What Is the Bible For? a sermon

What is the Bible For?

Rev. Alison Longstaff

Revised for Jan 26, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Psalm 30; John 1: 1-5; True Christianity 235 

I’m guessing that not a few of us have wished in exasperation that the Bible wasn't quite so odd and archaic.  It can be very hard to explain to the unchurched what (if any) value it has, let alone what value there might be in spending precious time reading it.  Especially in this scientific day and age, when the mystical side of life is routinely dismissed and devalued, it can be hard to explain what value lies in the Bible at all. 

What is the Bible for?  We can say it is God’s Word.  We can say it is God’s travel guide for this paradoxical life, but do we really know how and in what way the Bible serves its purpose, more than providing a basis for weekly morality lessons?   In Swedenborgian circles, we believe it has an internal meaning, but does that really change how much time the average person spends reading it?  What, exactly, is the Bible for?

The Bible, the Word of God, the Sacred Scriptures---these are some of the names for this ancient collection of stories which have been cobbled together and edited and re-edited over the centuries.  Even Christians can’t agree what books really belong in the Bible nor into what order they should be sorted.  All Christians will agree that this thing that we call the Bible is sacred.  However, how we hold it as sacred is another problem altogether.  Increasingly, Christians today seem to be going one of two ways with this holy collection of books---either we view the written words as entirely infallibly literally true, or we supposedly “pick and choose”: ignoring the boring, distasteful, and puzzling parts while digging deep into the rich old stories and parables. 

Since this congregation and denomination do not fall into the literalist camp, we tend

toward the second option.
Truth be told, I believe we have found a third way, but more on that another day.  Regardless, whole chunks of the Bible are almost never read by anyone anymore, except by the most devout readers or advanced Biblical scholars.  Many churches follow a lectionary, thinking that through it, they cover the whole Bible over a span of three years.  They do not.  Whole sections are never read, and therefore, never heard.

Looking at some of these ignored sections, it is small wonder! 

Genesis 5: 18-24 And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch: And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

  

Cue the crickets.

But the thing is, this is great stuff!  How do I know?  Well ... experience. 

Okay.  Think of someone you know and love well, someone whose outward appearance isn’t up to Hollywood’s standards, but whose inner character delights you.  Let’s call this person “Chris” since that could be male or female. When you speak of Chris, you might say, “Oh, he’s awesome!” or “I love her.  She’s so great!”  Because of this, a friend meeting Chris for the first time might expect to meet someone with greatness tattooed on his or her forehead.  Instead they might be surprised to find Chris ordinary or even eccentric in appearance and then wonder what you were so excited about.

Or perhaps you yourself, after hearing glowing reports about some great person (we’ll call this person “Pat”) upon meeting might feel mystified by Pat’s unremarkable or even odd outward appearance.  “This is Pat?” you might say inside yourself.  “THE “Pat?” Really?”

The truth is that all of us, until we know the insides of a person, tend to judge by the outsides.  First impressions are rarely the same as last impressions.  But once we do know a person’s insides, we tend to forget the outsides, instead seeing their whole selves through the eyes of love.

So believe me, the same way that we can learn to love a human friend who comes in unusual physical packaging, we can learn to love the Word.  The Sacred Scripture, much of it written over 2000 years ago, does indeed come in strange packaging.  But to love it, we must get past appearances.  We must get to know the magical, life-giving soul within its unusual packaging.  How do we do this?  The same way we do with any new friend. We spend time with it and we learn about it.  So, meet the Bible:

Leviticus 14:34-40  When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession;  And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, “It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house:”  Then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean : and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house: And he shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall; Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days: And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look : and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house; Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city:

Yup. Laws about leprosy in a house. Try preaching a sermon on that!  (Actually, Swedenborgians have all sorts of resources that allow us to preach a fascinating sermon on that.  Hint: it is about healthy and unhealthy structural elements in a person’s belief system, and about how to determine if the crumbling and weakening is evidence of surface problems that can be renovated, or a sign that the whole house---attitude, outlook, interpretation---is unstable and unfit and needs to come down.  Cool, eh?)  

But back to my point, it takes practice and education to learn to see through the strangeness in the Bible.  But I promise you, it is well worth the time it may take!

         

So. Tell the truth. How many of you have a habit of reading the Bible (almost) every day?

How many have ever read the entire thing, cover to cover?

