Reading from Understanding the Bible by John A. Buehrens

         “If we [were to approach Bible stories literally as simply history] we will end up prejudging too many of its stories negatively. Rather, when faced with legends and miracle stories, we would do better to ask, ’what was the purpose of this story? What deeper insight was it intended to convey?’

         After all, human experiences within history demand metaphors that transcend that history in order to interpret what we have experienced. In the biblical tradition, God is, at the very least, the ultimate such metaphor. We may be complete agnostics about God and skeptics about the actual historicity of events like the exodus from Egypt or the resurrection of Jesus. These, too, may partake of metaphor. But to understand the Bible requires that we try to understand, at the very least what it is in human experience that brought forth such transcendent metaphors as creation, liberation, and resurrection.

         In other words, you don’t need to believe in the God of the Bible to understand its stories. You don’t even need to believe that the Bible is consistent in its image of God; it isn’t. Neither are we human beings. At times, the Bible’s images of God seem tragic, oppressive, punitive, cruel, or destructive. So are we. We violate our covenants with one another and with God, who both judges our failings and constantly offers what the Hebrew Bible calls hesed—steadfast, enduring love. Ultimately we finite human beings are forced to try to understand “God” as best we are able—either as the transcendent reality within the history we live or as ultimate metaphor…All it requires is that we recognize that those who created and repeated its sacred stories had only their experience of history and only metaphors available with which to understand their own experience and that of their forebears….

         ….no single metaphor, myth, or human story will ever fully incarnate for everyone the fullness of the Holy. Yet without metaphor, we would have no way or method of even hinting at an ultimate meaning in life, in spite of the realities of suffering and death.” (pp 31 and 178)

Sermon

         My mentor looked at me and said, “How would you characterize your spiritual journey, Ann? What metaphor would you use?” It was clear to her I needed to think on that question so she turned to another student. She was the supervisor in the Houston, Texas hospital where three of us were chaplains-in-training—two Catholic priest candidates and me. “What about you, Eric?” He responded emphatically and without hesitation, “The Cross!” Then she turned to the young Vietnamese priest, “And you, Luc?” With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “The smile of a child.” We all smiled at Luc’s reply for it was so typical of him. Then she turned back to me. “Have you thought of something?”

         “A spiral, ” I said, “like one of those big conch shells,” It was her turn to look puzzled. “Well,” I said, “so far it has been like a journey where there’s a lot of twists and turns and falling back and each time I experience the path differently and with a different perspective.”

         The next day, which was the last of our required 60 days at the hospital, there was this tiny conch-like shell in my mailbox with a goodbye note from her. Perhaps one of you could tell me just what shell it is. I wondered whether she’d given the two Catholic candidates small gifts that illustrated their religious journeys. What did she give to Luc with his “smile of a child” metaphor?

         Metaphors color our thinking and our language. Politicians and marketers know this and seek to influence us through them. When you hear The Evil Empire, do you think of Ronald Regan or Soviet Russia, or both? Or the Axis of Evil? How about Desert Storm? Or Uncle Sam is watching you! All of these carry a slew of meanings for us today. Some of us may exclaim, “Oh, Yes!” and others, “Oh, No!” Here are some other common ones:

         We have lost our way.

         I just wanted to “plant a seed” with you.

         Land of milk and honey.

         Kingdom of God.

         There will be a time when the lion will lie down with the lamb.
          (This is, of course, from the Bible.)

         Metaphors are powerful things; they offer us the opportunity to think creatively and they can also make life bearable for us when life is tough or when we want to understand the Bible but can’t get past all the violence and oppression.

         Unitarianism went through a long period from the late 1950’s through the 1980’s when we just wanted as little to do with the Bible as possible and some of this had to do with the oppression of women. In the 1990’s, we realized that by shunning the Bible, we were just contributing to the cultural illiteracy in society. Biblical ideas and themes permeate our art, music, and literature, if not our thinking in our culture. Now, we talk about Bible literacy!

         On the Late Show, Jay Leno loves to do what he calls Jay Walking, usually in the Hollywood area and he asks people questions about the Bible. The people he approaches usually say that they do know the Bible. He asked one man if he knew from what part of Adam’s anatomy God made Eve. The man pondered and then said a bit uncertainly, “His elbow? ” Then Jay asked a young woman if she knew what biblical character found himself in the belly of a whale. She pondered and said, “Oh, Yes! Yes, I do know! It was Pinocchio!”

         In Unitarian Universalism, there has been a softening towards Judeo-Christian scripture and world scriptures in general. Perhaps it is because our seven principles have become important to us and our fourth principle calls us to a “responsible search for truth and meaning.”

