Day of Prayer and Reflection
Nov. 18, 2003

Lead with song: “Listen” (WOV, 712)

What’s the earliest memory you have of Scripture? Most likely you were listening to the text in relationship – perhaps in the worshipping community, or perhaps on a grandparent’s knee. You were probably not reading yet, and you were probably not alone. It’s not too likely that you were reflecting upon it theologically.

Today we have an opportunity to reflect upon Holy Scripture theologically, but hopefully we will still be listening to God’s word in relationship. Here are the questions that guide my reflections today:

• What is Scripture?
• Who am I in relationship to Scripture?
• How do I listen to Scripture?
• How does Scripture impact my ministry and my preaching?

Now to my answers:

1. What is Scripture?
For me, it is not primarily a science book or a history book or a book of morality. The Bible is a collection of sacred writings of the Hebrew and Christian community. According to our ELCA Constitution, it is the inspired word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith and life. It is a living Word, a life-giving Word, a life-changing Word. It is that which bears Christ, or reveals God to me and to the community. What is its authority, its claim on me? It is the authority of relationship and revelation, the claim of loving and being loved, of knowing and being known.

2. Who am I in relationship to Scripture?
As a reader of Scripture, I am always female, white and middle class. I’m Midwestern by upbringing, Christian by infant baptism, Lutheran by choice, a public Christian by internal and external call and theological training. So I confess my bias before the text. I recognize that I hear the text as a woman, a divorced person, a single parent, a daughter of God, a mother, a theologian. I do not hear it as a 67-year-old white, middle-class male, or a 15-year-old African-American woman. The text speaks to me as I am, and yet, as I respond, I am changed. I am in relationship with God’s living word.

3. How do I listen to Scripture?
One of the principles I seek to follow in interpreting Scripture is the “not/but” principle. I am careful to ask: “What does this passage NOT mean?” So to apply that principle in forming my hermeneutic …

A. I do not listen to Scripture with a literal interpretation. (After all, I am a woman in the pulpit because I don’t interpret the Bible literally.)

B. I do not listen to Scripture as a private shortcut to know God’s will in my life, or a horoscope. There’s a story of the man who sought God’s will by opening up his Bible and randomly pointing to a verse. One day, on his first try, his finger landed at Matthew 27:5: “And Judas went out and hanged himself.” He thought, “Certainly that’s not what God wants for me.” So he tried again and came to Luke 10:37: “Go thou and do likewise.” “Well,” he thought, “that can’t be right.” He tried a third time and found John 13:27, “What thou doest, do quickly.” For me, Scripture is not a private shortcut to understanding God’s will.

C. I do not listen to Bible passages in isolation but seek to hear the Word of God through the whole witness of Scripture.

D. I do not listen to Scripture by myself. I subscribe to the principle of “sola Scripture,” but the “sola” does not mean “only me.” For me, it is important to hear Scripture orally at the beginning of my study, preferably through someone else’s voice. Then I enter into conversations with partners – Scripture, tradition, reason, experience, community.

These are some of my partners:

1. Text (with attention to the whole witness of Scripture)

2. Scripture interpreting Scripture. Talmud … Jesus = “You have heard it said”

3. Study, colleagues, study, critical methods

4. Tradition – Lutheran hermeneutics = justification by grace through faith

Then I ask questions:

How does this text touch my life? What is God speaking to me now through it?

How does it touch another? (I’ll ask someone to tell me what they hear.)

How is this Word of God heard by _________? Youth, aged, black/white/Hispanic, life-long Lutheran, seeker. I explore this question via imagination, reading and dialogue.

How does it touch my faith community in its particular current circumstances?

4. How does the Bible, its claim upon me, my relationship with it and the way I listen to it impact my preaching and my ministry?

• Preaching: As I prepare to preach, the Bible (etc.) invites me to:
• Confess my (female, white, middle class, etc.) bias before the text.
• Explore how the text is heard by others with different biases.
• Think of particular individuals in the faith community and how they might hear the text and what I say about the text. How can I proclaim the gospel in a way that they may hear it?
• Seek to study with colleagues with diverse backgrounds.
• Recognize my relationship with God, Scripture and the congregation.
• Ponder diverse metaphors and illustrations to best convey the Word to many listeners.

Ministry: In my diverse congregation in an even more diverse parish, Scripture offers these principles:

1. We are justified by grace through faith. We enter the community of faith not by virtue of education or marital status or income level, but by God’s invitation and through baptism. All are therefore welcomed in the community of faith, regardless of human condition. This welcome is extended by God, not by human gatekeepers.

2. As members of the Body of Christ made so by baptism, we as congregation and pastor stand together under and hold each other accountable to the Word of God. This dictates a model of community which embraces mutuality and a style of authority which honors the gifts of each member of the body.

3. In spite of current evidence to the contrary, we look to a future in which all will be made well. This future vision is one into which God invites all of humanity, in which there is no more grief or mourning or pain or lack. This future impacts the present with hope, no matter how hopeless it may seem now.

4. We are equipped and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do whatever God calls us to do as God’s people. As God creates new opportunities for ministry, God provides resources to accomplish it.