If you are doing or have done either of these, pat yourself on the back.  You have done a good thing, according to Swedenborg.  If you haven’t, don’t worry yourself, you are in good company.  We all have many things we are dealing with, and most of us have not realised just how much good is done for our souls when we spend time with these texts, either through listening to or reading them ourselves.  And not just for our own souls, you see, when anyone reads the Sacred Scriptures, whether they know the internal sense or not, they contribute to the well-being of all of heaven.  I repeat, when anyone reads any part of the Sacred Scriptures, whether they know the internal meaning or not, they contribute to the well-being of all of heaven.

So says Swedenborg, anyway:

I have been allowed to perceive that when I read the Word in its earthly meaning, communication is established with the heavens, at one time with one community, at another time with another. The words which I understand in their earthly meaning are understood by the spiritual angels in their spiritual meaning and by the celestial (highest) angels in their celestial meaning, and this immediately. I have observed and felt this communication thousands of times.  These direct experiences have shown me that the Word in its earthly meaning provides a marvelous way of being closer to the Lord and connected with the angels in heaven. True Christianity §235

It’s as simple as that.  Simply reading the Word connects our spirits with heaven and invites the Lord to come closer.  Memorizing parts or verses can actually give us spiritual touchstones or amulets of comfort which we can pull out of our memories and recite to ourselves in the midst of hard times.  And if we are so lucky as to have time to really learn some of the correspondences in the Word in detail, we can begin to unearth revelations upon revelations of meaning.  It’s really cool!  Light shines even onto the dark and mystical stories

of the Apocalypse, transforming those threatening tales into a love story of tremendous beauty.  Yes, even in the Book of Revelation. For behind those dire prophecies we find the story of the Lord as the Lover and Bridegroom, and each one of us as the beloved or bride.  God woos us, and we respond.  God, like a prince or knight in an ancient fairy tale comes to rescue us, from monsters, beasts, and seven-headed dragons.  The Book of Revelation is the way it is because the process of getting to our happy ending---which is heaven, which is a state of true happiness based on true personal integrity and loving-kindness---can feel pretty dire and hopeless sometimes.  This is shown in the book of Revelation by all the frightening drama and prophecies of doom.  But it is the story of how human life already tends to go, not how it will go at some time in the future.  We are already living through these dramatic events in our personal lives.  This is God’s word of comfort saying, “I see that it will sometimes feel like the sky is falling, but you will be okay.  I know that it will sometimes look like your every hope for the future is going to be devoured by dark circumstances beyond your control, but fear not!  There is no reality or power outside of my love; and all of the drama will be transformed into peace, welcome, safety, and home.  Just hang in there.  Trust

me.”

There is so much more to say!  I am on page five so I need to wrap this up.  So I will close today’s message by saying again: whether we understand correspondences or not, simply reading the Sacred Scriptures for ourselves or listening to someone else read them feeds our souls. It provides a connection with God, and nourishes the angels in heaven.  Even if we are reading a long list of who begat who, or a list of building materials in cubits, or what to do with a stray ox on the Sabbath, every word---every verb, every noun---contains deep spiritual gems that nourish the angels and connect us all with God.  We don’t have to know what vitamins and minerals are in each bite of food for it to be able to nourish our bodies, and Swedenborg is telling us that we don’t have to understand the spiritual sense of the Word for it to be feeding our spirits.

If you aren’t in the habit, consider starting a small practice of tossing a crumb or two to the angels each day.  Each verse is associated with a different society in heaven, so even if you spend time with only one verse, the connection is happening and joy is being communicated. 

In some magical way, the Bible is the very presence of God with us.  It is a lifeline of communication with all the spirits of heaven.  Yet it is cloaked in a mystical, magical packaging of ancient stories, so humble and plain as to appear to the uneducated eye as uninteresting as a common stable.  The stories can be appealing, like the sweet smell of hay, as warm as the collective heat of stable animals, or as off-putting and distasteful as the by-products of those animals.  All the while it is the Word of God and God with us.  How paradoxical.

Come, spend more time in that stable, it is where God is born in you.

I promise you, if you take the time to really get to know this remarkable book, you will find your life transforming and healing in subtle, remarkable ways.

So, what is the Bible for?  Why don’t you tell me in a few months?  I’d like to hear how it goes.

Amen.

