Bible Sunday

Isaiah 45.22-25; Romans 15.1-6; Luke 4.16-24

I must confess that this morning's reading from St. Luke's gospel is one of my favourites and for purely personal reasons. It was the gospel passage set for the day on which I preached my first ever sermon. I was absolutely petrified. I remember hardly being able to move my arms so that all I could do was to just push my papers one over the other. Luckily, I'd read the sermon so many times beforehand that I almost knew it off by heart. Maybe I should remember that time rather more because it does emphasise what a very precious thing it is to expound the Word of God to His people. It is a huge responsibility. And that's because, first of all the preacher, in reading the gospel out loud stands in the place of Christ and then it's as Christ Himself that the preacher tries to explain what relevance the gospel has for us in this day and age, 2,000 years after Jesus first spoke the Word of God. It really is a terrible responsibility. And so it's with that in mind that I recall a former tutor telling us that if we can't preach then we shouldn't, that we should do something else instead, maybe get somebody else to do it. Sometimes I think there are probably days when we'd be better off without a sermon, especially when I'm not feeling all that well or when the inspiration has been just about zero. Unfortunately there is no get out clause because the canons of the Church of England say that the Incumbent must 'cause a sermon to be preached at least once on a Sunday in his church', unlike in the church I visited during my study leave where in 8 weeks there was only 2 sermons. On the other weeks, the readings and the rest of the liturgy were left to speak for themselves. But in the Church of England we place Scripture ahead of the other pillars, so to speak, upon which our church is built, the others being tradition, reason and experience. So we bring all of our Christian life to the scriptures for it to be tested there. God, through His written Word is the reference point for all of our Christian life. And that's why it is even more important, maybe, for us to get things right about how we see our Holy Bible and we interpret it and use it in our day to day Christian life.

Even though in the Church of England we give scripture this place above tradition, reason and experience we really must be very careful about how it fits in with everything else in the Church. If we don't do that we can use the Holy Bible to our own ends, we can use it and abuse it very easily. And that is done very much throughout much of the Christian world where individual interpretation is allowed. So when we come to reading and interpreting the Bible we have to remember one or two things.

First of all the New Testament in particular, the gospels, letters and the book of Revelation aren't a systematic history of the life of Jesus, the apostles and the churches. To quote the theologian Archimandrite Vasilieos (Hymn of Entry) 'the Gospel...is not a systematic exposition of Christian teaching, precisely because it is not concerned with teaching. Jesus did not leave behind Him a new philosophical system, not did He institute a mere religion. He left His body and sent His Spirit. And the Gospel consists of fundamental elements from the life of Jesus and the experience of the new community in Christ.' (End quote) With this in mind, I think we often come to the Bible expecting too much of it. We expect to find answers to every problem. And that is one reason why there is so much disagreement in the Church, the Western Church in particular about different issues. The Bible does contain objective Truth because it speaks of Jesus who is 'the Way, the Truth and the Life'. But it won't give you answers to questions on such things as stem cell research or euthanasia, well not so simply anyway. So what do we do then.

In cases such as these it's tempting to go to our own human reason to find the answers to our questions based on what we read in the Bible and we read into it our out of it the answers to our questions, on an individual basis. And our Church allows us very often to make up our own mind. However, we tread on a sort of quicksand there because we are filling the spaces between what we read in the Bible with our own opinions, ideas and beliefs which are all tentative and subjective. So what should we do as far as looking for answers to these questions where the Bible seems to fall short. Is the Bible actually lacking in these circumstances? And what does that mean for us when we have place the Bible in such a commanding position as far as determining our Christian life is concerned?

It's at times like these that we have to remember that the Bible was put together by the Church itself. All the different parts of the New Testament in particular were written by members of the Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and writings put together to form what we call the Canon by the Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So the Bible was written by the Church and put together by the Church. In light of that it is for the Church to be the final interpreter of the Bible, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We can certainly use the Bible for our own individual guidance, illumination, edification, correction etc. but the final arbiter in anything arising from the Bible must be the Church itself.

This can be difficult for us to follow, we who are used to and encouraged to make up our own minds in just about every area of our lives in this day and age. The danger of that is that all truth then becomes relative. What is true for me isn't necessarily true for anybody else but it is nevertheless true, we believe. And that belief characterises our Western world today.

But so many people, in this chaotic and uncertain world today are looking for objective Truth, they are looking for something they know to be the Truth that is eternal Truth, that it is Truth no matter what the day and age and no matter what your gender, race, colour, sexuality etc. etc. We have objective Truth in Jesus Christ. And it's the Bible that in the end speaks of Him. 'You search the scriptures for in them you think you will find eternal life; but they are they that speak of me' Jesus says in St. John's gospel. And the Church is the Body of Christ, the place where the Holy Spirit dwells. If we see the Church as purely a human organisation then we have a very impoverished view of the Church. The Church actually and really is the presence of Christ now, the Body of Christ and it's to that Body we need to go and to go with faith when we need answers in understanding the scriptures, which speak of the Truth which is Christ Himself.

So as we think of the scriptures on this Bible Sunday, let us give the Bible its honoured place in the Church, in our lives and in our Faith always remembering that it is the Bible that points us towards the Lord Jesus Christ in whom our live our lives and who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.