         Perhaps we now think that humankind’s creation of stories of scripture was a way of digging more deeply into our experience of life to discover its meaning. Perhaps we were thinking too literally when we were so horrified at the Cane and Abel story where God favors one brother over the other and Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac on the command of God and in the story of Noah’s Ark when all are drowned except for Noah’s family, and on and on and on. Perhaps the story of Adam and Eve is the one that is the most unbelievable and the one that has done the most harm to womankind. Some of us interpret this story, or allegory, as humankind becoming conscious of their free will. Some might say it is a story, an allegory, of humankind’s separation from God.

         A philosopher called Philo of Alexandria, who lived from 20 BCE to 50 CE, was what we now call a “Hellenized Jew.” This usually meant that a person who was steeped in Greek philosophy and culture but was also a committed Jew. Philo greatly admired Plato and thought that Plato must surely have been influenced by Moses. He tried very hard to reconcile the Jewish scripture with reason. If a passage was unreasonable, he asked himself whether he should discern what the story was trying to teach or that the story was a metaphor for something in the human condition.

         The Reverend John Buehrens recommended in the reading this morning that we will get more out of scripture if we understand the time in which it was written and if we are prepared to interpret it metaphorically. I wondered myself, why my supposed “liberal” seminary at Boston University School of Theology did not suggest that when we have difficulty with a biblical story, we try to understand what the meaning might be behind it. The reason was of course that they wanted us to think that it was the “Word of God.” BU is a Methodist seminary. After a Bible reading in a service, the reader in the United Methodist church will end the reading with something like, “The Word of God.” And the congregation will respond, “Thanks be for the Word of God.” I can see that it would be wonderful to honor Truth, with a capital T in this way, but would we want to say, “Thanks be for the word of God” after a reading that says, “Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sw ord; also the women and the little ones [and utterly destroy them]”? (Judges 21:11)

         If we interpret the Bible or most scripture of the world’s religions literally, they will not be understandable or useful to us. But if we look at scripture metaphorically as stories to bring us to deeper levels of understanding of life or at the very least of an ancient people’s struggle to create an identity as a people and ascribe to life more than just scraping a living, just surviving, we may learn, something about ourselves and human nature.

         What the Hebrews gave us was not only fabulous stories but also a view of a God that had not appeared on the world scene until then. I speak of the God who sent prophets to call people to account when they were unjust and unfaithful to the covenant. Let us take an example from the prophet Amos. He says, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I am a herdsman…and the Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’” (Amos 7:14, NRSV) So Amos left his life as a goat and sheep herder in Judah and went north up to Israel. He went on, “Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land to ruin, saying, ‘When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale…and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals…” (Amos 8:4-6, NRSV) Do we think wealth and corruption and the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer are modern things? Or is there nothing new under the sun? The book of the prophet Amos is about i>injustice..

         The book of Hosea is about unfaithfulness to Yahweh and the covenant. He used the fabulous metaphor of God being a father. He said that God said, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and burning incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, and took them up in my arms…and I bent down to them and fed them.” (Hosea 11:1-4, RSV) But Hosea is more famous for the metaphor of God being a “husband” to the faithless “wife” Israel. Hosea said, “Plead with your mother, plead—for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband—that she put away her harlotry from her face….” (Hosea 2:203, RSV) These prophets stood at the city gates or the temple gates and shouted their messages to the people. Do you think they had an effect on the people? I assure you they did.

         In the centuries after the Reformation, liberal Protestants bade their people be the priesthood and prophethood of all believers and exhorted us to work for social justice as did the prophets of old and also to keep the laws of righteousness. It is a remarkable thing that at a time when kings and tribal chieftains held sway over their people that a particular tribe called Hebrews were encouraged by their God to behave well towards one another and to care for the widows and orphans and the poor. I think Hosea should stand outside the Whitehouse and shout his messages today. Of course, he’d be carted of to jail or a mental institution.

         There is also the long and fabulous story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. Some interpret this story as a metaphor for the compassionate brother and ideal just leader. Passover comes at the end of April; perhaps then we’ll look at the story of Exodus to see what it means for the Jews and for all people.

         In Christian scripture, Jesus uses parabolic metaphors to teach profound lessons. Christian scripture has used Jesus’ death and resurrection as a metaphor for New Birth. We’ll look at this story next week, as we move closer to Easter. No matter what story we look at, we will always measure it against love, for love is the spirit of this church.

References

The following has inspired and informed this sermon:

Buehrens, John A. Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals, Boston: Beacon Press, 2003.

Dictionary of the History of Ideas, from the Internet at the University of Virginia.