Originally preached July 4^th, 2010 at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener, Ontario

Adapted from a paper for Inese Radzins, STHS-3780.SP09, TCR. Written May 21, 2009

The Readings

Psalm 30

1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me. 2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. 3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit. 4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. 5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. 6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, "I shall never be moved." 7 By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. 8 To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication: 9 "What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? 10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!" 11 You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, 12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

John 1:1-5 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

True Christianity §235

I have been allowed to perceive that when I read the Word in its earthly meaning, communication with the heavens is established, at one time with one community there, at another time with another. The words which I understand in their earthly sense are understood by the spiritual angels in their spiritual sense, and by the celestial angels in their celestial sense, and this too upon the instant. Since I have perceived this communication some thousands of times, I have no doubt left concerning it. These direct experiences have enabled me to know that the Word in its earthly meaning provides a Divine means of being connected with the Lord and associated with the angels in heaven. 

Keeping the Sabbath Holy - a sermon

“Keeping the Sabbath Holy In 2014”

Rev. Alison Longstaff

Jan 19, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Exodus 31: 12-18; Mark 2:23-3:4; AC 10730

                                                                                                           

            In 2007, I had the privilege of travelling to the Holy Land with a group from my seminary.  We had a layover in London. It turns out that this next flight was very full, due to delays affecting many other travelers.  We were put on one of those planes with two aisles and nine seats across, which carries over 300 people, to accommodate all the volume. And as this was a flight to Tel-Aviv, many of our fellow passengers were observant Jews.

          

  We all got seated, and we taxied for a long time.  We taxied for so long that when we finally came to a stop, the fellow next to me jerked awake, thinking we had already landed in Tel-Aviv.  No such luck.  Instead, we sat idle in a long line-up of planes waiting for take-off.  This was Heathrow after all.  We were in for a wait. 

            Finally, the captain’s voice came on the speaker, to announce ... that there was a mix-up with the baggage and we had to taxi all the way back to the gate to offload one stray piece of luggage. 

         A groan passed around the cabin, and cell phones popped out as folks called to warn relatives.  Our delay was of particular concern to the many observant Jews aboard.  You see, it was Friday afternoon, and the minutes were ticking away to the official start of their Sabbath, which began at sunset.

             It turned out that if we were delayed much longer, all the observant Jews would have to get off the plane right there at Heathrow, so that they could observe their Sabbath.  They would not ride in a plane, even if someone else was flying it.  They needed to arrive in Tel Aviv well before the start of the Sabbath, as they would be forbidden to walk more than a mile nor to accept a ride to their various destinations once the Sabbath started.  Complicating things further, if they did all deplane in Heathrow, all of their luggage would have to be found and removed due to security laws, before the rest of us could get on our way.  What a nuisance!

The captain was made aware of the dilemma, and he must have pulled some strings.  The stray luggage was removed double-time without our taxiing back to the gate. Our flight was bumped to the head of the line for take-off, and the pilot “stepped on the gas” to get us to Tel-Aviv about a half hour before the start of the Sabbath.  Our fellow passengers scattered.

            I tell you, that was the quietest, emptiest airport I had ever seen.

I was more impressed by this experience than I would have expected.  It was touching to observe these people’s willingness to be massively inconvenienced so as to honour their understanding of God’s laws.  It was something to see how “the whole world” was, in a sense, inconvenienced by this one group’s devotion. 

            I was impressed, not just by the integrity of the devotion of these conservative Jews, but also by the way the airline scrambled to accommodate their need. I also felt deeply grateful to be Swedenborgian, which lets us view the text of the Bible spiritually, not literally, and frees us from such logistical nightmares.

            But it did make me reflect. What does it mean to “keep the Sabbath Holy” when one is a Swedenborgian?  Should we be so strict?  Certainly today’s modern life often makes shift work, homework assignments, long drives, and a host of other obligations and activities  land on Sundays, whether we like it or not.  Should we refuse work shifts, not shop, not run errands, and not drive anywhere on our Sabbath?  Are we observant enough?

In our text from Mark, Jesus was careful to warn us against such literalistic thinking.  Jesus urges us to live by the spirit of the holy texts rather than the literalistic laws. He implies that we must keep the Sabbath Holy in spirit first, then choose how we wish to honour it physically and materially. 

