passage, the more I got out of it, and more often than not something different each time. Each time something unexpected was heard, something unfamiliar. Suddenly, a word or two would leap off the page and hit me in a new way and lead me to an encounter with God and on a journey I never thought possible. When that happens, in that split second, the living God who breathes through the words of scripture is there with us in that moment and the scriptures are fulfilled in our hearing. But it doesn’t happen if the Bible stays on the shelf or sits in the cupboard or along side the TV Guide.

Today is Bible Sunday, a day when we recognise the importance of the word of scripture in defining who we are as a community of faith. Today, like Paul writing to the Romans, we acknowledge that this collection of writings that we know as the Bible, written over 2000 years ago is for our instruction, our encouragement and to give us a sure hope. Yet we also know the sorrowful truth that those words around which we are called to gather are too often a source of division; words of hope and encouragement are too easily used to judge and condemn; the good news of Jesus Christ can too readily become the bad news or human ego and human defensiveness.

The Bible has nothing to do with moral high ground – it has everything to do with the living God whose word is spoken through the scriptures. I believe that when you take the scriptures and you read them regularly and pray them passionately you find that what you get is not certainty but possibility; what you get is not always answers but questions that leave you longing for more; what you get is not definite direction but a compelling call to go deeper into the mystery of this always new and every surprising God; what you get is not grounds for self-justification but the reality of a God who embraces our human vulnerability and sinfulness and who in living, dying and rising opening the door to life in all its fullness.

Today and everyday we are called to follow the pattern of the living Word, as we enter with Jesus Christ into his dying and rising. Today and everyday we are called to read and pray so that the word of God will become so familiar that the ears of our hearts may be tuned to listen for the unfamiliar and the unexpected and to the possibilities this God of life and love longs to offer to all of us, you and me alike. There will of course be days when the words of scripture will stay fixed and lifeless on the page; when there’s no sign of movement. We will too experience times when the light of dawn seems far away and the night seems endless. But as we journey each day with the dying and rising with Christ, we will be able to keep believing, keep the scriptures being fulfilled in our hearing – for it is the reality of the living God who dwells amongst us in the Word made flesh – that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

They lie on the table side by side, The Holy Bible and the TV Guide.
One is well worn and cherished with pride.
Not the Bible, but the TV Guide.
One is used daily to help folk decide.
No, not the Bible, but the TV Guide.
As the pages are turned, what shall they see?
Oh, what does it matter, turn on the TV.
So they open the book in which they confide.
No, not the Bible, but the TV Guide.
The Word of God is seldom read.
Maybe a verse before they fall into bed.
Exhausted and sleepy and tired as can be.
Not from reading the Bible, from watching TV.
So then back to the table side by side, Lie the Holy Bible and the TV Guide.
No time for prayer, no time for the Word,
The plan of Salvation is seldom heard.
But forgiveness of sin, so full and free,
Is found in the Bible, not on TV.

Questions:
1. How often do you read the Bible? If not often, what stops you from reading it? How can we help you to make it an everyday event?
2. Does God speak to you in the Bible? If not, is there a reason why not?
3. If God does speak to you, how does he do so?
4. How can we hear more?
5. Luke tells us Jesus had a habit of going regularly to the synagogue. He also knew the Scriptures. What can we learn from this?

2 comments:

PMc said...

As today is the 23rd of October 2015, it struck me that today is also 5 years to the day since this sermon was posted online.

I'm amazed that no comments have been left regarding the above sermon!

So may I say that it has touched me very deeply with its content.

I felt that the poem about 'The Holy Bible and the TV Guide'was written to awaken me again to the wonder, the glory and the cutting truth of the Bible. On many an occasion, the person in the poem has been me!

And then what blessed words from the sermon that I wish to read and read again:

But as we journey each day with the dying and rising with Christ, we will be able to keep believing, keep the scriptures being fulfilled in our hearing – for it is the reality of the living God who dwells amongst us in the Word made flesh – that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Praise God for such marvellous words! ... and may the Word made flesh encourage me to share his message with others along the way.

Paul McLaughlin / Lincolnshire


Unknown said...

I am amazed that there are no comments.

Remove Bibles from church is exactly what I will be doing this sunday. What is the purpose of keeping a book you don't read. They are very useful, the bible that is, as door stops, climbing steps, etc ... but if you don't read it it is as useful as a chocolate tea cup.

Bible Sunday 2019 is 27 Oct 2019. Also, when the clocks go back. So let's go back and read the bible.


Pastor Stephen - Evangelical Alliance.