Attentiveness

Reading the Bible without a Net

/ rtrube54 / 4 Comments

By George E. Curtis (1830-1910)[2] [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By George E. Curtis (1830-1910)[2] [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I work with graduate students who not only read books but read books and articles about the books, study manuscripts of the book, deconstruct the book, study books in original translations, and more. And I find this is what they want to do with the Bible. They want to get the best commentaries out of the library, understand what the text says and means in the original languages, understand the origins of the text and more.

I have no quibble with this per se’. Having attended seminary and learning something of biblical exegesis (though I by no means consider myself a biblical scholar in the professional sense), I seek to do the same when I’m in a formal teaching setting and have (or make) the time to do this work. Often, this work does contribute to enriching my understanding. I do value learning from those past and present who have worked in the same text and discovering whether my ideas are totally out to lunch.

But I also think that all of this sometimes becomes a “net” that may distract us from developing the “high wire” artistry of reading the scriptures well.  Furthermore, it seems to me that it develops a culture of “the expert” that says that only those who can read in the original languages can unlock the “secret code” of the Bible to us.

What I want to propose is that more fundamental than all this is simply bringing the practices of reading well to the Bible. My experience has been that there are scholars who read the scriptures poorly in spite of their scholarship (as well as those who read it well) and uneducated people who read well. So what goes into reading well:

  • Attentiveness to the text and to the literary art within it. The Bible, like any other book, conveys ideas through story, poetry, discourse and other genres and uses various literary cues to point us to meaning including repeated words, the climax of a story, the ordering of ideas, contrasts and comparisons, and figures of speech. When we read anything attentively, we pay attention to these sorts of things.
  • A willingness to suspend our judgment as far as this is possible while listening to the text and living within the story or poetry or discourse. Often this involves multiple readings and the use of imagination.
  • An awareness of the context of what is written. Outside sources can help, but often the most important contextual clues for any work can be found within the work if we are observant. One thing that is a good practice with any book is to skim first, then read closely. With the Bible, this can be a general skim of the whole to get a sense of the big story, or a skim of the particular book in which one is studying.
  • An openness to the text that involves a willingness to be engaged and transformed by what we encounter. When we are hostile, indifferent, or distrustful, it seems that our assumptions are those of suspicion rather than presuming the best.
  • Christians also believes that God provides illumination as we study scripture (and other things as well). It seems to me that it is not wrong to ask for this and to believe that if God is there, God wants to communicate meaningfully and intelligibly with us.

As I write this, I realize that this kind of reading requires mental effort. It is different from simply allowing a text to wash over me or have someone tell me what it says. I suspect that some of what motivates resorting to the “nets” of original languages and commentaries is that we buy the notion that this is a mysterious book that only experts can understand. I also suspect that sometimes, we are looking for a sure fire short cut to understanding. Actually, to really do the biblical scholarship thing right is itself a long-haul proposition and a little learning here may also be a dangerous thing. I can’t believe how many really bad readings of scripture I’ve heard that were prefaced by “the original Greek says.”

Most scholars of great literature will come back to the idea that whatever else you read, you must read and re-read these great texts and soak yourself in them. They are deep and rich with meaning that doesn’t yield itself to a quick, casual glance. And so it has been with my experience with the Bible. When I began reading it, there was much I didn’t get. But there were compelling stories, especially the various encounters Jesus had with people, poetry that gave voice to my longings for God, and instructions in the letters of Paul, John, and others that made sense.

Many who follow this blog are good readers. You know what it takes to read well. Whether you are a reader of the Bible or not, I hope you will do some reading “without a net”. And if you have the time, definitely use the resources of other scholars to enrich your reading. I just hope you won’t spend all your time in the net!

 

 

Everything Matters

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Rich, in his concluding message in the series on “The Christian and…” this past Sunday began the sermon with the assertion that everything we do as Christians matters and ended with the question, “does my life matter or not?” My immediate response to this is “of course!” And it makes me wonder why we have spent a whole summer considering as a church how all of life matters and how becoming more like Christ relates to every aspect of our lives. It seems to me that this should be as plain as the nose on my face.

Except that it isn’t.

Why is that? I think there are two reasons. The first is one basic to our nature as fallen creatures whose ingrained habit of living is to close God out of our lives except when we are really desperate. There is a part of me that resists God’s gracious overtures to make sense out of my life and to fashion me into a “little Christ” who is at the same time the unique person God intends me to be. Sometimes, the visceral response to these overtures is one of “sez who?” or maybe slightly more politely, “I can do it myself”. Sometimes I even pursue the really mixed up strategy of trying to meet the radical demands of following Jesus without his radical help. Call it being the male macho cowboy or whatever you will, I keep wanting to limit the places I let Jesus  into when he in fact is saying, “it all matters to me”. Too often, I only realize this only when I royally screw up!

The other reason is an external one. The “water we swim in” is a society that has made sharp divisions between public and private, secular and sacred that confines the expression of our faith to the private parts of life. Have you noticed how some recent public discourse no longer talks about freedom of religion but “freedom of worship?” There is a subtle message in this that says, “you may practice your faith in the privacy of your home, your car, and your church, but don’t let it intrude into any part of public life.”