            So, how do we keep the Sabbath in spirit?  Reading in Swedenborg, we find words of beauty, hope and promise, as he describes the true meaning of the Sabbath.  The Sabbath means “rest” and “peace,” because it corresponds to the time when all our spiritual battles will be won.  The Sabbath describes the Lord’s state when He finally united His Human fully with His Divine, which is what we celebrate on Easter morning.  It therefore also represents the time when we will be conjoined with the Lord and heaven in our hearts---when our work of regeneration is finally “done.”

How far away does that feel?  Life on earth is pretty full of struggles, misunderstandings, broken relationships, and widespread injustices.  This state of inner connection with heaven can seem like it is a long way off.  Nevertheless, the Lord does give us periodic glimpses of heavenly peace, in moments of tenderness in relationships, in hearing human stories of hope and redemption, and in witnessing acts of pure creative joy.  Eventually, as we do the work of regeneration, we will experience such states of inner gratitude and hope and joy more fully and more deeply.  And this is one way heaven comes to earth.

            Swedenborg tells us that to the extent that we do the work of regeneration, we will be granted this internal Sabbath rest.  Not only will we experience it, we will become it, for everyone, so far as he or she advances toward heaven is called “a Sabbath to the Lord.”  (Heavenly Secrets # 85)  Imagine being so filled with hope and peacefulness that it spreads to those around us.  I know I have met people like that.  I know I would like to be one of those people some day.

            In contrast to this vision of heavenly peace are the Old Testament warnings against ignoring the Sabbath.  They can be unnerving to read.  “Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people…[and] put to death.” 

          Yikes.  That’s pretty harsh.  Can you imagine if we went around having to kill everyone who did work on Sundays? It would sure solve the overpopulation problem!  And you’d have to kill me, because I definitely work on Sundays.

Despite the external harshness, mercy lies in the internal meaning of these laws.  

            In the internal meaning, keeping the Sabbath “Holy” is describing our need to remember that all good and truth come from the Lord.  “Profaning the Sabbath day” is describing the times when we are lead by our fears and our neediness, not by trust in the Lord.  When we have forgotten that the Lord is in charge, we succumb to the illusion that WE are the source of our wisdom and strength---that we do everything ourselves.  We all think and feel this sometimes.  We can’t help it.  We are born limited and blind.

            To say that someone is “cut off” if he or she profanes the Sabbath isn’t actually describing a punishment; it is a description of what happens.  When we are in a place of forgetting that God is Wise and Good and in charge, then we are in a state of being cut off from

God. We feel alone.  We start struggling to do it all ourselves, usually from fear and emptiness.  We start grabbing for objects or people or accomplishments that we think will fill our needs.  And at those times, we aren’t connected to the reality of God’s love and care.  We have succumbed to the illusion that we can and must fix our emptiness ourselves, through doing more and doing it better, and through getting more things or having the right friends.... So long as we remain trapped in these illusions, we are in a kind of hell.  Believe me, it’s not a great place to visit, and you certainly don’t want to live there.  It is empty and frightening and a place of great struggle.  But falling into that illusion is what we do, and repeatedly falling into that illusion is how we learn about the difference between heaven and hell.    The point isn’t that we

make this mistake, the point is that we are able to return again and again to the Lord, until the peaceful realization that God is in charge becomes permanent.  “Remembering the Sabbath” for you and me today, may mean keeping a firm grip on God’s promise of our regeneration, despite how many times we find ourselves falling into the illusion of our own power and into fear.

            “The Sabbath” is describing a state of constantly remembering God’s loving care.  The Sabbath means being fully good and fully wise, and living from this goodness and wisdom.  The Sabbath is the state we all long for: true peace, true love, and true fulfilment. 

            In our reading in Mark, we heard that “the Jews” were offended when Jesus freed his followers from a literalistic observance of the Sabbath.  Now remember, “Jews” in the story do not mean a specific ethnic group out there.  No.  It is referring to a part of us, a part of you and me that has a certain quality. We are not to judge that part of us, just understand it and be patient with it. In the realm of correspondences the “Jew” is the part of our nature that is deeply earnest and attaches strongly to literalistic interpretations of Scripture.  There is a part of us that wants the observance of the Sabbath to be so concrete. It is so earnest it wants compliance to

be easy and measurable, because then it feels safe.  If God’s holy laws were strictly about measurable physical actions, then we could go to church, and check off “keep the Sabbath,” and feel good. We also would never have to enter the messy realm of examining our feelings and intentions.  We could keep spiritual life external. That’s what the inner “Jew” finds comfortable.  But yet the realm of feelings and intentions is where the true spiritual work lies. 

