reading the Bible Archives - Deacon Chris Anderson

Now This is Allegory

Galatians 4:22-5:1

In the paper yesterday there was a letter from a woman to an advice columnist about how she has lost her faith in “organized” religion and that whenever she reads the Bible she “just rolls her eyes,” I guess because the Bible seems so preposterous to her.

I think this woman just hasn’t learned how to read yet.

What’s interesting about the reading from Galatians today is that it gives us a glimpse into how the Biblical world itself read the Bible it produced—how Paul did, which is how the average educated person of his time read, and how we should read, too. And that’s allegorically. “Now this is allegory,” Paul says, in his discussion of the Sarah and Hagar in the Book of Genesis: Sarah a symbol of freedom, Hagar a symbol of slavery.

To read allegorically just means to read beyond the obvious and read beyond the surface. It’s too assume that the scriptures are full of rich and interesting images and that these images have something to say about our own lives here and now. It’s not to believe in fantasies. It’s not to believe anything that’s contrary to science—beyond science, yes, far greater than science, but not crazy or superstitious—though I think most people who regard the Bible as contrary to science have a pretty rudimentary understanding of what science is, too.

And this is how the Church teaches us to read Genesis and many parts of the Bible, as rich and complicated and interesting literary texts. Even the gospels. The gospels are a different kind of writing, a kind of writing based on history, but the Church tells us to read the gospels, too, with a sense of their complexity and sophistication–not that Jesus wasn’t an historical figure, not that the things that are described aren’t as real as anything has ever been real, not that they are merely symbolic as opposed to real. Not at all. But we are to read these stories as adults, not as children. We are to read them as great works of literature, not as what we wrongly assume are children’s stories we can easily dismiss as silly or naïve.

And in this way we can come into contact with spiritual realities, not merely physical ones, with great beauties and great truths, with mysteries, historical and more than historical and joyous and grand, mysteries that should make us not roll our eyes but open them in wonder.

To read narrowly, in a way that makes us roll our eyes, is to read like Hagar in Paul’s interpretation, to read as slaves: slaves to false notions of the real, to false notions of reading, to false notions of how language works and how God works. To read with open eyes and open minds is to read like Sarah: with freedom.

This is the Joy of the Gospel. That it’s true. Radically true. Truer than anything has ever been true.

October 11, 2016

Homily

There are All These Levels

Matthew, chapter 13

What’s wonderful about the seven parables in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, and all the parables in scripture, is that they can mean so many different things. They can speak to us in so many different ways. There are all these levels.

If we’re depressed, if our life seems empty and barren and flat, the parables are saying: yes. Sometimes that’s the way life is. Life is a field, a barren field, a fallow field.

But wait. There’s hope, too. There’s a treasure buried in that field. There’s a pearl beyond price.

If we’re upset with the Church, if we’re mad at the Church, if the Church has disappointed us, the parables are saying: yes, of course, what did we expect? The Church, too, is a field. The Church, too, covers things up. It buries things.

But wait. There’s a treasure here, underneath. There’s a pearl.

If we’re disappointed with a child, or a spouse, or a parent, or a friend, or with ourselves, the parables are saying: look deeper. Look beyond the obvious, because the truth is rarely obvious. People are like the sea, they are full of good fish and bad, as the Church is like the sea, full of good fish and bad, and we just have to get over it. We just have to accept that.

If we’re doubtful about God, if the existence of God doesn’t seem obvious, if there doesn’t seem to be any obvious proof, the parables are saying: yes, that’s true. The kingdom of God isn’t like a fleet of giant space ships that comes sailing in over our cities and just floats there above us, for everyone to see. It’s like a pearl. It’s like a seed. It’s small. It’s easy to overlook. A bird on a branch. A certain slant of light. An intuition.

That’s the good news: that God is everywhere and always. The bad news: we can’t pin this down, we can’t make this stick. “I wanted to be as certain about things which I could not see,” Augustine says, “as I was certain that seven plus three equals ten.” But that’s not how it works. It just doesn’t.

If we’re mad at people who disagree with us, at people who vote for the wrong candidate or people who don’t share our particular understanding of the faith, the parables are saying: who are we to judge? It’s the angels who will sort out the fish, not us, it’s God who separates the good from the bad, and that’s not going to happen for a long time. There’s still plenty of opportunity for things to change, in us and in others. In the meantime, we just have to mind our own business.

If our lives are hectic and chaotic and out of control, if we don’t have time to hear ourselves think, if we’ve buried ourselves in commitments and possessions and anxieties, the parables are saying: sell it all, give it all up, and keep what matters most. Simplify.

If we don’t know what matters most, if we can’t figure that out, they say: wait. Be patient. Give it time.

They say: follow your joy. Follow what most gives you life and hope. That’s what the man does when he finds the treasure in the field. He sells everything, and not out of fear, not out of narrow, unthinking conviction. He sells “out of joy,” Matthew tells us. He acts out of joy.

If you feel joy like that, if you feel pulled like that, if you feel this hope—that leaping up of your heart, that surge: trust it. Listen to it. That’s God speaking to you, underneath everything else. That’s God calling you.

All these meanings, all these levels and layers, because these texts today are the field, and these texts today are the pearls, and there is treasure everywhere and there is paradox everywhere and there is meaning and invention and hope.

If we’re lonely and afraid, we have to act,

If we’re lonely and afraid, we have to do nothing.

Act: because the treasure is buried. It’s not handed to us on a silver platter. It’s not spoon-fed to us. It’s not for children but for adults and it’s time we grew up and stopped criticizing God for not meeting our own immediate and childish needs; time we examined who we really imagine God to be, deep down, unconsciously, a sugar-daddy, a granter-of-wishes, or something far richer and deeper and infinitely more believable.

Do nothing: because it’s the angels who will sort it all, in time. It’s God who will make sense of all this, not us. Sooner or later. And we have to surrender to that, give in to that, with humility, which is hard, but also with trust, which is finally freeing. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The challenge is simply to be patient. The challenge is simply to accept the way the world really is, in its subtleties and its mixed-upness, and the way we are, too. The challenge is to believe, is to have hope, and so to let the love beyond all love enter into us and enter into our situation and change us and change others, and to believe that it can, that He can, and to believe that He will, to believe that everything can change, and that it will, and that it always is. That whatever is intractable will be moved. That whatever is unsolvable will be solved. Will be softened. Will be opened. Will be found.

Just not in the way we expected it to be. Just not in the way we wanted it to be. In a better way: far, far easier, far more joyful, far more playful, far more multiple and leveled and layered.

September 27, 2016