The Centrality of Scripture (Psalm 119:105-112; Genesis 7:6-10)

Many of us who grew up in a Disciples of Christ congregation are familiar with the phrase, “No creed but Christ, no book but the Bible.”  This motto implies that Jesus and scripture are central to our faith, and that other tests for membership are not.

And it’s true today.  When we have a question of faith, we turn to scripture, and to the witness it bears to Jesus.  The early leaders of our movement believed this was sufficient.  Creeds, statements of faith, and other writings were not to be used as tests of fellowship.

As we continue our “Pastor’s Class” in this season from Easter to Pentecost, we continue focusing on the principles of identity for the Disciples of Christ, and today’s principle of identity emphasizes the role of scripture. 

It says:

We hold the centrality of scripture, recognizing that each person has the freedom – and the responsibility – to study God’s Word within the community of the church.

Scripture is central to our faith.  It’s important to read scripture, to know it, to study it.  I don’t think anyone here would argue that.

So let me offer you some tools to help you do just that, tools to help you carry out your responsibility to study God’s Word.

I have enjoyed watching the TV show COSMOS with Neil DeGrasse Tyson these past couple of months.  Last week, the show briefly mentioned the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest stories known to exist.  With parts of it written down 18 centuries before Christ, it is older than the Bible.

Among the stories told in the Epic of Gilgamesh is the story of a great flood that covered the earth, and a wise man – Utnapishtim – who was instructed by the gods to build an ark to rescue his family and animals.

Jews and Christians watching the show no doubt noticed the similarity to the story of Noah.  Some may even have thought that the show got it wrong, got things mixed up somehow, mistaking Utnapishtim for Noah. 

But the truth is that the story of a great flood is one of the world’s most ancient stories, shared by a number of religions. 

Back when I was a student and I first learned that some of the stories that we think are unique to the Bible are actually much older than the Bible – that the Bible took these ancient stories and adapted them to fit its own narrative – I wasn’t quite ready for it.

Having been a Christian all my life, and having heard the story of Noah – Noah, not Utnapishtim! ­– since I was a little child, I felt a sense of ownership regarding these stories.  As a Christian, they were, well, mine.  They belonged to me and my people.  As a Christian, I felt I could take these stories – that I had the right – to put them in a box, carry them around, and do what I wanted with them.  And anyone who tried to tell me that these stories didn’t belong to Christianity, that they were, in fact, much bigger and much older, well… they were just wrong! 

But they weren’t. 

The story of Utnapishtim and the great flood was written down a thousand years before it was retold in the book of Genesis.  It is one of the oldest writings of human civilization.

At the time, this was a challenging thing for me to learn.  But today, learning things like this excites me.  Knowing that I can’t place stories like this and carry them around, is actually amazing.  It’s wonderful.  It’s awe-inspiring.  This story, and stories like it, are bigger than I am.  They’re even bigger than my Christian faith.  The church cannot put these stories into a box and claim ownership of them, and I most certainly cannot.

A lot of Christians try to take ownership of the stories of scipture.  In the same way, they try to take ownership of God.  They’ll put God in a box and carry that box around with them.  Their box defines who God is.  Their box defines how the ancient stories should be interpreted.  Their box allows them to control God and control scripture.

But if God can be controlled, then God is not really God.  The one who controls God has become more powerful than God, and therefore has become a god himself.

We cannot contain God in a box of our own making.  We cannot contain the ancient stories in a box that we built.  We cannot contain Truth (with a capital ‘T’) in a box.

And what is the Truth that is contained in a story like the story of the Great Flood?  The waters symbolize chaos and destruction, and yet, through that chaos and destruction, humanity prevails.  Life goes on.

That is a powerful truth.

Does that truth depend on whether the protagonist is named Noah or Utnapishtim?

No.

In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods are so frightened by the flood that they ascend to heaven and cower like dogs.  The Biblical writers re-wrote the story to show a God who is in control.  Then again, the Biblical story of the great flood is actually two different versions of the story mushed together.  This is obvious to anyone who reads it.  The story jumps back and forth, and even contains contradictions, saying that seven of each clean animal came onto the ark, then saying just a few verses later that only two of each animal came onto the ark.  Why the contradiction?  Because it’s two different versions of the story combined into one.

Further truth that this ancient story is bigger than any one version of it.