Of course, if checking off “keep the Sabbath” by sitting in a pew for an hour each week is the best someone can do, then God accepts that.  There is a place for that way of doing “spirituality.”  But that external life of worship is so far from the deep and rich inner spiritual life that God intends for us.  Surely it is better to strive for the peace promised by the true inner Sabbath.

            To keep the Sabbath spiritually we must dare to stray from the safe shores of certainty into the realm of feeling and intention.  The spirit is not an area of such easily cut and dried rules.  We can’t measure if we are keeping the Sabbath “right” when it’s all about our spiritual movement and growth.  Because, in the realm of spirit and heart, it isn’t so much

about being “right” anyway.  Sincerity counts, and humility, intention and compassion count, far more than “rightness.”  It isn’t about being right, it is about being more loving.

            What does keeping the Sabbath look like for you?

            For me, it means to pursue regeneration sincerely.  For me, it means to pursue the Lord’s presence earnestly, and to trust His leading, no matter how remote it can seem sometimes.  It means to trust the process, and keep getting back on the horse no matter how many times I fall off.  I think that keeping the Sabbath Holy means trusting absolutely that no matter how broken you or I may look to ourselves, the Lord promises us wholeness. He promises me.  He promises you.  He promises every one of us.   The minute you or I believe we are too broken to be saved, the illusion has won.  But Hell is never stronger than God.  Never.  I keep the Sabbath Holy when I trust in God’s loving goodness and the promise of regeneration, and I keep trying, no matter what.

            Keeping the Sabbath also involves taking good care of our relationships.  We grow through relationship just as much as through individual work.  We need community, however we find it, despite how attractive the notion of the hermit’s pursuit of spirituality might be.  Much of our spiritual life and work happens in relationship.  Part of the beauty of the Harry Potter series is the message that he could not beat the “dark lord” alone.  He was only able to succeed with the love and support of his friends and the whole community.  This is true for all of us.

            And on the deepest level, remembering the Sabbath means to hold before our eyes the promise of regeneration.  The Lord promises a time of rest for us all—a time when our hearts and our minds will truly be at peace.  This is the true love that we all seek, an internal union of such love and integrity, that we will have no more pain or struggle, and this will be reflected in all our relationships, from our most intimate to our most public.

            This is my charge to you today, whether you make it to church regularly or not, keep the Sabbath Holy in your heart.  If you do this you will be blessed in your work and in your relationships and in your home.  Trust in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and he will give you your heart’s desires.    Amen. (Psalm 37)

Originally preached August 5^th, 2007, Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener

The readings

Exodus 31: 12-18

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.  Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.  For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.  The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant.  It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.' “When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.

Mark 2:23-28 – Mark 3:4

 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.  The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"  He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?  In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."  Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

Mark 3:4 Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. 

Secrets of Heaven, Emanuel Swedenborg # 10730.  The statement: 'And the seventh day shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of rest to Jehovah' is actually referring to the second state in the regeneration or enlightenment process of a person, in other words, when that person is joined to the Lord… In its highest meaning, it is describing the union of the Lord's Human with His Divine.  With humans, first the Lord leads by means of truths or laws, and then the Lord uses those laws to draw the individual into a life of love and integrity, and thus joins the individual to Himself.  ‘The Sabbath' is describing this second state in the regeneration of a person, which is when inner goodness or loving-kindness is now ruling the individual’s decisions and actions, and once they are inwardly ruled by goodness, they are led by the Lord.

[2] Strictly speaking, 'the Sabbath' means rest and peace, because when the Lord united His Human to His Divine He had peace.  Then all the spiritual battles ended, and everything in heaven and hell was restored to order. Therefore, not only did He Himself have peace but it spread to the angels in heaven and the people on earth.  All of creation dwelt in peace and safety. 

[3] It is an all-embracing reality that a person should be joined to the Lord, which is achieved through regeneration.  This alone brings a person inner peace and spiritual security. This is also why among the Israelite nation the Sabbath was the number one illustration of their covenant with Jehovah, that is, of being joined to the Lord….  For a covenant joins together those for whom it is binding.