In the university setting where I work, I sometimes ask graduate students if they ever stop to pray when confronted with a tough research problem or give thanks when they have a breakthrough. Do they pray about a seminar in which they will present, or for students as they grade their papers or prepare for office hours? Sometimes, I’m confronted by a blank stare that says, “I never thought of this before.” I suspect at least part of this is that we are all tempted to “go into secular mode” when we arrive at work.

Rich’s “principles and practices” seemed to me to offer helpful ways to lives as someone for whom everything matters that deal both with my resistance to following Jesus and with the false dichotomy between sacred and secular in our society. He challenged us to the principles of an integrity where the private and public part of our lives are consistent with each other, to be wise in recognizing that Christ does not call us to a life that defies the capacities and competencies he has given us, to allow Christ rather than the cultures of family, workplace, community or even church to shape us, and to rely on the resources of God in scripture, Spirit, and Christian community to live Christ-shaped lives. And he challenged us to the practices of examining our use of our time and claiming it for what matters, to creating routines that sustain us, to being defined in relationship to Christ rather than giving our identities to persons or forces like our jobs to shape us, and to live attentively.

This last one has seemed particularly important to me. Dallas Willard often advised those who sought his advice on living well to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” from their lives. Hurry seems to me to be what keeps me from living attentively to both my insides and my external circumstances and the life Jesus is inviting me into in all of life. When I am hurrying through my life, I stop asking questions like “is this something that really matters to Jesus, something he wants me to do?”, “how does this matter to Jesus?”, “how might I act as someone whose life and character matters to Jesus?”

Reality for followers of Jesus is that our lives and everything we do in our bodies in this life matter deeply to him. It seems that it all comes down to whether we will live in the shadow worlds of secularity and human rebellion or the bright and good reality of Jesus where everything in our lives matters.

This blog is also posted at Going Deeper, a blog reflecting on messages at our church each week.

Alone…And Not Alone

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As a petulant child, I can remember saying “leave me alone!” Yet I might have silently added in my head, “but not too long.” This Sunday, Pastor Rich talked about the Christian alone and how rare it actually is to be alone. Some of this has to do with the myriad distractions in our lives–our work, families, and an ever more ubiquitous technology. The latter is sometimes a paradox as we are connected to the world digitally and more socially cut off than ever.

Alone often seems to equate with loneliness. And yet sometimes I’ve felt most lonely in a crowd of people, and not at all lonely by myself. What is harder though is being alone, and unplugged. For ten seconds, there is the blessed silence of alone–and then the thoughts come. Sometimes it is recalling a task that I need to accomplish and it is relatively easy to add that to a “to do” list and return to silence. Sometimes it can be a fairly constructive process of mentally chewing over a problem or thinking through an upcoming presentation and beginning to experience the gelling of my thoughts.

What can be harder are some of the other kinds of thoughts. At least for me, and this may reveal my own dysfunctionality, the thoughts can be of shortcomings or failings–the “woulda, coulda, shoulda” kind of accusations that remind me that I could be a better person than I am. Or it can be thoughts of the tempting sort as I become aware of hunger and other desires. No wonder it is easy to open up the computer or turn on the radio.

What sometimes seems to help is remembering that I am alone…and not alone. I am not just with my thoughts but with the God who knows my thoughts, and neither runs away in horror or hammers me into oblivion. Instead he invites me to confess them, the word “confess” meaning “to agree with.” Somehow, acknowledging my failings, my frustrations, my desires, my anxieties seems to bring me to a place where i can let go of them into God’s care–kind of like telling your dad about something that was really bugging you as a kid, and then somehow knowing it would be all right. Dad knew.

Sometimes just to get to this point is blessed relief. But sometimes we might experience something more. That is when silence and aloneness leads to stillness. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Sometimes, I believe there is a point in aloneness where no words are needed, where our clamoring thoughts for just a moment are stilled, and we are just being with the God who is “I am”. We are both in wonder in the presence of the Holy One, and basking in the delight of being the beloved of the Father.

And this perhaps is the point where we might “hear” God. It might be a scripture that comes to mind. Perhaps a person comes to mind to call, or pray for, or visit. Sometimes there is nothing but being alone in the Presence, and attentive to whatever may come in the hours ahead. Rich observed that when we’ve been attentive to our thoughts and attentive to God, then we are best prepared to be attentive to others and truly enter into community.

Where do I get alone? Rich’s suggestion that if no where else we might find aloneness in the toilet might be the answer for some. For me, it is getting up in the early morning and sitting in a rocker with my first cup of coffee. Sometimes, it is a long meandering walk. And sometimes, it seems to be working out my thoughts in writing–with the “new mail” sounds muted. Wherever and however it is, somehow aloneness and stillness seems to be health for us and for our communities.

A good friend of ours teaches me much about the wonder of being alone, quiet, waiting. She writes a blog called QuietKeepers. I would commend it to give you a taste of the riches of coming to the place of quiet.

This post was also posted today at our church’s Going Deeper blog.