On the show COSMOS, Neil DeGrasse Tyson mentioned that there were times in earth’s history when an asteroid of such enormous size crashed into earth, making earth uninhabitable for all life.  (This was long before humans or other mammals were present.)  And yet the ginormous impact of that asteroid blasted fragments of rock into space, fragments which carried microscopic forms of life with them.  These lifeforms survived millions of years on those rocks before they came back to earth as meteorites; and when they did, they re-introduced life on earth, so that, despite the total destruction caused by the giant asteroid, life on earth continued.

That in itself is kind of a Noah’s Ark story, is it not?  Life on earth is destroyed, and yet some of that life is safely carried by an ark in the form of a meteor, which returns to earth when it is safe for life to begin again.

It all kind of blows one’s mind, doesn’t it?

So, for me, scripture has become a sort of window into a world that is much bigger than the window itself.  Without the window I could not see that new world.  But it would be a mistake to think that the window itself is that world or somehow contains that new world. 

And yet, that is how many people do interpret scripture.  They think that the whole world that is Truth is somehow contained on the pages of scripture.  Scripture becomes a box in which Truth is contained.

For me, it’s the other way around.  Truth is much bigger.  God is much bigger.  Bigger than I can imagine.  And scripture is but a window into that world, an opening through which I can catch but a glimpse of God or a glimpse of Truth. 

Moses once asked to see God, but God said it would be too much.  What human could possibly see all that God is?  What human could possibly know all of God, all of Truth?  It’s too much.

But God did allow Moses just a glimpse.  God told Moses to stand in a cleft of rock, a gap or opening in the rock, and God would walk by … but as God walked by, God would cover Moses with God’s hand until God had passed, and then once God had passed, Moses could look and see only a glimpse of God’s backside; but God’s face certainly could not be seen.

I always laugh at this story.  If you take it literally, what does Moses get to see?  God’s butt!  And if I were one who interprets scripture literally, I suppose I’d have to, at some point, examine God’s butt – I’m speaking metaphorically now – and what exactly does it mean that Moses could only see God’s butt as God passed by?

I don’t think that’s the right way to interpret this story.

Moses has to hide in the cleft of the rock; that limits what Moses can see.  Moses can see something; but it is impossible for him to grasp everything. 

It kind of reminds me of Plato’s Cave.  In that story, people are locked in a cave and can’t even see out of the cave, but can only see shadows on the wall of the cave.  The meaning is similar.  There is so much more to reality, to Truth, than we can grasp or understand.  But we can graps and understand something.  A shadow.  A glimpse.  A passing image.

Scripture helps us do that.

And for that reason, scripture is central to our faith.  Scripture is a light to our path, as the psalmist says.

Scripture is not the path, and we cannot see the whole path.  But scripture does illuminate just that part of the path that is in front of us.  Just a glimpse. It is a light unto our feet.

The lamp does not contain the path.  Scripture does not contain truth.  It is not a box that confines.  Some people stare at the lamp as if it were everything … and they end up stumbling because their eyes are on the lamp and not the path.

God’s word is a lamp unto my path.  It guides me.  But it itself is not the path.

To me, that makes the stories of scripture all that much more powerful and meaningful.  These stories are not limited by my own interpretations.  They are not limited by the restraints I may try to place upon them.  They do not contain all the truth that there is, but instead point to a truth that is even greater and much bigger than any words can contain.

Isn’t that exciting!

The final part of the principle of identity says that we study God’s word within a community of faith. Well, why do we need the community?  Why don’t we just read it on our own?

Let’s go back to the window analogy.  Say you and I are in a room with a window.  We both look through the window, but because we stand in different spots, what we see out the window is slightly different.  Maybe you see a tree.  Maybe I can’t see the tree, but from where I’m standing, I can see a distant house…  I could insist that you stand where I’m standing, so that your view of the world matches mine…

Or, we could share with each other what we see through the window, each of us, from our own perspective.  If we do that, we gain a bigger picture of the world outside, a greater awareness and understanding than either of us could have achieved on our own.

I used to be afraid of what others saw through the window; afraid that it wouldn’t match what I saw. 

But now I realize that what others see through the window only adds to my own understanding.  They can see things from their perspective that I can’t see from mine. For this reason I keep an open mind.

Many seminaries these days are good at teaching students to appreciate these varying perspectives.  I had lessons and even whole classes on theology from different perspectives: theology from a hispanic perspective, from an African-American perspective, from a feminist perspective, from a gay and lesbian perspective, and so on.  Each perspective adds to one’s understanding of the truth.

So the more involved you are in a community of faith, and the more diverse that community is, the greater your understanding will be.

Which is one of the reasons this congregation is such a blessing to me!